Commonwealth v. Brown

This case is before us on a reservation and report from a single justice. We must determine the effect of the United States Supreme Court’s recent decision in Miller v. Alabama, 132 S. Ct. 2455 (2012), on the sentencing of juvenile defendants1 convicted of murder in the first degree under G. L. c. 265, § l.2 In Miller, the Supreme Court held that the mandatory imposition of sentences of life without parole on homicide offenders who were juveniles at the time of their crimes violates the bar against cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution.…