State v. Kelliher
| Decision Date | 17 June 2022 |
| Docket Number | 442PA20 |
| Parties | STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA v. JAMES RYAN KELLIHER |
| Court | North Carolina Supreme Court |
Heard In The Supreme Court On 10 November 2021
On discretionary review pursuant to N.C. G.S. § 7A-31 of a unanimous decision of the Court of Appeals, 273 N.C.App. 616 (2020), reversing a judgment entered 13 December 2018 by Judge Carl R. Fox in Superior Court, Cumberland County. On 10 March 2021, the Supreme Court allowed defendant's conditional petition for discretionary review as to additional issues.
Joshua H. Stein, Attorney General, by Kimberly N. Callahan, Special Deputy Attorney General, for the State-appellant.
Glenn Gerding, Appellate Defender, by Kathryn L. VandenBerg Assistant Appellate Defender, for defendant-appellee.
Lisa Grafstein, Susan H. Pollitt, and Luke Woollard for Disability Rights North Carolina, amicus curiae
Christopher J. Heaney, Emily A. Gibson, and Margaret P. Teich for North Carolina Advocates for Justice, amicus curiae.
¶ 1 When a child commits a murder, the crime is a searing tragedy and profound societal failure. Even a child has agency, of course; we do not absolve a child of all culpability for his or her criminal conduct. But there are different considerations at issue when sentencing a juvenile offender as compared to an adult criminal defendant. "[C]hildren are different" than adults in ways that matter for these purposes. State v. James, 371 N.C. 77, 96 (2018) (quoting Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460, 480 (2012)). A child's actions necessarily reflect that child's "chronological age and its hallmark features-among them, immaturity, impetuosity, and failure to appreciate risks and consequences." Miller, 567 U.S. at 477. A child's actions also reflect the "environment that surrounds him-and from which he cannot usually extricate himself-no matter how brutal or dysfunctional." Id. What a child's actions do not reflect, in the vast majority of cases, is that child's permanent and fundamental depravity, or what the United States Supreme Court has described as "irreparable corruption." Roper v Simmons, 543 U.S. 551, 573 (2005). Given these unique attributes that define childhood, both the North Carolina and United States Constitutions impose limits on the use of our most severe punishments for juvenile offenders, even for those children who have committed the most egregious crimes imaginable.
¶ 2 On 7 August 2001, James Ryan Kelliher participated in the killing of Eric Carpenter and his pregnant girlfriend, Kelsea Helton. Kelliher was seventeen years old. At the time he was indicted, juveniles were still subject to the death penalty, and the State indicated its intent to try Kelliher capitally. Kelliher pleaded guilty to various charges including two counts of first-degree murder, for which he was ordered to serve two consecutive sentences of life without parole. After the United States Supreme Court issued its decision in Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460 (2012), the trial court conducted a resentencing hearing, during which the court expressly found that Kelliher was "a low risk to society" who was "neither incorrigible nor irredeemable." Nevertheless, the trial court ordered Kelliher to serve two consecutive sentences of life with the possibility of parole. Each of these sentences requires Kelliher to serve twenty-five years in prison before becoming eligible for parole. As a result, because the court ordered Kelliher to complete his first life sentence before beginning his second life sentence, Kelliher must serve fifty years in prison before initially becoming parole eligible at the age of sixty-seven.
¶ 3 On appeal, Kelliher argued that because the trial court found him to be "neither incorrigible nor irredeemable," it violated the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution and article I, section 27 of the North Carolina Constitution to sentence him to what he contended was a de facto sentence of life without parole. A unanimous panel of the Court of Appeals agreed that Kelliher's sentence violated the Eighth Amendment. State v. Kelliher, 273 N.C.App. 616, 644 (2020). After the Court of Appeals issued its decision, but prior to briefing and oral argument at this Court, the United States Supreme Court decided Jones v. Mississippi, another case examining the scope of the Eighth Amendment in the context of juvenile sentencing. 141 S.Ct. 1307 (2021). In addition to arguing that the Court of Appeals erred in concluding that Kelliher's consecutive life with parole sentences implicated the Eighth Amendment, the State now asserts that Jones completely undermines Kelliher's federal and state constitutional claims.
¶ 4 After careful review, we hold that it violates both the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution and article I, section 27 of the North Carolina Constitution to sentence a juvenile homicide offender who has been determined to be "neither incorrigible nor irredeemable" to life without parole. Furthermore, we conclude that any sentence or combination of sentences which, considered together, requires a juvenile offender to serve more than forty years in prison before becoming eligible for parole is a de facto sentence of life without parole within the meaning of article I, section 27 of the North Carolina Constitution because it deprives the juvenile of a genuine opportunity to demonstrate he or she has been rehabilitated and to establish a meaningful life outside of prison. Thus, Kelliher's sentence, which requires him to serve fifty years in prison before becoming eligible for parole, is a de facto sentence of life without parole under article I, section 27. Because the trial court affirmatively found that Kelliher was "neither incorrigible nor irredeemable," he could not constitutionally receive this sentence. Accordingly, we modify the decision of the Court of Appeals and affirm.
¶ 5 Like many juveniles who commit criminal offenses, Kelliher experienced a tumultuous childhood. He was physically abused by his father and began using alcohol and marijuana regularly at an early age. He attempted suicide by overdose at age 10. He dropped out of school after ninth grade. By the time he was seventeen, Kelliher was generally "under the influence all day" from substances including ecstasy, acid, psilocybin, cocaine, marijuana, and alcohol. He stole and robbed people to support his drug use.
¶ 6 At some point, Kelliher began to "hang out with a guy named . . . [Joshua] Ballard." The two would regularly "drink and do drugs" together. Over the summer of 2001, the pair discussed robbing Eric Carpenter, who was "known to sell a large amount of drugs including cocaine and marijuana and would have a large amount of money." Ballard told Kelliher they were "going to have to kill Eric Carpenter" after robbing him because Carpenter would know their identities and be able to implicate them in the crime. Their plan was to arrange to purchase drugs from Carpenter behind a local furniture store. Kelliher would drive Ballard to the furniture store; Ballard would approach Carpenter to complete the transaction, shoot him, steal whatever drugs and money he had on his person and in his vehicle, and then flee alongside Kelliher. Kelliher offered to lend Ballard his .38 caliber pistol.
¶ 7 After arranging the drug buy, Ballard and Kelliher drove to the furniture store in a pickup truck.[1] However, at the furniture store, they encountered a law enforcement officer in a marked vehicle driving around the parking lot. Carpenter pulled his vehicle next to Kelliher's and told Kelliher to follow him to another location. Eventually, Carpenter led Ballard and Kelliher to his apartment, where they were joined by Carpenter's girlfriend, Kelsea Helton, who was "five[ or] six months" pregnant. According to Kelliher's later testimony, at some point Ballard "pulled the weapon" and "got both [Carpenter and Helton] down . . . on their knees facing a wall." As Kelliher continued to "gather[ ]" drugs from around Carpenter's apartment, "he heard two shots, saw two flashes." Kelliher and Ballard fled the apartment and ran back to Kelliher's vehicle. They then spent time using cocaine and marijuana they stole from the apartment and drinking liquor in a park. Carpenter and Helton died of gunshot wounds to the backs of their heads.
¶ 8 Kelliher was arrested two days after the shootings. On 25 March 2002, he was indicted by a Cumberland County Grand Jury for two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of robbery with a dangerous weapon, and one count of conspiracy to commit robbery. On 5 June 2002, the Superior Court, Cumberland County conducted a Rule 24 hearing during which the State averred that it "ha[d] evidence of one or more aggravating factors which would call for the imposition of the death penalty." Before the case came to trial, Kelliher pleaded guilty to all charges; in exchange, the District Attorney "exercise[d] his discretion . . . [to] declare the murder cases to be non-capital."[2] The trial court imposed two consecutive sentences of life without parole for the first-degree murder convictions and term-of-years sentences for the robbery and conspiracy convictions, to be run concurrently. Kelliher did not appeal.[3]
¶ 9 In 2013, Kelliher filed a motion for appropriate relief (MAR) alleging that his sentence was unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment as interpreted by the United States Supreme Court in Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460 (2012). The trial court denied Kelliher's MAR on the grounds that Miller did not apply retroactively. However, this Court later held-consistent with the United States Supreme Court's decision in Montgomery v Louisiana, 577 U.S. 190, 205 (2016)-that Miller...
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