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In July 2003, Evan Miller along with Colby Smith, killed Cole Cannon by beating Cannon with a baseball bat and burning Cannon’s trailer while Cannon was inside. Miller was 14 years old at the time. In 2004, Miller was transferred from the Lawrence County Juvenile Court to Lawrence County Circuit Court to be tried as an adult on a charge of capital murder during the course of an arson. In 2006 Miller was indicted by a grand jury. At trial, the jury returned a verdict of guilty on the charge of capital murder during the course of first degree arson. The trial court sentenced Miller to a mandatory term of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

Miller filed a post trial motion for a new trial, arguing that sentencing a 14-year-old to life without the possibility of parole constituted cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment. The trial court denied the motion. On appeal, the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the lower court’s decision. The Supreme Court of Alabama denied Miller’s petition for writ of certiorari. Miller then appealed to the Supreme Court.

Does the imposition of a life-without-parole sentence on a fourteen-year-old child violate the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments’ prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment?