John Adams and the Law of Nations: A Fourth of July Blog

On this July 4, it’s appropriate to note that founder John Adams’ influence persists today, and supports U.S. examination of comparative and international law.

In late 2013, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decided Diatchenko v. District Attorney.  The issue in the case was whether the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Miller v. Alabama, 132 S. Ct. 2455, 183 L. Ed. 2d 407 (2012), was retroactive.  In Miller, the Court held that imposition of a mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole on individuals who were under the age of eighteen at the time they committed murder is contrary to the prohibition on “cruel and unusual punishments” in the federal Constitution’s Eighth Amendment. 

Determining that the Miller ruling was substantive, the Massachusetts court accorded retroactive effect to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Miller.  And in footnote 16 of its retroactivity decision, the Massachusetts SJC put the Diatchenko opinion in an international and historic context:

“In concluding that the imposition of a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole on juveniles under the age of eighteen violates the constitutional prohibition against “cruel or unusual punishment[]” in art. 26, we join a world community that has broadly condemned such punishment for juveniles. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, “ratified by every nation except the United States and Somalia, prohibits the imposition of life imprisonment without the possibility of release . . . for offences committed by persons below eighteen years of age” (quotations omitted). Graham v. Florida, 560 U.S. at 81, quoting United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, art. 37 (a), Nov. 20, 1989, 1577 U.N.T.S. 3. As John Adams recognized over 215 years ago, we belong to an international community that tinkers toward a more perfect government by learning from the successes and failures of our own structures and those of other nations. See J. Adams, Preface, A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America (1797).”

Happy Fourth!