The Forensic Panel, United States.
Iowa State University, United States.
J Forensic Leg Med. 2022 Aug;90:102375. doi: 10.1016/j.jflm.2022.102375. Epub 2022 Jun 3.
In the wake of Supreme Court decisions Miller v. Alabama (2012), Montgomery v. Louisiana (2016), and Jones v. Mississippi (2020) that collectively abolished mandatory life sentencing for juveniles, individualized assessment of juvenile homicide offenders is paramount. Yet few actuarial tools exist to inform risk assessment. The Depravity Standard, a 25-item inventory designed to operationalize the heinous, cruel, and depraved features of the offense and its offender that bear on aggravating circumstances, is a notable exception. The current case study applies the Depravity Standard to the codefendants in the seminal Miller case, Evan Miller and Colby Smith, and reveals significant differential evidence of depravity in their intent and conduct within the same criminal episode. The Depravity Standard is a valid and reliable way to quantitatively and qualitatively substantiate evidence of aggravation (Miller) and mitigation (Smith) among adolescents who perpetrate homicide offenses even within the context of the same event. The case study demonstrates a methodology to inform individualized assessment that is required by the courts in Miller resentencing cases.
在最高法院的一系列裁决——米勒诉亚拉巴马州案（2012 年）、蒙哥马利诉路易斯安那州案（2016 年）和琼斯诉密西西比州案（2020 年）——共同废除了对青少年的强制性终身监禁后，对青少年杀人罪犯进行个体化评估至关重要。然而，几乎没有精算工具可以用于风险评估。《堕落标准》是一个 25 项清单，旨在将犯罪及其罪犯的令人发指、残忍和堕落的特征具体化，这些特征与加重情节有关，是一个显著的例外。本案例研究将《堕落标准》应用于具有开创性的米勒案的共同被告埃文·米勒和科尔比·史密斯，揭示了他们在同一犯罪事件中意图和行为上存在明显的堕落差异证据。《堕落标准》是一种有效和可靠的方法，可以定量和定性地证实青少年实施杀人犯罪时的加重（米勒）和减轻（史密斯）证据，即使是在同一事件的背景下。该案例研究展示了一种为米勒量刑重审案件中的法院所要求的个体化评估提供信息的方法。
