Cotto v. State
| Decision Date | 21 July 2014 |
| Docket Number | 4D13–1632.,Nos. 4D13–1131,s. 4D13–1131 |
| Citation | 141 So.3d 615 |
| Parties | Joseph COTTO, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee. Travis James, Appellant, v. State of Florida, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Carey Haughwout, Public Defender, and Paul E. Petillo, Assistant Public Defender, West Palm Beach, for appellants.
Pamela Jo Bondi, Attorney General, Tallahassee, and Richard Valuntas and James Carney, Assistant Attorney General, West Palm Beach, for appellee.
In these cases, which we have consolidated for panel and opinion purposes, the defendants, Travis James and Joseph Cotto, appeal trial court orders denying their motions for postconviction relief.
In 1999, James was convicted after jury trial of first degree murder and attempted robbery with a firearm. He was sixteen years old at the time of the offenses on May 14, 1997. Our records from the direct appeal reveal that James confessed to police that he shot at the victim as he ran away following an attempted robbery. James told police that he was aiming for the victim's legs, but the victim fell as he fired two shots in his direction. The trial court sentenced him to the mandatory sentence of life without possibility of parole for the murder and a concurrent term of thirty years in prison with a 25–year mandatory minimum for the attempted armed robbery.
This court affirmed the convictions and sentences on direct appeal in 2003. James v. State, 843 So.2d 933, 935 (Fla. 4th DCA), rev. denied,855 So.2d 621 (Fla.2003). In 2004, a motion to correct sentence was granted, and the sentence for the attempted armed robbery was vacated. He was resentenced to fifteen years in prison concurrent with count one.
In February 2013, James filed the motion for postconviction relief at issue in this appeal. He claims that his mandatory sentence of life without possibility of parole for the murder committed when he was sixteen years old is unconstitutional pursuant to Miller v. Alabama, ––– U.S. ––––, 132 S.Ct. 2455, 183 L.Ed.2d 407 (2012). The trial court denied the motion as untimely and cited Geter v. State, 115 So.3d 375 (Fla. 3d DCA 2012), and Gonzalez v. State, 101 So.3d 886 (Fla. 1st DCA 2012), which hold that Miller does not apply retroactively to cases that were final on direct review at the time Miller was decided. The trial court also noted that the motion was not under oath.
On April 27, 1999, just weeks before his 18th birthday, Joseph Cotto broke into the home of the two elderly victims while they were sleeping. He armed himself with a knife and brutally murdered them. After he was captured, Cotto confessed and told police that he killed the victims because “he wanted to.” He admitted taking various actions designed to delay detection of decomposition.
In March 2003, Cotto entered a negotiated plea with the state which agreed to waive the death penalty. The court sentenced Cotto to two consecutive life sentences for first-degree murder in counts one and two. The court also imposed a concurrent sentence of life in prison for armed burglary in count three 1 and five years in prison for grand theft of a motor vehicle. He did not appeal.
In February 2013, he filed a rule 3.800(a) motion to correct illegal sentence claiming that his life sentences for the murder convictions were unconstitutional under Miller because he was seventeen years old at the time of the offenses. The trial court denied the motion based on the state's response which argued that the motion was not under oath, as required by rule 3.850, and did not comply with content requirements. The state also asserted that the Office of the Public Defender had not been appointed to file a postconviction motion in the case. Finally, the state asserted that, if the claim could be heard, it was without merit because Miller does not apply retroactively. The state argued that Geter and Gonzalez were binding on the circuit court.
If the trial courts had denied the motions based solely on the lack of an oath, or some other pleading deficiency, we would remand for the court to provide an opportunity to amend in order to cure this deficiency. See Spera v. State, 971 So.2d 754, 761 (Fla.2007). However, the trial court in both cases ruled upon the retroactivity question, and the question is properly before us.
We agree with the Second District Court of Appeal's analysis in Toye v. State, 133 So.3d 540, 547 (Fla. 2d DCA 2014), and hold that Miller applies retroactively. We certify that this decision conflicts with the decisions in Geter and Gonzalez.2
Because the Florida Supreme Court is presently considering the issue in Falcon v. State, 111 So.3d 973 (Fla. 1st DCA), rev. granted,No. SC13–865, 2013 WL 6978507 (Fla. June 3, 2013), we stay issuance of our mandate in this case. We have a number of cases pending in this court where this issue has been raised, and we will stay these cases by order pending a resolution in Falcon.
To further the discussion, we write to express additional reasons why Miller 's holding should be given retroactive effect.
The decision in Miller addressed two cases involving two differently situated juvenile offenders. Evan Miller's case came to the Court following affirmance by the state court on direct appeal. Miller, 132 S.Ct. at 2463. Kuntrell Jackson, on the other hand, had been convicted in 1999, and his conviction was affirmed on direct appeal in 2004. Jackson v. State, 359 Ark. 87, 194 S.W.3d 757 (2004). He did not petition for postconviction relief. In January 2008, he filed a petition seeking a writ of habeas corpus from a state circuit court. Jackson v. Norris, 2011 Ark. 49, 378 S.W.3d 103, 104 (2011). The circuit court dismissed, and the Supreme Court of Arkansas affirmed. Id.
The Supreme Court of the United States granted certiorari as to Kuntrell Jackson's case and reversed and remanded for further proceedings. Miller, 132 S.Ct. at 2461–63. The Supreme Court has already given its decision retroactive effect by granting relief to Kuntrell Jackson whose conviction and sentence had already become final on direct review.
Were we to deny the appellants in this case the same relief, presumably they could pursue their cases through the courts, and the Supreme Court would, pursuant to the doctrine of stare decisis, afford appellant equal protection as Kuntrell Jackson. Thus, we are bound to give Miller 's holding retroactive effect.
In Miller, the Court applied two strands of precedent. “The first has adopted categorical bans on sentencing practices based on mismatches between the culpability of a class of offenders and the severity of a penalty.” Id. at 2463 (). See, e.g., Kennedy v. Louisiana, 554 U.S. 407, 128 S.Ct. 2641, 171 L.Ed.2d 525 (2008) (); Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551, 125 S.Ct. 1183, 161 L.Ed.2d 1 (2005) (); Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304, 122 S.Ct. 2242, 153 L.Ed.2d 335 (2002) ().
This first strand of precedent is clearly substantive as it prohibits a kind of punishment for a class of offenders. The holdings in these cases are “retroactive” in that the prohibition on the penalty applies to all offenders—regardless of when the punishment was imposed. Thus, we have held that Graham applies retroactively. St. Val v. State, 107 So.3d 553, 555 (Fla. 4th DCA 2013).
The second strand of precedent is not as clear. This strand involves cases that “prohibited mandatory imposition of capital punishment, requiring that sentencing authorities consider the characteristics of a defendant and the details of his offense before sentencing him to death.” Miller, 132 S.Ct. at 2463–64 (). Lockett—which altered what must be considered when determining whether to impose a death sentence—was applied retroactively. Riley v. Wainwright, 517 So.2d 656, 657 (Fla.1987).
In Geter, the Third District Court of Appeal based much of its analysis on its conclusion that the decision in Miller is procedural rather than substantive. 115 So.3d at 378–82. Whether that is entirely accurate is subject to argument. By invalidating a statute that mandated a life without parole sentence, the Miller decision impacts the range of possible penalties available to this class of offenders. Nevertheless, even if the Miller decision is procedural, this is not determinative of the retroactivity question. Certain “procedural” changes have been found to be a development of fundamental significance. Lockett, which the Florida Supreme Court has applied retroactively, is a fine example.
While Lockett involved the death penalty, and death is often said to “be different,” the Court in Miller and Graham went to great lengths to explain how a sentence of life without possibility for parole is like imposing a death sentence on a juvenile. Graham, 560 U.S. at 69–70, 130 S.Ct. 2011; Miller, 132 S.Ct. at 2466–67. A juvenile sentenced to life without parole has been sentenced to die in prison except for the possibility of executive clemency which the Court concluded did not cure the Eighth Amendment violation.
We conclude that, like Lockett, Miller is a development of...
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THE TRILOGY AND BEYOND.
...sub nom. Semple v. Casiano, 136 S. Ct. 1364 (2016). (86.) Falcon v. State, 162 So. 3d 954, 963-64 (Fla. 2015); see also Cotto v. State, 141 So. 3d 615, 621 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2014); Toye v. State, 133 So.3d 540, 547 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2014). (87.) People v. Davis, 6 N.E.3d 709, 722-23 (......