Davis v. State

• Decision Date: 18 September 2020
• Docket Number: S-20-0020
• Citation: 472 P.3d 1030
• Parties: Donald Clyde DAVIS, Appellant (Defendant), v. The STATE of Wyoming, Appellee (Plaintiff).
• Court: Wyoming Supreme Court

472 P.3d 1030

Donald Clyde DAVIS, Appellant (Defendant),

v.The STATE of Wyoming, Appellee (Plaintiff).

S-20-0020

Supreme Court of Wyoming.

September 18, 2020

Representing Appellant: Office of the Public Defender: Diane M. Lozano, State Public Defender; Kirk A. Morgan, Chief Appellate Counsel; Lauren McLane, Director, Defender Aid Program; Emily Williams, Student Director.

Representing Appellee: Bridget L. Hill, Wyoming Attorney General; Jenny L. Craig, Deputy Attorney General; Joshua C. Eames, Senior Assistant Attorney General.

Before DAVIS, C.J., and FOX, KAUTZ, BOOMGAARDEN, and GRAY, JJ.

BOOMGAARDEN, Justice.

[¶1] Donald Clyde Davis challenges his sentence following reversal and remand in Davis v. State , 2018 WY 40, 415 P.3d 666 (Wyo. 2018) ( Davis I ). On remand, the district court concluded Mr. Davis was not one of those rare juvenile offenders who may be constitutionally sentenced to the functional equivalent of life without parole (i.e., a de facto life sentence) because his crimes "reflect[ ] irreparable corruption resulting in permanent incorrigibility, rather than transient immaturity." Id. ¶ 54, 415 P.3d at 684. It imposed a new aggregate sentence of 12 to 50 years for aggravated robbery, to be served "consecutive[ ] to the sentence previously imposed and subsequently served for the offense of first-degree murder." Mr. Davis contends this sentence is an unconstitutional de facto life sentence. He also contends the court abused its discretion when it sentenced him to 12 to 50 years for aggravated robbery. We affirm.

ISSUES

[¶2] Mr. Davis raises four issues. The first two, which we restate, are dispositive.¹

I. Did the court impose a de facto life sentence, in violation of the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution?

II. Did the court abuse its discretion when it sentenced Mr. Davis to 12 to 50 years for aggravated robbery?

BACKGROUND

[¶3] In 1982, when Mr. Davis was 17 years old, he and a friend picked up, robbed, and murdered a hitchhiker.² Davis I , ¶ 1, 415 P.3d at 671. "Mr. Davis pled guilty to first degree murder, felony murder, and aggravated robbery." Id. On February 22, 1983, the court sentenced him to life without parole for murder plus 20 to 50 years for aggravated robbery.³ Id. ¶¶ 1, 6, 415 P.3d at 671, 673.

[¶4] Mr. Davis began challenging his sentence some 30 years later, as the legal landscape for sentencing juvenile offenders convicted of murder changed. See id. ¶ 15, 415 P.3d at 674. He initially filed a motion to correct an illegal sentence in June 2013. Id. His motion asked the district court to vacate his sentence and conduct a new sentencing hearing pursuant to Miller v. Alabama , 567 U.S. 460, 132 S.Ct. 2455, 183 L.Ed.2d 407 (2012), and Bear Cloud v. State , 2013 WY 18, 294 P.3d 36 (Wyo. 2013) ( Bear Cloud II ). See id. Before the court ruled on his motion, his life sentence was converted to life with the possibility of parole after 25 years by operation of amendments to Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 6-10-301(c).⁴ Id. More than two years later, on December 15, 2015, the Wyoming Board of Parole (Board) paroled Mr. Davis from his life sentence to begin serving his 20- to 50-year sentence for aggravated robbery.⁵ Id.

[¶5] In 2016, Mr. Davis supplemented his motion to correct an illegal sentence. Id. ¶ 16, 415 P.3d at 674. His supplemented motion asked the court to vacate his sentence and provide him a new sentencing hearing consistent with Miller and Bear Cloud v. State , 2014 WY 113, 334 P.3d 132 (Wyo. 2014) ( Bear Cloud III ) on grounds that his new aggregate sentence—life lasting a minimum of 25 years plus 20 to 50 years—remained a de facto life sentence. Id. The court held a new sentencing hearing and imposed the original sentence. Id. Mr. Davis appealed, raising numerous sentencing issues. Id. ¶¶ 2, 22, 415 P.3d at 671–72, 676.

[¶6] In Davis I , we determined the court had not properly considered and weighed the Miller factors and had sentenced Mr. Davis to the functional equivalent of life without parole without making a permanent incorrigibility finding. Id. ¶¶ 26, 106, 415 P.3d at 676, 695–96. Accordingly, his sentence violated the Eighth Amendment. Id. ¶ 106, 415 P.3d at 696. We reversed and remanded for a new sentencing hearing and resentencing. Id. ¶ 107, 415 P.3d at 696. We instructed the court on remand to "approach the case with the understanding that, more likely than not, life without parole is a disproportionate sentence for Mr. Davis[.]" Id. We further instructed the court to "consider the Miller factors and decide whether he is the truly rare individual mentioned in Miller who is incapable of reform." Id.

[¶7] The court held a two-day sentencing hearing on remand and concluded Mr. Davis was not one of those truly rare juvenile offenders mentioned in Miller .⁶ It resentenced him to 12 to 50 years for aggravated robbery, to be served "consecutive[ ] to the sentence previously imposed and subsequently served" for murder.

DISCUSSION

I. The court did not impose a de facto life sentence.

[¶8] Whether Mr. Davis’ sentence violates the Eighth Amendment is a question of law we review de novo. Sam II , ¶ 9, 450 P.3d at 221 (citations omitted); see also Davis I , ¶ 62, 415 P.3d at 685 ("We review the legality of a sentence de novo, and we consider a sentence to be illegal when it violates the constitution or other laws.").

[¶9] On the changing landscape of the law as it pertains to sentencing juvenile offenders, we have explained:

In 2012 ... the United States Supreme Court issued its decision in Miller . The Miller Court held that a life sentence for juveniles violates the Eighth Amendment for all but "the rarest of children, those whose crimes reflect irreparable corruption." Montgomery v. Louisiana , 577 U.S. ––––, ––––, 136 S.Ct. 718, 726, 193 L.Ed.2d 599 (2016), as revised (Jan. 27, 2016) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted); see also Miller , 567 U.S. at 479[–80], 132 S.Ct. at 2469. Accordingly, Miller requires juvenile sentencing courts to consider a child's "diminished culpability and heightened capacity for change" before sentencing a child to life in prison. Id. at 479, 132 S.Ct. at 2469. We adopted the Miller holding in Bear Cloud II , where we held that in order to fulfill the requirements of Miller , a trial court must consider "the factors of youth and the nature of the homicide at an individualized sentencing hearing when determining whether to sentence the juvenile offender to life without the possibility of parole or to life according to law." Bear Cloud v. State , 2013 WY 18, ¶ 42, 294 P.3d 36, 47 (Wyo. 2013) ( Bear Cloud II ).

A Miller hearing is an individualized sentencing hearing in which the sentencing court must determine whether the defendant is "irreparably corrupt." See Bear Cloud III , ¶¶ 27, 33, 334 P.3d at 141–42 ; Davis [I] , ¶¶ 35–59, 415 P.3d at 679–85. Following Miller , in Montgomery , the United States Supreme Court held that Miller applied retroactively to juveniles who were sentenced prior to Miller . See Davis [I] , ¶ 38, 415 P.3d at 679–80. In response to Miller and Bear Cloud II , the Wyoming Legislature amended Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 6-10-301(c), by providing that juvenile offenders sentenced to life in prison are eligible for parole after [25] years.

....

An aggregate sentence that is the functional equivalent of a life sentence for a juvenile violates the Eighth Amendment unless the juvenile is sentenced after being found "irreparably corrupt" in a Miller hearing. Bear Cloud III , ¶ 33, 334 P.3d at 141–42 ; Davis [I] , ¶¶ 24–28, 415 P.3d at 676–77.

....

We have held that "[a]n aggregated minimum sentence exceeding the 45 [years in prison]/61 [years old at the earliest time of release] standard is the functional equivalent of life without parole and violates Bear Cloud III [,] Miller and [their] progeny." Sam v. State , 2017 WY 98, ¶ 80, 401 P.3d 834, 860 (Wyo. 2017).

Wiley , ¶¶ 7–10, 461 P.3d at 414–15.

[¶10] To determine whether an aggregated minimum sentence violates the 45/61 standard we adopted in Bear Cloud III , we first calculate how many years the juvenile offender must serve before he is eligible for parole—beginning with his earliest possible release date from his murder sentence. This calculation to date has been straightforward, as in each case the juvenile offender had not yet served 25 years when, by operation of the amended statute, he would become eligible for parole from his life sentence. See, e.g. , Wiley , ¶ 1, 461 P.3d at 414 (sentenced in 1992) ; Sam II , ¶ 3, 450 P.3d at 218 (convicted in 2016) ; Sen v. State , 2017 WY 30, ¶¶ 4–5, 390 P.3d 769, 771 (Wyo. 2017) ( Sen III ) (crimes committed in 2009); Bear Cloud II , ¶¶ 4–8, 294 P.3d at 39–40 (convicted in 2010). To calculate the aggregate minimum sentence in prior cases, we simply added the number of years at the bottom of the sentencing range for each particular offender's consecutive sentence(s) to the number 25. If the sum of those years equaled 45 or less, the aggregate sentence satisfied the first part of the 45/61 standard. See Wiley , ¶ 14, 461 P.3d at 416 (holding an aggregate sentence rendering Mr. Wiley eligible for parole after serving a minimum of 43 years, when he would be 58 years old, was not the functional equivalent of life in prison); Sen III , ¶ 19, 22, 390 P.3d at 775–76 (holding an aggregate sentence requiring Mr. Sen serve 35 years before he would be parole eligible is not functionally equivalent to life without parole); Sam II , ¶ 11, 450 P.3d at 221 (noting Mr. Sam's sentence rendered him eligible for parole after serving 35 years); Sam I , ¶ 80, 401 P.3d at 860 (holding Mr. Sam's sentence requiring he serve a minimum of 52 years with possible release on parole at age 70 violated Bear Cloud III and Miller ); Bear Cloud III , ¶¶ 11, 33, 334 P.3d at 136, 142 (holding an aggregate sentence requiring Mr. Bear Cloud serve just over 45 years before he would be eligible for parole at age 61 was a de facto life sentence).

[¶11] This case is different....