Hicklin v. Schmitt

• Decision Date: 24 November 2020
• Docket Number: No. SC 97692,SC 97692
• Citation: 613 S.W.3d 780
• Parties: James HICKLIN, a/k/a Jessica Hicklin, Appellant, v. Eric SCHMITT, et al., Respondents.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

613 S.W.3d 780

James HICKLIN, a/k/a Jessica Hicklin, Appellant,

v.Eric SCHMITT, et al., Respondents.

No. SC 97692

Supreme Court of Missouri, en banc.

Opinion issued November 24, 2020

Rehearing Denied January 26, 2021

Hicklin was represented by Anthony E. Rothert, Kayla Deloach and Jessie Steffan of the ACLU of Missouri Foundation in St. Louis, (314) 652-3114, and Gillian R. Wilcox of the ACLU of Missouri Foundation in Kansas City, (816) 470-9933.

The state was represented by Andrew J. Crane of the attorney general's office in Jefferson City, (573) 751-3321.

Laura Denvir Stith, Judge

Jessica Hicklin¹ appeals the circuit court's entry of judgment against her in a declaratory judgment action against Missouri's attorney general, Eric Schmitt, and other State parties. The circuit court rejected her claim that her 1997 life-without-parole sentence for first-degree murder under section 565.020, RSMo 1994,² is invalid following the United States Supreme Court's decisions in Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460, 132 S.Ct. 2455, 183 L.Ed.2d 407 (2012), and Montgomery v. Louisiana, ––– U.S. ––––, 136 S. Ct. 718, 193 L.Ed.2d 599 (2016). Miller held that offenders who were juveniles at the time of their crimes are ineligible for a sentence of life without parole unless they are among the small group of juveniles a fact finder determines to be eligible for a sentence of life without parole after considering the offender's age, maturity, and other factors identified by the Supreme Court. Miller, 567 U.S. at 473-74, 132 S.Ct. 2455. Montgomery made that holding retroactive to persons such as Ms. Hicklin who sought collateral review of their juvenile life-without-parole sentences that had been imposed before Miller . Montgomery, 136 S. Ct. at 736.

Ms. Hicklin alleges the only sentences that could be imposed on her for first-degree murder under section 564.020, RSMo 1994, were invalidated by Montgomery ; she further alleges Missouri's subsequent adoption of a statute addressing Miller -impacted individuals in Senate Bill No. 590 ("SB590"), now codified in relevant part at section 558.047, does not cure this invalidity because it neither provides her parole eligibility nor permits her to be resentenced by a judge or jury but, instead, leaves it to the parole board to determine whether she should be eligible for parole.

This Court agrees a declaratory judgment action rather than habeas corpus is the appropriate procedural vehicle for raising this constitutional claim but rejects the claim on the merits. Miller did require a factfinder to determine whether a juvenile was eligible for a life-without-parole sentence due to the offender's age, maturity, and other factors identified by the Supreme Court, and Montgomery did apply Miller retroactively to persons such as Ms. Hicklin. For that reason, a number of states require those juveniles already serving life-without-parole sentences to have a new sentencing hearing. But Montgomery also specifically provided that a state, alternatively, could provide automatic parole eligibility and allow its parole board to consider and determine whether a particular juvenile offender should, in fact, be granted parole, so long as the parole board did so by applying the factors required by Miller and Montgomery . "The opportunity for release," the Supreme Court said, "will be afforded to those who demonstrate the truth of Miller ’s central intuition—that children who commit even heinous crimes are capable of change." Montgomery, 136 S. Ct. at 736.

Missouri chose the latter alternative, and sections 558.047 and 565.033 specifically require the parole board to determine whether to grant parole to a juvenile offender after that offender has served 25 years by applying the Miller factors and certain other factors. After considering these factors, the parole board may decline to grant parole, but it has no authority to determine that juvenile offenders like Ms. Hicklin are ineligible for parole. This aspect of her constitutional claim, as well as her claim that the new provisions allowing parole consideration are bills of attainder, therefore, are without merit.

To the extent Ms. Hicklin also asks this Court to vacate her sentence and remand for resentencing in the event this Court were to declare her original sentence unconstitutional, such a claim must be brought in habeas corpus rather than through use of a declaratory judgment. The circuit court's judgment is affirmed.

I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

In 1995, when Ms. Hicklin was 16 years old, she shot and killed Sean Smith. She was tried as an adult, and, in February 1997, a jury found her guilty of first-degree murder under section 565.020.1, RSMo 1994, and armed criminal action under section 571.015.1, RSMo 1994. At the time of Ms. Hicklin's sentencing in April 1997, section 565.020, RSMo 1994, provided that the punishment for first-degree murder "shall be either death or imprisonment for life without eligibility for probation or parole." § 565.020.2, RSMo 1994. The circuit court sentenced Ms. Hicklin to life in prison without eligibility for probation or parole for first-degree murder and a concurrent sentence of 100 years for armed criminal action.

In 2012 in Miller , the Supreme Court held the "Eighth Amendment forbids a sentencing scheme that mandates life in prison without possibility of parole for juvenile offenders." 567 U.S. at 479, 132 S.Ct. 2455. A sentencer, the Supreme Court said, must "take into account how children are different, and how those differences counsel against irrevocably sentencing them to a lifetime in prison." Id. at 480, 132 S.Ct. 2455. Though life-without-parole sentences for juvenile offenders remained constitutional in appropriate cases, the Supreme Court explained it expected such cases would be "uncommon." Id. at 479, 132 S.Ct. 2455. Further, prior to Miller , in Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551, 578, 125 S.Ct. 1183, 161 L.Ed.2d 1 (2005), the Supreme Court held the death penalty may not be imposed constitutionally on any juvenile offender. A consequence of these two decisions is that, going forward, unless a juvenile offender found guilty of first-degree murder were also found to be eligible for a life-without-parole sentence, section 565.020.2, RSMo 1994, offered no valid sentence for that juvenile offender.

Unfortunately, during the four years following Miller , Missouri's General Assembly did not reach agreement as to how to revise section 565.020 and related statutes to provide for a constitutionally permissible sentence for the group of juvenile offenders who were ineligible for life-without-parole sentences. Accordingly, when State v. Hart, 404 S.W.3d 232 (Mo. banc 2013), presented this Court with the question of how to sentence one of these offenders, it simply remanded the juvenile offender's direct appeal of his conviction for resentencing so that a jury could determine, in accordance with Miller , whether a life-without-parole sentence was appropriate for the juvenile offender under all the circumstances, as it had no other sentence it could impose. Id. at 238-39.

Neither Hart nor Miller directly applied to persons such as Ms. Hicklin, however, as she had already been found guilty of murder, sentenced to life without parole, had her sentence affirmed on appeal, and had postconviction relief denied before Miller was decided. Ms. Hicklin, accordingly, filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus arguing Miller should be applied to her retroactively as she, too, was a juvenile when she committed her crime. While her petition was pending, the Supreme Court decided Montgomery, which held the prohibition against mandatory life-without-parole sentences for juvenile offenders applies retroactively to juveniles such as Ms. Hicklin and that "[a] hearing where ‘youth and its attendant characteristics’ are considered as sentencing factors is necessary to separate those juveniles who may be sentenced to life without parole from those who may not." 136 S. Ct. at 735.

Of particular importance here, however, Montgomery also specifically stated that a retrial of "sentences, let alone convictions," was not required "in every case where a juvenile offender received mandatory life without parole." Id. at 736. As an alternative, the Supreme Court said, "A State may remedy a Miller violation by permitting juvenile homicide offenders to be considered for parole, rather than by resentencing them." Id. This makes sense, for the purpose of resentencing under Miller was to permit the jury or judge to consider whether the juvenile was entitled to parole consideration. The need for resentencing could be bypassed, however, if a state wished to provide juveniles with eligibility for parole automatically without first requiring a resentencing hearing.

When Montgomery was decided, Missouri's statutes did not provide a mechanism for granting parole to those juvenile offenders serving mandatory life-without-parole sentences. This Court, therefore, resolved these juvenile offenders’ still-pending petitions for habeas corpus—including Ms. Hicklin's—by issuing an order in all such cases making these juvenile offenders eligible for parole on those sentences after serving 25 years. In May 2016, while a petition for reconsideration of its ruling in Ms. Hicklin's case was still pending in this Court, Ms. Hicklin filed a declaratory judgment petition in the Cole County circuit court. She challenged the relief ordered by this Court and sought a declaration that section 565.020, RSMo 1994, was unconstitutional as applied to her.

Before Ms. Hicklin's declaratory judgment claims could be finally determined, Missouri's General Assembly passed SB590. In response to Miller and Montgomery, SB590 repealed the version of section 565.020 under which the circuit court sentenced Ms. Hicklin and enacted a new section 565.020. The new version of section 565.020, still in effect today, provides: "If a person has not reached his or her eighteenth birthday at the time of the...