LANSING, MI (MPRN)-- A federal judge says the Michigan Department of Corrections cannot deny good conduct credits to former juvenile lifers who are now entitled to parole hearings.
The decision revokes part of a state law adopted to comply with a 2012 U-S Supreme Court decision. That decision said automatic life without parole sentences for juveniles are unconstitutional.
Deborah LaBelle is an attorney with the ACLU. She says the state is making it too hard for this group of Michigan inmates to win their freedom.
“I think there has been a resistance from the very beginning to the Supreme Court decisions,” she says.
It’s now up to Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette to decide whether to file a challenge with the Sixth Circuit US Court of Appeals.