Ex parte Maxwell

• Decision Date: 12 March 2014
• Docket Number: No. AP–76964.,AP–76964.
• Citation: 424 S.W.3d 66
• Parties: Ex parte Terrell MAXWELL, Applicant.
• Court: Texas Court of Criminal Appeals

424 S.W.3d 66

Ex parte Terrell MAXWELL, Applicant.

No. AP–76964.

Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas.

March 12, 2014.

Jon Evans, Austin, TX, for Applicant.

Lisa Stewart, Assistant District Attorney, Lisa C. McMinn, State's Attorney, Austin, TX, for the State.

OPINION

COCHRAN, J., delivered the opinion of the Court in which MEYERS, PRICE, JOHNSON and ALCALA, JJ., joined.

In his application for a writ of habeas corpus, applicant claims that his mandatory sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, for a crime he committed as a juvenile, violates the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution under Miller v. Alabama.¹ In that case, the Supreme Court held that a mandatory “life without parole” sentence for a defendant who was under the age of 18 at the time of his crime violates the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. Applicant's sentence was imposed, and his conviction affirmed on direct appeal, before the Supreme Court announced its decision in Miller. We ordered that this application be filed and set to decide if Miller v. Alabama applies retroactively to a claim raised in a post-conviction proceeding, and, if so, what remedy is appropriate.² Because we find that the Miller court announced a new substantive rule under the first Teague exception, we hold that it applies retroactively. We will grant relief, and remand for further sentencing proceedings not inconsistent with Miller v. Alabama.

I.

A jury convicted applicant of the offense of capital murder. The jury heard evidence that, on the night of December 15, 2007, the 17–year–old applicant, along with Rashad Dukes and Michael Jamerson, were “smoking weed and watching movies” when applicant suggested robbing somebody. Applicant had a revolver that was “all black” except for a “pearl white handle”—“kind of a cowboy-looking gun.” They drove Jamerson's car to an apartment complex chosen “because that is where the dope dealers and Mexicans were.” When they arrived at the complex, they sat in the car for several minutes. Applicant announced that he would shoot the person they robbed if that person did not give them money.

The trio then got out of the car and approached Fernando Santander, who was sitting in a parked van. Applicant held his gun to Mr. Santander's cheek and demanded that he “give him his money.” Visibly scared, Mr. Santander “put up his hands out of shock.” According to Dukes, “[T]hat's when [applicant] shot him.” Immediately thereafter, applicant and his accomplices “all took off running at the same time.” They returned to Jamerson's car and drove away. Applicant told the others that “he didn't mean to do it” and that “it was an accident.” Mr. Santander's body was discovered by friends early the next morning, slumped across the center console of the van. A .44 caliber jacket fragment was recovered from the parking lot near the van. A “tipster” led officers to the three suspects. Dukes and Jamerson confessed and testified against applicant in his capital murder trial.

Because applicant was 17 at the time he committed the murder, the State did not seek the death penalty, and punishment was automatically assessed at life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.³ The Third Court of Appeals rejected applicant's claim that his automatic sentence violated the Eighth Amendment because he had never raised that claim in the trial court. ⁴ It affirmed his conviction and sentencein 2010.⁵

II.

A. Miller v. Alabama.

On June 25, 2012, after applicant's conviction became final, the United States Supreme Court held that “the Eighth Amendment forbids a sentencing scheme that mandates life in prison without possibility of parole for juvenile offenders.” ⁶ In deciding the issue, the Court consolidated two cases: Miller, an Alabama case on direct appeal, and Jackson v. Hobbs, an Arkansas case on collateral review. Both cases involved 14–year–old boys convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to mandatory life in prison without parole.⁷

The Court held that “[b]y making youth (and all that accompanies it) irrelevant to imposition of that harshest prison sentence, such a scheme poses too great a risk of disproportionate punishment.” ⁸ It stated that those determining the sentence of a juvenile must take into account the offender's “age and the wealth of characteristics and circumstances attendant to it.” ⁹ Under a mandatory “life without parole” sentencing scheme, the factfinder cannot consider a juvenile's

chronological age and its hallmark features—among them, immaturity, impetuosity, and failure to appreciate risks and consequences. It prevents taking into account the family and home environment that surrounds him—and from which he cannot usually extricate himself—no matter how brutal or dysfunctional. It neglects the circumstances of the homicide offense, including the extent of his participation in the conduct and the way familial and peer pressures may have affected him. Indeed, it ignores that he might have been charged and convicted of a lesser offense if not for incompetencies associated with youth-for example, his inability to deal with police officers or prosecutors (including on a plea agreement) or his incapacity to assist his own attorneys. And finally, this mandatory punishment disregards the possibility of rehabilitation even when the circumstances most suggest it. ¹⁰

The Court did not foreclose the option of a “life without parole” sentence for juvenile murderers, but Miller requires the sentencer to consider “how children are different, and how those differences counsel against irrevocably sentencing them to a lifetime in prison.” ¹¹ Therefore, the “appropriate occasions for sentencing juveniles to this harshest possible penalty will be uncommon,” because it is difficult to distinguish “between the juvenile offender whose crime reflects unfortunate yet transient immaturity, and the rare juvenile offender whose crime reflects irreparable corruption.” ¹²

B. Retroactivity under Teague v. Lane.

In Teague and its progeny, the Supreme Court laid out the framework to decide whether a “new rule” announced in one of its opinions should be applied retroactively to criminal convictions that were already final on direct review. Under the Teague framework, a “new rule” applies retroactively in a collateral proceeding only if the rule (1) is substantive or (2) is a “watershed” rule of criminal procedure.¹³

New substantive rules “apply retroactively because they ‘necessarily carry a significant risk that a defendant stands convicted of an act that the law does not make criminal ’ or faces a punishment that the law cannot impose upon him ” because of his status or offense.¹⁴ Watershed rules of criminal procedure also apply retroactively because those rules implicate “the fundamental fairness and accuracy of the criminal proceeding.” ¹⁵ But a new “watershed” procedural rule “must be one ‘without which the likelihood of an accurate conviction is seriously diminished.’ This class of rules is extremely narrow,” and it is unlikely that any more new ones will emerge.¹⁶

Although the United States Supreme Court held in Danforth v. Minnesota¹⁷ that state courts need not utilize the Teague retroactivity rule, we follow Teague as a general matter of state habeas practice,¹⁸ and we will not deviate from our precedent in this instance.

III.

Federal and state courts across the country have struggled with the issue of whether Miller applies retroactively to post-conviction proceedings. ¹⁹ For example, the Eleventh Circuit and the Louisiana, Pennsylvania, and Minnesota Supreme Courts, and some lower federal and state courts have all held that Miller is not retroactive.²⁰ However, the First, Second, Third, Fourth, and Eighth Circuits have held that habeas applicants successfully made out a prima facie case that Miller is retroactive, and they have granted motions to file successive habeas corpus petitions raising Miller claims.²¹ The Fifth Circuit has so far split the baby: One panel has found a prima facie showing that Miller satisfies the test for retroactivity; another has not.²² The Nebraska, Massachusetts, Iowa, and Mississippi high courts, as well as several lower state and federal courts, have also held that Miller is retroactive.²³

The competing arguments over the retroactivity issue focus largely on whether the Miller decision—which virtually everyone agrees announces a “new rule”—falls under the first Teague exception: Is the new rule announced in Miller a “substantive” one prohibiting a certain category of punishment for a class of defendants because of their status or offense? ²⁴

Those courts holding that Miller is not retroactive strictly construe that first Teague exception—a new substantive rule of law—to apply only when the new rule entirely removes a particular punishment from the list of punishments that may be constitutionally imposed on a class of defendants, ²⁵ not when a rule addresses the considerations for determining a particular sentence.²⁶ These courts conclude that Miller does not satisfy the test for retroactivity because it does not categorically bar all sentences of life without parole for juveniles; Miller bars only those sentences made mandatory by an explicit sentencing scheme.²⁷ It changed the permissible method—the procedure—by which the State could exercise its continuing power to punish juvenile homicide offenders by life without parole.²⁸ Those courts state that Miller, though informed by the “categorical ban” cases like Graham,Roper, and Atkins,²⁹ is more like Ring, Apprendi, or Padilla,³⁰ because it is procedural—simply requiring an additional sentencing procedure for juvenile offenders.³¹ These courts also downplay the importance of the Court's remand of Miller's companion case, Jackson v. Hobbs—which came to the Court through Arkansas's state collateral-review process—as constituting a ruling or determination on retroactivity because the Court...