Should children be sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole?

That's the additional question addressed in an amended brief entered by the Indiana Court of Appeals Jan. 18 by murderer Andrew Conley's appeals attorney Leanna Weissmann, Aurora.

To three already-argued issues, the amended brief adds this fourth issue: Does imposition of a life-without-parole sentence on a 17-year-old boy convicted of homicide violate the United States or Indiana constitutions?

The brief refers to two cases now under consideration by the United States Supreme Court, but arguments in those cases won't take place until February, according to that court.

In those two cases, Evan Miller v. Alabama, and Kuntrell Jackson v. Hobbs, the court has been asked to decide if sentencing a 14-year-old child convicted of homicide to life without parole violates the Eighth and Fourteenth amendments' prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.

“Indiana is going to do their own thing regardless of what the Supreme Court decides,” said Weissman Friday, Jan. 20.