An age cutoff at 18 is arbitrary and obviously failing. The choice should not between life without parole for teenagers and releasing them at age 18 to prey upon future victims.

Why not a three-tier system for criminals: the traditional juvenile one for non-violent offenders, the traditional adult one for adults, and a third system, perhaps a federal one that could be an option chosen by teenagers in all the states, for violent teenagers and even young adults up to age 22 or so. In return for entering this young-adult system, the violent teens would have to agree to make their permanent sentencing dependent on psychological evaluations as to their future criminality. They could be transferred to adult prison after age 22 to serve out the rest of their sentences if they did not meet rehabilitation criteria.

What rehab would you expect to find in prison? Most taxpayers do not want to fund prisons, muchless rehab programs, and shrinks and social workers in prisons. Prisons are a symptom of what we are not doing in society and choose to knee-jerk react to after the court pronoonces sentence

Thinking outside the box is useful, but is it really this black/white:

The choice should not between life without parole for teenagers and releasing them at age 18

No, that would be silly -- you would kill at seventeen and get out at eighteen. These are not the options raised by this case.

But, realistically "psychological evaluations as to their future criminality" leave a lot to be desired. And, for the thirteen year old criminal at issue here, I'm unsure if letting him out at 22 would have been a horrible thing. People have committed murder and have been let out in under nine years.

-j