When do individuals reach adulthood? Who gets a life sentence without the possibility of parole may depend on the response.

When Christopher Hicks was nineteen, he shared a trailer in Gillette with other teenagers and a charming forty-year-old man who was in court for allegedly sexually abusing his sixteen-year-old stepson. Before moving to Gillette, Hicks had been expelled from his parents’ Arizona house; that trailer served as his final residence before he was sent to prison.

According to reports from the Gillette News Record, the elder man coerced Hicks and an 18-year-old into killing two individuals in 2005 who would probably testify against him in a forthcoming sexual assault prosecution. Court documents state that after a marijuana deal went awry, the older guy informed the adolescents they “owed him favors.”

Hicks was found guilty of two charges of aiding and abetting and one count of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder after he helped choke a young man until he passed out but did not kill himself and helped open a door to the home of another victim. Every conviction included a minimum obligatory sentence of life in prison without the possibility of release.

Hicks would have been spared a life sentence if he had been a little younger and considered a minor by the law.

In part, this expanding body of neuroscience research questioning why people’ brains don’t fully mature until their mid-20s, marking the age at which adolescence ends and adulthood begins, is what spurred a fresh bid in Campbell County’s 6th Judicial District Court to grant Hicks temporary release.

The filing also cites neurobiology’s conclusion that people between the ages of 18 and 21 are more like teens than older adults, which is consistent with most Miller arguments made around the nation. On the other side, the filing contends that once the brain finishes maturing, there is a greater capacity for recovery and growth. This implies that they are more prone to make incorrect selections when experiencing emotional discomfort.