The sentence outlived any ordinary notion of time, turning a teenager into a symbol instead of a person.
Continue Reading »In the weeks that followed, law professors dissected the case, pointing to Supreme Court rulings on juvenile punishment and the science of adolescent brains.
Advocates argued that if youth can be a mitigating factor at trial, it should also matter in the length of a sentence.
Yet for the victims and their families, the number felt like the only measure that matched the horror they endured,
a guarantee that he would never again walk free.
As petitions circulated and appeals were drafted, one question refused to fade:
can a society demand accountability without abandoning the possibility of redemption?
The answer, still unsettled, lingers in every courtroom where a young defendant stands,
waiting to learn whether their worst act will become their permanent name.
