In Michigan alone, there are 150 prisoners, ages 17 to 73, doing life without parole for crimes they committed when they were 16 or younger. The ACLU of Michigan has announced a project to examine the cases of these inmates and those similarly situated in Illinois, California, Florida and, perhaps, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Forty-one states allow juvenile offenders to be sentenced to life in prison without parole. Michigan is one of 13 states that has no minimum age for such sentences, although the youngest such prisoner in Michigan was 14 at the time of the murder.....The study will be funded by a $100,000 grant from the New York City-based JEHT Foundation, the ACLU said. The foundation's name comes from its core goals of justice, equality, human dignity and tolerance, according to its Web site.

The report should be finished by the end of the year.