Thrasher v. State
Decision Date | 12 April 2019 |
Docket Number | CR-17-0393 |
Citation | 295 So.3d 118 |
Parties | Christopher Michael THRASHER v. STATE of Alabama |
Court | Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals |
Alabama Supreme Court 1180810
J.D. Lloyd and Robert Matthews, Birmingham, for appellant.
Steve Marshall, atty. gen., and Jack W. Willis, asst. atty. gen., for appellee.
Christopher Michael Thrasher appeals a judgment of the Jefferson Circuit Court resentencing him to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for his 1993 capital-murder conviction.
In October 1993, Thrasher was convicted of murder made capital pursuant to § 13A-5-40(a)(10), Ala. Code 1975, for the intentional killing of Allen Eakes and Kevin Duncan when Thrasher was 16 years old. Thrasher summarizes the facts giving rise to his conviction as follows:
Thrasher's brief, at 1-4 ( ).
At the time of Thrasher's conviction, § 13A-6-2(c), Ala. Code 1975, authorized only two possible sentences for a capital-murder conviction –- death or life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.1 After Thrasher waived his right to the participation of the jury in the sentencing hearing, see § 13A-5-44(c), Ala. Code 1975, the trial court sentenced Thrasher to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. This Court affirmed Thrasher's conviction and sentence on direct appeal. See Thrasher v. State, 668 So.2d 949 (Ala. Crim. App. 1995) (table), cert. denied Ex parte Thrasher, 667 So.2d 750 (Ala. 1995) (table).
On June 4, 2013, Thrasher filed a Rule 32, Ala. R. Crim. P., petition for postconviction relief in which he argued that his sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole is unconstitutional under Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460, 132 S.Ct. 2455, 183 L.Ed.2d 407 (2012), which prohibits a sentencing scheme that "mandates life in prison without possibility of parole for juvenile offenders." Id. at 479, 132 S.Ct. 2455. Although the State initially moved to dismiss Thrasher's petition, the State and Thrasher subsequently filed a joint motion to stay the Rule 32 proceedings pending the United States Supreme Court's decision in Montgomery v. Louisiana, 577 U.S. ––––, 136 S.Ct. 718, 193 L.Ed.2d 599 (2016), in which the Court granted certiorari to address whether Miller applies retroactively to cases on collateral review. On January 25, 2016, the United States Supreme Court issued its decision in Montgomery, holding that Miller "announced a substantive rule that is retroactive in cases on collateral review." Montgomery, 577 U.S. at ––––, 136 S.Ct. at 732. Thereafter, the State and Thrasher filed a joint motion in which the State conceded that, in light of Montgomery, Thrasher was entitled to a sentencing hearing in accord with Miller. Thus, on March 9, 2016, the trial court entered an order granting Thrasher's Rule 32 petition and scheduling a resentencing hearing.
(C. 219.) Given his discovery of the memorandum, Thrasher argued that he required a continuance of the resentencing hearing "so that the facts of the [memorandum] may be investigated further and, if necessary, a new trial sought." (C. 213.)
(R. 10.) Thus, the trial court denied Thrasher's motion to continue and proceeded with the resentencing hearing.
During the resentencing hearing, the State did not present any witnesses in its case-in-chief, but relied instead on "the complete transcript, all...
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