Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge plans to appeal a June ruling from the Arkansas Supreme Court that said an inmate sentenced to life without parole for a killing he committed as a juvenile should be resentenced.
A spokesman for Rutledge says she will file a writ in early December requesting that the U.S. Supreme Court weigh in on whether mandatory life sentences for all prisoners convicted of crimes they committed as juveniles should be thrown out.
Arkansas' court voided the life sentence for Ulonzo Gordon, saying a 2012 U.S. Supreme Court decision barring mandatory life sentences for juveniles should apply retroactively.
The nation's high court debated jurisdictional issues last month in a similar case in which Louisiana's court decided not to retroactively apply the 2012 ruling.
