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On November 18, 1999, Kuntrell Jackson was fourteen. On that date, Jackson, Derrick Shields, and Travis Booker planned to rob the Movie Magic video store. Shields carried a sawed-off .410 gauge shotgun in his coat sleeve. When Jackson, Shields, and Booker arrived at the store, Shields shot Laurie Troup, a video clerk, after Troup told him that there was no money. The three boys fled after the shooting.

On March 7, 2000, police arrested Jackson in connection with the murder at the store. While being questioned Jackson made a written statement that implicated Shields for the shooting. Jackson was tried as an adult, and the trial court convicted him of capital murder and sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Jackson appealed, and the Supreme Court of Arkansas affirmed.

On January 8, 2008, Jackson filed a petition seeking a writ of habeas corpus in the Jefferson County Circuit Court, on the theory that the imposition of a life sentence without the possibility of parole was cruel and unusual when applied to a fourteen-year-old. The State moved to dismiss the petition, and the circuit court granted the State’s motion. Jackson appealed to the Supreme Court of Arkansas, which affirmed the lower court’s decision. Jackson appealed the Supreme Court of Arkansas decision.

Is the imposition of a life-without-parole sentence on a fourteen-year-old child convicted of homicide a violation of the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments when the child did not personally engage in any physical violence toward the victim and when the sentence resulted from a mandatory sentencing scheme?