Falcon v. State

• Decision Date: 19 March 2015
• Docket Number: No. SC13–865.,SC13–865.
• Parties: Rebecca Lee FALCON, Petitioner, v. STATE of Florida, Respondent.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

162 So.3d 954

Rebecca Lee FALCON, Petitioner

v.STATE of Florida, Respondent.

No. SC13–865.

Supreme Court of Florida.

March 19, 2015.

Rehearing Denied April 27, 2015.

Elliot H. Scherker of Greenberg Traurig, P.A., Miami, FL; Paolo Giuseppe Annino, Co–Director, Public Interest Law Center, Florida State College of Law, Tallahassee, FL; and Karen Marci a Gottlieb, Coconut Grove, FL, for Petitioner.

Pamela Jo Bondi, Attorney General, and Trisha Meggs Pate, Bureau Chief, Tallahassee, FL, for Respondent.

Marsha L. Levick, Juvenile Law Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and George E. Schulz, Jr. of Holland & Knight, Jacksonville, FL, for Amici Curiae Juvenile Law Center, et al.

Opinion

PARIENTE, J.

The issue in this case is whether the United States Supreme Court's decision in Miller v. Alabama, ––– U.S. ––––, 132 S.Ct. 2455, 2469, 183 L.Ed.2d 407 (2012) —which “forbids a sentencing scheme that mandates life in prison without possibility of parole for juvenile offenders”—applies to juvenile offenders whose convictions and sentences were already final at the time Miller was decided. Considering this issue, and in reliance on its prior decision in Gonzalez v. State, 101 So.3d 886, 888 (Fla. 1st DCA 2012), the First District Court of Appeal concluded in Falcon v. State, 111 So.3d 973, 973 (Fla. 1st DCA 2013), that Miller did not apply retroactively to juvenile offenders seeking to challenge the constitutionality of their sentences, pursuant to Miller, through collateral review.

All of Florida's other district courts of appeal have addressed this same issue, with conflicting results. The Third and Fifth District Courts of Appeal have concluded, consistent with the First District, that Miller is not retroactive, while the Second and Fourth District Courts of Appeal have held, to the contrary, that it is. Compare Geter v. State, 115 So.3d 375, 385 (Fla. 3d DCA 2012), and Anderson v. State, 105 So.3d 538, 538 (Fla. 5th DCA 2013) (table decision), with Toye v. State, 133 So.3d 540, 547 (Fla. 2d DCA 2014), and Cotto v. State, 141 So.3d 615, 617 (Fla. 4th DCA 2014).

Noting the split of state and federal authority on the issue of whether Millershould be given retroactive effect, the First District in Falcon certified the following question of great public importance for this Court's review:

WHETHER THE RULE ESTABLISHED IN MILLER V. ALABAMA, ––– U.S. ––––, 132 S.Ct. 2455, 2460, 183 L.Ed.2d 407 (2012), “THAT MANDATORY LIFE WITHOUT PAROLE FOR THOSE UNDER THE AGE OF 18 AT THE TIME OF THEIR CRIMES VIOLATES THE EIGHTH AMENDMENT[ ],” SHOULD BE GIVEN RETROACTIVE EFFECT?

Falcon, 111 So.3d at 973–74. We accepted jurisdiction to resolve this important issue that has an impact on many cases pending in our state courts. See art. V, § 3(b)(4), Fla. Const.

Applying this Court's test for retroactivity, as articulated in Witt v. State, 387 So.2d 922, 931 (Fla.1980), we conclude that the rule set forth in Miller constitutes a “development of fundamental significance” and therefore must be given retroactive effect.¹ We would reach the same conclusion if we were to apply the test for retroactivity set forth in Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288, 307, 109 S.Ct. 1060, 103 L.Ed.2d 334 (1989).

Accordingly, we answer the certified question in the affirmative and hold that the Supreme Court's decision in Miller applies retroactively to juvenile offenders whose convictions and sentences were final at the time Miller was decided. Under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.850(b)(2), any affected juvenile offender shall have two years from the time the mandate issues in this case to file a motion for postconviction relief in the trial court seeking to correct his or her sentence pursuant to Miller.

Based on our decision in Horsley v. State, No. SC13–1938, 160 So.3d 393, 394–95 (Fla. Mar. 19, 2015), we conclude that the appropriate remedy for any juvenile offender whose sentence is now unconstitutional under Miller is a resentencing pursuant to the framework established in legislation enacted by the Florida Legislature in 2014. See ch.2014–220, Laws of Fla. We therefore quash the First District's decision and remand this case for resentencing in conformance with chapter 2014–220, Laws of Florida, which has been codified in sections 775.082, 921.1401, and 921.1402 of the Florida Statutes.

FACTS AND BACKGROUND

Rebecca Lee Falcon was fifteen years old in late 1997 when she took part in an attempted robbery that resulted in the death of a cab driver. According to an affidavit from a clinical psychologist specializing in adolescent development, who conducted several evaluations and interviews with Falcon in the years after the crime, Falcon's childhood leading up to that point had been traumatic, including having suffered sexual and emotional abuse from her stepfather and continued sexual exploitation from peers at school. By the time of the crime, Falcon asserted that she was experiencing “low self-esteem,” had started smoking marijuana, and was “desperate for attention” such that she would “do things just for approval.”

On the night of the crime, Falcon reported that her boyfriend, with whom she professed to have fallen in love because he was “the first person who seemed to care for” her, ended their relationship since he was seeing someone else. Hoping to “sleep off her sadness,” she consumed alcohol and became intoxicated. Falcon stated that, while drunk, she received an invitation to sneak out of the house and made an “impulsive” decision to go because she “was still not popular” and wanted “to be accepted.”

Asserting that she was trying “to fit in” and act “brave” to mask her “true feelings of insecurity,” Falcon “agreed to the idea of a robbery,” expecting to “get the money and go” as she claimed she had seen in “the movies.” However, when the robbery did not proceed as expected, she alleged that she “panicked” and, though not “want[ing] to kill someone,” ultimately participated in causing the shooting death of the attempted robbery victim.

Falcon was convicted of first-degree murder and attempted armed robbery with a firearm and sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for the murder and 207.5 months in prison for the attempted armed robbery. Under the version of the relevant Florida statute then in effect, section 775.082(1), Florida Statutes (1997), Falcon's sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole for the first-degree murder was mandatory.² Her convictions and sentences were affirmed on direct appeal by the First District in 2001. See Falcon v. State, 781 So.2d 1086, 1086 (Fla. 1st DCA 2001) (table decision).

More than a decade after her convictions and sentences became final, the United States Supreme Court issued its decision in Miller, 132 S.Ct. at 2469, holding that the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment “forbids a sentencing scheme that mandates life in prison without possibility of parole for juvenile offenders.” There is no dispute following Miller that the statute under which Falcon was sentenced for first-degree murder, which mandated life in prison without the possibility of parole, is unconstitutional as applied to juvenile offenders.

Subsequently, in August 2012, Falcon filed a motion for postconviction relief and to correct an illegal sentence, asserting that her mandatory sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole is unconstitutional under Miller and that she is therefore entitled to be resentenced. In her motion, Falcon argued that Miller should be applied retroactively and that the trial court must vacate her life sentence and, pursuant to Miller, conduct an individualized resentencing hearing in order to take into account her age and age-related characteristics in imposing an appropriate sentence.

The trial court denied Falcon's motion on the basis that the First District had already held, in Gonzalez, 101 So.3d at 888, that Miller did not apply retroactively. Specifically, in Gonzalez, the First District concluded, consistent with a prior decision from the Third District, that Miller was a procedural, rather than substantive, change in the law and that retroactive application of Miller “would greatly affect the administration of justice” by opening the floodgates for postconviction motions. Id. at 887 (citing Geter, 115 So.3d at 383 ).

Falcon appealed the trial court's denial of her motion for postconviction relief to the First District, which affirmed the denial of relief based on its previous decision in Gonzalez. Falcon, 111 So.3d at 974. However, the First District certified a question of great public importance to this Court as to whether Miller should be applied retroactively. Id.

Chief Judge Benton concurred in the First District's decision on the basis of the First District's Gonzalez precedent, but wrote separately to explain that, in his view, the Supreme Court's decision in Miller should be applied retroactively. In support of this conclusion, Chief Judge Benton relied on the fact that the Supreme Court had granted relief to two separate defendants in its Miller decision, Evan Miller of Alabama and Kuntrell Jackson of Arkansas, whose cases were consolidated and argued in tandem. Id. at 974 (Benton, C.J., concurring).

Miller, the defendant in the Alabama case, initially appealed his conviction and sentence directly to the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals, and then obtained further, direct review in the United States Supreme Court. However, “Jackson, the defendant in the Arkansas case—like the appellant in our case—had reached the end of the line on direct appeal, without obtaining any relief.” Id. (footnote omitted). Only after Jackson did not prevail in challenging his sentence on direct appeal and he sought collateral relief, which the state courts denied, did the United States Supreme Court grant review in Jackson's case and ultimately provide him relief. Based upon the Supreme Court's treatment of Jackson, Chief Judge Benton concluded that Miller should be...