Proposal Could Change Sentences For Teenage Killers

Benjamin Peirce, a 19-year-old Newton man, recently pleaded guilty to manslaughter and firearms charges and was sentenced to state prison for a crime he committed when he was 17.

Most juveniles convicted of first-degree murder would no longer automatically be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole under a bill Gov. Deval Patrick filed Monday.   Under the proposal, some offenders would be eligible for parole hearings 15 years into their sentence, according to a report Sunday in the Boston Globe. Others who participated in murders but did not perform the actual murder could get hearings sooner. Parole boards, however, would still be able to keep the offender behind bars for life. The proposal comes in response to a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling (Miller vs. Alabama) in which the court decided that the mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole is unconstitutional for defendants under…

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