State v. Conner

• Decision Date: 17 June 2022
• Docket Number: 64A21
• Parties: STATE of North Carolina v. Riley Dawson CONNER
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court

381 N.C. 643

873 S.E.2d 339

STATE of North Carolina

v.Riley Dawson CONNER

No. 64A21

Supreme Court of North Carolina.

Filed June 17, 2022

Joshua H. Stein, Attorney General, by Kimberly N. Callahan, Special Deputy Attorney General, for the State.

Glenn Gerding, Appellate Defender, by David W. Andrews, Assistant Appellate Defender, for defendant-appellant.

Disability Rights North Carolina, by Lisa Grafstein, Raleigh, Susan H. Pollitt, and Luke Woollard, for Center for Child and Family Health, National Association of Social Workers, including its North Carolina affiliate, and Disability Rights North Carolina, amici curiae.

Christopher J. Heaney, Emily A. Gibson, and Margaret P. Teich, for North Carolina Advocates for Justice, amicus curiae.

MORGAN, Justice.

¶ 1 The Supreme Court of the United States has determined that it is unconstitutional to sentence a juvenile defendant to a term of life without parole without consideration of the juvenile's age and attendant circumstances, and that such a sentence is constitutionally impermissible for the majority of juvenile offenders—specifically those who, upon consideration of their age, the unique circumstances of their respective lives, and the nature of their charged crimes, have been excluded from the narrow category of juveniles who at the time of sentencing can be deemed to be permanently incorrigible or irredeemable. See Montgomery v. Louisiana , 577 U.S. 190, 195, 136 S.Ct. 718, 193 L.Ed.2d 599 (2016) (stating that "a lifetime in prison is a disproportionate sentence for all but the rarest of children, those whose crimes reflect ‘irreparable corruption.’ " (quoting Miller v. Alabama , 567 U.S. 460, 479–80, 132 S.Ct. 2455, 183 L.Ed.2d 407 (2012) ) (quoting Roper v. Simmons , 543 U.S. 551, 573, 125 S.Ct. 1183, 161 L.Ed.2d 1 (2005) )). In the present case, this Court ponders a potential extension of this cited precedent as we consider whether a fifteen-year-old juvenile defendant's sentences of (1) 240 to 348 months of imprisonment for a conviction of rape and (2) life imprisonment with the possibility of parole for a conviction of murder, ordered by a trial court to run consecutively which will keep defendant incarcerated until the age of sixty years before having the opportunity to demonstrate that he should be allowed to be released on parole, combine to constitute a de facto sentence of life without parole in violation of the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution and article I, section 27 of the North Carolina Constitution. This is a question of first impression for this Court, and the Supreme Court of the United States likewise has not yet explicitly addressed this specific circumstance.¹

¶ 2 A careful review of the pertinent case law, along with the relevant provisions of both the United States Constitution and the North Carolina Constitution, mandates our conclusion that juvenile offenders who have received sentences of life imprisonment with the possibility for parole, while not guaranteed parole at any point during their respective terms of incarceration, nonetheless must have the opportunity to seek an early release afforded by the prospect of parole after serving no more than forty years of incarceration.

I. Factual background and procedural history²

A. Defendant's childhood

¶ 3 From the time of his birth on 23 August 2000 through the date of 11 March 2016 when, at the age of fifteen years, defendant committed the crimes which led to the convictions underlying this appeal, the juvenile defendant's life was challenging, chaotic, and marked by tremendous instability. At the time that defendant was born, his father was twenty years of age, his mother was eighteen years of age,³ and both parents were addicted to cocaine. Defendant's mother testified at defendant's trial that he began to experience severe sleep disruptions at one or two years of age which she later realized may have been signs of the epilepsy

with which defendant was diagnosed as a teenager. Defendant initially lived with his parents on Miller Road in or near Tabor City in Columbus County. When defendant was around five years old, he moved into the home of his maternal grandparents on Savannah Road⁴ along with his mother and his younger sister. Defendant's mother testified that during this time, because she was "strung out" on crack cocaine and "running the roads," her parents provided much of the care for her children. Defendant's father was incarcerated during this time period. Numerous members of defendant's extended family lived on Savannah Road and in the neighboring area, including defendant's grandparents, his great-grandmother, and several aunts and uncles. Despite the strong presence of his family members, the area in which defendant was raised was described by defendant's maternal aunt, Kimberly Gore, as "the pits of hell," and by defendant's mother as "nowhere for a child to be" because it was the location of illegal drug use and prostitution.

¶ 4 Gore testified at defendant's trial about defendant's ongoing experience of being passed from home to home as he moved between and among a myriad of family members who served as formal and informal caretakers. In the words of Gore, defendant's "mother and father [were] constantly in and out of his life. They were not by [any] means anywhere close to being stable parents. They rejected [defendant] time and time again." At the age of four years, defendant witnessed the armed arrest of his father and uncle due to the men's possession of a truckload of marijuana, that constituted an event which a mitigation specialist later described as "one of the first really traumatic things that happened in [defendant's] life." According to defendant's mother, defendant eventually saw his father arrested "[m]ultiple times."

¶ 5 When defendant was five years old, both of his parents were arrested for larceny and other charges. Defendant's mother testified that defendant was "picked on" at school because defendant's peers knew that his parents were drug addicts. When defendant was six years old, his father was sentenced to a prison term of five years, and, although defendant's mother received a sentence of probation, her drug use prevented her from successfully completing her probation and she went to prison when defendant was seven years old. Gore noted that defendant's parents missed most of defendant's early birthday celebrations, and she recalled an incident in which defendant, at the age of seven years, ran "down the side of the highway screaming ‘I hate you, I hate you’ " as his mother drove away, leaving defendant behind.

¶ 6 At some point around 2005 or 2006, the Columbus County Department of Social Services (DSS) took custody of defendant and his infant sister after defendant reported to Gore that the two children had been taken to a strange structure, which turned out to be a crack house. Defendant's maternal grandparents formally received custody of defendant and his sister when defendant was about six years old. However, the maternal grandmother struggled to care for the children, and defendant frequently stayed with Gore on weekends. Gore testified that, during this time period, defendant experienced severe night terrors during which he would "not wake up." These episodes were accompanied by "outbursts, the flailing of his arms, the slinging, the beating, walking to one end of the house to the other," which was a behavioral pattern that defendant's mother testified had begun when defendant was one or two years old. A doctor who examined defendant when the juvenile was eight years old expressed concern that defendant might be experiencing effects of post-traumatic stress disorder

, but defendant did not receive counseling or other treatment.

¶ 7 Also during the time that defendant was eight years of age, his maternal grandmother suffered a stroke. Defendant was then shuttled between the homes of his paternal grandmother and his mother on Savannah Road. Defendant apparently was often removed from the classroom while in elementary school, at times because he was being "picked on" and other times because he reacted violently to being teased in this way. Defendant consistently failed his end-of-grade tests in the third grade and was held back in his school advancement in order to repeat the grade. At the age of nine years, defendant began to use marijuana. At age ten, defendant lived with his mother and stepfather away from Savannah Road for some period of time, but when defendant's father was released from prison during the following year, defendant returned to Savannah Road to live with his father and stepmother. Also residing on Savannah Road at the house belonging to defendant's great-grandmother was defendant's paternal aunt and the paternal aunt's son—consequently, defendant's cousin—Brad Adams, who was about ten to twelve years older than defendant. Adams both used and sold illegal drugs, sometimes supplying them to defendant. Occasionally, the paternal aunt took defendant to motels in the area while she worked there as a prostitute.

¶ 8 Defendant began drinking alcohol at the age of eleven years old, consuming multiple beers on an almost daily basis and sometimes to the point of unconsciousness. Also when he was eleven years old, defendant began using the controlled substance Xanax

, ingesting up to eight pills at a time to get high. Defendant moved to Brunswick County at age twelve and started to become sexually active. Defendant failed his fifth-grade end-of-grade tests and potentially would have been required to repeat the grade, but he transferred to Nakina Middle School, where he was placed in the sixth grade. Defendant went to live with his father for a short period of time and transferred to a different school in another municipality, but following his father's arrest for robbing a bank, defendant returned to live with his mother and stepfather on Savannah Road and transferred back to Nakina Middle School. But the institution...