State v. J. Knowles

Summary

The Court reversed the denial of Knowles's sentence-reduction motion because the District Court and Department of Corrections failed for more than four years to provide the mandatory Criminally Convicted Youth Act procedures and rehabilitative benefits before conducting the sentence review. The Court held that reimposing the full adult sentence under those circumstances was an abuse of discretion and remanded for application of the Act before any renewed review hearing. The Court did not reach Knowles's substantive due process challenge to the Department's programming waitlist policy.