The US Supreme Court has struck down the juvenile death penalty, embracing a constitutional challenge that the nation's evolving standards of decency have rendered the practice cruel and unusual.

In a landmark decision announced Tuesday, the justices ruled 5 to 4 that state laws authorizing capital punishment for 16- and 17-year-olds who commit murder violate the Eighth Amendment and are henceforth unconstitutional. The action reverses the death sentences of 72 convicted murderers who committed their crimes as juveniles.

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