State v. Kelliher

Summary

The court held that a juvenile homicide offender found neither incorrigible nor irredeemable cannot constitutionally receive life without parole, including through consecutive sentences that operate as its functional equivalent. It further held that fifty years before parole eligibility is de facto life without parole under both the federal Constitution and North Carolina's broader cruel-or-unusual-punishment provision, with the state constitution establishing a forty-year threshold. The court modified and affirmed the Court of Appeals decision and remanded for entry of concurrent life-with-parole sentences.