PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE: In 2006, when Qu’eed Batts was just 14, he killed one man and injured another in an act of violence that was meant to boost his status in a local gang, he told police, a crime for which he is now serving a mandatory life sentence.
Seven years prior, Ian Cunningham, then 17, killed a man during a robbery in Philadelphia. Convicted of second-degree murder and robbery, he, too, is serving a mandatory life sentence.
But in June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Miller v. Alabama mandatory life sentences for juveniles to be unconstitutional, opening the door for both men to appeal their sentences. Pennsylvania, which leads the nation in the number of juvenile offenders incarcerated for life with about 470, saw a flood of similar appeals, including more than 40 in Allegheny County alone… (more)
