UK high court denies review for juvenile murderers sentenced as adults

Britain's Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected Jesse Quaye's bid for a mid-sentence review of his life sentence for the 2014 murder of Connor Barrett, ruling that because Quaye had turned 18 by the time he was sentenced, a 2022 law barred him from the review available to juveniles.

Quaye and Ayomindy Bile, both armed with knives, attacked a partygoer at a 21st birthday celebration in Norfolk; when Barrett intervened, the pair surrounded and stabbed him four times. Bile, who was 15 at sentencing, remains entitled to the review; Quaye, now 29, does not.

The five-justice panel found the age-at-sentencing line 'the rational approach,' reasoning that adults don't undergo the same accelerated development as children and so the review's purpose doesn't apply to them. Quaye's lawyers had argued the cutoff was arbitrary and amounted to age discrimination under European human rights law; the court disagreed.

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