State of Iowa v. Jeffrey K. Ragland

CADY, Chief Justice.

In this appeal, we must decide if the district court erred in resentencing a defendant who was convicted as a juvenile of first-degree murder and mandatorily sentenced to life without parole after he claimed his sentence violated the constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment and after the Governor of Iowa commuted the sentence to sixty *110years without parole. We conclude the district court properly resentenced the defendant. We affirm, the sentence imposed by the district court.

I. Background Facts and Proceedings.

Jeffrey Ragland was seventeen years old…