Horsley v. State

• Decision Date: 19 March 2015
• Docket Number: SC13–2000.,Nos. SC13–1938,s. SC13–1938
• Citation: 160 So.3d 393
• Parties: Anthony Duwayne HORSLEY, Jr., Petitioner, v. STATE of Florida, Respondent. State of Florida, Petitioner, v. Anthony Duwayne Horsley, Jr., Respondent.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

160 So.3d 393

Anthony Duwayne HORSLEY, Jr., Petitioner

v.STATE of Florida, Respondent.

State of Florida, Petitioner

v.Anthony Duwayne Horsley, Jr., Respondent.

Nos. SC13–1938

SC13–2000.

Supreme Court of Florida.

March 19, 2015.

James S. Purdy, Public Defender, and Kathryn Rollison Radtke, Assistant Public Defender, Seventh Judicial Circuit, Daytona Beach, FL, for Petitioner/Respondent.

Pamela Jo Bondi, Attorney General, Tallahassee, FL; Wesley Harold Heidt, Assistant Attorney General, and Kellie Anne Nielan, Assistant Attorney General, Daytona Beach, FL, for Respondent/Petitioner.

Eric D. Schab, Graduate Fellow and Paolo Giuseppe Annino, Co–Director, Public Interest Law Center, FSU College of Law, Tallahassee, FL, for Amicus Curiae Public Interest Law Center.

Tatiana A. Bertsch, West Palm Beach, FL, and Benjamin W. Maxymuk, Equal Justice Initiative, Montgomery, AL, for Amicus Curiae Kyle Walling.

Opinion

PARIENTE, J.

In Miller v. Alabama, ––– U.S. ––––, 132 S.Ct. 2455, 2469, 183 L.Ed.2d 407 (2012), 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.” The juvenile offender in this post-Miller case, Anthony Duwayne Horsley, Jr., was sentenced to a mandatory term of life in prison without the possibility of parole, under a sentencing scheme that precluded individualized sentencing consideration for homicide offenders. Therefore, under Miller, that sentence is clearly unconstitutional as applied to him.¹ The question we consider, which the Fifth District Court of Appeal certified to be of great public importance, is what remedy applies for Horsley and other juvenile offenders whose sentences now violate the Eighth Amendment based on Miller.²

Responding to Miller and its predecessor, Graham v. Florida, 560 U.S. 48, 75, 130 S.Ct. 2011, 176 L.Ed.2d 825 (2010), which categorically invalidated life without parole sentences for juveniles convicted of nonhomicide offenses and held that those offenders must be provided a meaningful opportunity to obtain release, the Florida Legislature unanimously enacted legislation in 2014 designed to bring Florida's juvenile sentencing statutes into compliance with the United States Supreme Court's recent Eighth Amendment juvenile sentencing jurisprudence. See ch.2014–220, Laws of Fla. This legislation, however, provided an effective date of July 1, 2014, leaving open the question of the proper remedy for those juvenile offenders, such as Horsley, whose sentences for crimes committed prior to July 1, 2014, violate Miller.

To give effect to the commandment of the United States Supreme Court in Miller and the unanimous pronouncement of the Florida Legislature as to how to comply with the Miller decision, we conclude that the proper remedy is to apply chapter 2014–220, Laws of Florida, to all juvenile offenders whose sentences are unconstitutional under Miller. Our conclusion is guided by the recent, unequivocal expression of legislative intent in chapter 2014–220, Laws of Florida, which provides for individualized sentencing consideration prior to the imposition of a life sentence on a juvenile offender, and by the fundamental principle of respecting the separation of powers regarding criminal sentencing, including the Legislature's important role in establishing the appropriate sentence for a criminal offense. We are also cognizant of our duty to uphold the federal constitution, as interpreted by the United States Supreme Court.

In reaching this conclusion, we reject the State's argument that the only permissible sentencing options to comply with Miller are life without parole and life with the possibility of parole after twenty-five years, through the “revival” of a twenty-year-old sentencing statute. We conclude that statutory revival is an inappropriate remedy in this context. The purpose of a court applying the principle of statutory revival to cure a constitutional infirmity in a statute is to effectuate legislative intent and avoid judicial rewriting of the statute. But we now know how the Legislature has cured the federal constitutional infirmity in Florida's juvenile sentencing statutes, providing for individualized consideration prior to the imposition of a life sentence and affording most juvenile offenders an opportunity to obtain future release.

Applying statutory revival here, with parole eligibility as the linchpin to conforming to Miller, would thus be patently inconsistent with the legislative intent as to the appropriate remedy. It would also require this Court to revive parole for this subset of juvenile offenders, and through its elimination of parole in this state over the past twenty years, the Legislature has made its intent clear that parole is no longer a viable option.

Accordingly, presented with this unique situation in which a federal constitutional infirmity in a sentencing statute has now been specifically remedied by our Legislature, we conclude that the proper remedy is to apply chapter 2014–220, Laws of Florida, to all juvenile offenders whose sentences are unconstitutional in light of Miller. We therefore answer the Fifth District's certified question regarding statutory revival in the negative, quash the underlying decision that adopted statutory revival as the remedy, 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.

BACKGROUND

Anthony Duwayne Horsley, Jr., was seventeen years old in June 2006 when he participated in the robbery of a convenience store in Palm Bay, Florida, during which one of the owners was shot in the chest and killed. After a trial in late 2011, less than a year before the United States Supreme Court decided Miller, the jury convicted Horsley of first-degree felony murder, robbery with a firearm while inflicting death, and two counts of aggravated assault with a firearm, specifically finding that Horsley possessed and discharged a firearm in the robbery. Based on the sentencing scheme then in effect, Horsley was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for the murder,³ thirty years with a twenty-five year mandatory-minimum term of imprisonment for the robbery, and five years' imprisonment for each of the aggravated assaults.

While his direct appeal of his convictions and sentences was pending in the Fifth District, the United States Supreme Court decided Miller. Thereafter, Horsley filed a motion to correct his sentence, asserting that Florida's statutory sentencing scheme, which required the trial court to sentence Horsley to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the first-degree murder conviction, was unconstitutional as applied to juveniles because the trial court had “no discretion to consider a juvenile's lessened culpability and greater capacity for change,” as required by Miller.

At a hearing in the trial court on Horsley's motion, the State acknowledged that Horsley was entitled to a resentencing under Miller and stated that the hearing on the motion was his opportunity “to present anything [the defense] wish[ed] to present.” The State argued that Miller “did not prohibit, as a categorical bar, a life sentence, without the possibility of parole, to a juvenile offender, convicted of first-degree murder.” According to the State, Miller stands for the proposition that a trial court “has to have some discretion to be able to examine the background, the facts, and the circumstances, the age of the Defendant, the background of the Defendant, anything that's relevant, to make a determination about whether or not a life sentence, without a possibility of parole, is the appropriate sentence, or some other sentence, i.e., the only other one that's ever been authorized in Florida, would be a life with possibility of parole after 25 years.”⁴

The trial court agreed that Horsley was entitled to be resentenced with individualized consideration based on Miller, but rejected the argument that it had the discretion to consider a term of years as a sentencing option. Rather, the trial court agreed with the State that it was constrained to only two options for resentencing Horsley: (1) life without parole; or (2) life with parole eligibility after twenty-five years under the State's theory of statutory revival.⁵ After hearing legal argument from both parties and testimony from Horsley regarding his troubled upbringing, the trial court once again sentenced Horsley to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, stating that Horsley “could be the definition of irreparable corruption, as referenced in Miller, ” regarding the very rare circumstances under which a life without parole sentence may be appropriate, after individualized consideration, for a juvenile offender in a homicide case. See Miller, 132 S.Ct. at 2469 (stating that it would be only the “rare juvenile offender whose crime reflects irreparable corruption” that would be subject to the “uncommon” sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole).

Horsley appealed to the Fifth District, arguing that “the trial court erred by rejecting the idea that it had discretion under Miller v. Alabama [––– U.S. ––––], 132 S.Ct. 2455 (2012), to sentence him to a term of years.” Horsley v. State, 121 So.3d 1130, 1131 (Fla. 5th DCA 2013). The Fifth District rejected this argument, but nevertheless vacated Horsley's sentence of life without the possibility of parole because it concluded that this sentence is no longer a viable option in Florida. Id. “Applying the principle of statutory revival,” the Fifth District held that “the only sentence now available in Florida for a charge of capital murder committed by a juvenile is life with the possibility of parole after twenty-five years.” Id.

Recognizing the importance of this issue and the split of authority in the district courts as to how to comply with M...