Whether juveniles may be sentenced to life without parole under a system that did not afford the sentencing court discretion to choose any lesser option, even where the sentencer did not impose the harshest option and even where the sentencer did not mistakenly believe parole was available

QUESTION PRESENTED States may not “make life without parole the mandatory (or mandatory minimum) punishment” for juveniles. Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460, 482 n.9 (2012). Juvenile homicide offenders may be sentenced to life without parole, but “only if” the sentencer “has discretion to impose a lesser punishment.” Jones v. Mississippi, 593 U.S. 98, 100 (2021) (emphasis added). Arizona abolished parole in 1994. Thus, during the relevant period, the mandatory minimum penalty for juveniles convicted of first-degree murder was life without parole. In the decisions below, the Arizona Court of Appeals nevertheless held that it was bound by the Arizona Supreme Court’s earlier decision in State ex rel. Mitchell v. Cooper, 535 P.3d 3, 11-18 (Ariz. 2023) (“Bassett”), which held that “a choice” between “sentencing options’—even where no option included parole and the maximum penalty was death— satisfied this Court’s precedents. Over three dissents, this Court denied certiorari in Bassett after the State of Arizona urged the Court to deny review. The State did not defend the Arizona Supreme Court’s reasoning in Bassett but argued that review was unwarranted because, first, the defendant there faced two sentencing options and the sentencer chose the “harshest option,” and, second, the sentencer in Bassett “mistakenly” believed that parole was available. The question presented in this case is: Whether juveniles may be sentenced to life without parole under a system that did not afford the sentencing court discretion to choose any lesser option, even where the sentencer did not impose the harshest option and even where the sentencer did not mistakenly believe parole was available. (i)