The attorney for two Arkansas prison inmates who were sentenced to life without parole as juveniles told the state Supreme Court that both should be resentenced based on a U.S. Supreme Court ruling.
Jeff Rosenzweig argued Thursday to the state court meeting in Mountain Home that the U.S. Supreme Court ruling should be applied retroactively and Aaron Hodge and James Grubbs should each receive new sentencing hearings.
Assistant state Attorney General Valerie Glover Fortner countered that some previous U.S. Supreme Court rulings weren't applied retroactively and that "inequality exists in the law."
Both Hodge and Grubbs were 17 when convicted in the 1990s on separate murder charges. The U.S. Supreme Court in a separate Arkansas case ordered resentencing for a man sentenced to life in prison as a juvenile.
