State v. Michel, SC16-2187

• Decision Date: 12 July 2018
• Docket Number: No. SC16-2187,SC16-2187
• Citation: 257 So.3d 3
• Parties: STATE of Florida, Petitioner, v. Budry MICHEL, Respondent.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

257 So.3d 3

STATE of Florida, Petitioner,
v.
Budry MICHEL, Respondent.

No. SC16-2187

Supreme Court of Florida.

[July 12, 2018]

Pamela Jo Bondi, Attorney General, Tallahassee, Florida, Celia Terenzio, Bureau Chief, and Matthew Steven Ocksrider, Assistant Attorney General, West Palm Beach, Florida, for Petitioner

Carey Haughwout, Public Defender, and Paul Edward Petillo, Assistant Public Defender, Fifteenth Judicial Circuit, West Palm Beach, Florida, for Respondent

Paolo Annino, Florida State University College of Law, Tallahassee, Florida, and Roseanne Eckert, Florida International University College of Law, Miami, Florida, Amici Curiae Public Interest Law Center at the FSU College of Law and the Florida Juvenile Resentencing and Review Project at the FIU College of Law

POLSTON, J.

We review the decision of the Fourth District Court of Appeal in Michel v. State , 204 So.3d 101 (Fla. 4th DCA 2016), in which the Fourth District certified that its decision conflicts with the decisions of the Fifth District Court of Appeal in Stallings v. State , 198 So.3d 1081 (Fla. 5th DCA 2016), and Williams v. State , 198 So.3d 1084 (Fla. 5th DCA 2016).¹ We quash the Fourth District's decision in Michel and approve the Fifth District's decisions in Stallings and Williams to the extent that they are consistent with this opinion.

As explained below, we hold that juvenile offenders' sentences of life with the possibility of parole after 25 years do not violate the Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution as delineated by the United States Supreme Court in Graham v. Florida , 560 U.S. 48, 130 S.Ct. 2011, 176 L.Ed.2d 825 (2010), Miller v. Alabama , 567 U.S. 460, 132 S.Ct. 2455, 183 L.Ed.2d 407 (2012), and Virginia v. LeBlanc , ––– U.S. ––––, 137 S.Ct. 1726, 198 L.Ed.2d 186 (2017). Therefore, such juvenile offenders are not entitled to resentencing under section 921.1402, Florida Statutes.

BACKGROUND

Budry Michel was charged with first-degree murder, armed robbery, armed kidnapping, and attempted armed robbery in the shooting death of Lynette Grames and robbery of Adnan Shafi Dada. The crimes occurred in 1991 when Michel was sixteen years old. After a jury convicted him of first-degree premeditated murder and armed robbery, he was sentenced to life imprisonment with the possibility of parole after 25 years with a concurrent sentence for the armed robbery that has since expired. The Fourth District affirmed Michel's judgment and sentence on direct appeal. See Michel v. State , 727 So.2d 941 (Fla. 4th DCA 1998).

After the United States Supreme Court issued its opinion in Miller , Michel filed a

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motion for postconviction relief pursuant to Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.850. The motion asserted that he was sentenced to life in prison for a homicide and, because he was under eighteen at the time of the crime, he was entitled to relief under Miller . The State argued that Miller was inapplicable because Michel had the opportunity for release on parole. The trial court summarily denied the motion for the reasons stated in the State's response. On appeal, the Fourth District reversed, interpreting this Court's opinion in Atwell v. State , 197 So.3d 1040 (Fla. 2016), to require resentencing even where the offender may later obtain parole. See Michel , 204 So.3d at 101.

ANALYSIS

The United States Supreme Court's Eighth Amendment precedent regarding juvenile sentencing requires a mechanism for providing juveniles with an opportunity for release based upon their individual circumstances, which is not a standard aimed at guaranteeing an outcome of release for all juveniles regardless of individual circumstances that might weigh against release.

Specifically, in Graham , 560 U.S. at 74, 130 S.Ct. 2011, the United States Supreme Court held that "for a juvenile offender who did not commit homicide the Eighth Amendment forbids the sentence of life without parole." Importantly, the United States Supreme Court continued by explaining the following:

A State is not required to guarantee eventual freedom to a juvenile offender convicted of a nonhomicide crime. What the State must do, however, is give defendants like Graham some meaningful opportunity to obtain release based on demonstrated maturity and rehabilitation. It is for the State, in the first instance, to explore the means and mechanisms for compliance. It bears emphasis, however, that while the Eighth Amendment prohibits a State from imposing a life without parole sentence on a juvenile nonhomicide offender, it does not require the State to release that offender during his natural life. Those who commit truly horrifying crimes as juveniles may turn out to be irredeemable, and thus deserving of incarceration for the duration of their lives. The Eighth Amendment does not foreclose the possibility that persons convicted of nonhomicide crimes committed before adulthood will remain behind bars for life. It does prohibit States from making the judgment at the outset that those offenders never will be fit to reenter society.

Id. at 75, 130 S.Ct. 2011.

Then, in Miller , 567 U.S. 460, 132 S.Ct. 2455, the United States Supreme Court extended its categorical rule prohibiting life sentences without parole for juvenile offenders convicted of nonhomicide crimes to juvenile offenders convicted of homicide. The Court held that "the Eighth Amendment forbids a sentencing scheme that mandates life in prison without possibility of parole for juvenile offenders." Id. at 479, 132 S.Ct. 2455. It explained that "[m]andatory life without parole for a juvenile precludes consideration of his chronological age and its hallmark features—among them, immaturity, impetuosity, and failure to appreciate risks and consequences." Id. at 477, 132 S.Ct. 2455. "[Y]outh matters in determining the appropriateness of a lifetime of incarceration without the possibility of parole." Id. at 473, 132 S.Ct. 2455. And "[a]lthough [the United States Supreme Court did] not foreclose a sentencer's ability to make that judgment in homicide cases, [the Court did] require it to take into account how children are different, and how those differences counsel

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against irrevocably sentencing them to a lifetime in prison." Id. at 480, 132 S.Ct. 2455.

In Atwell , when attempting to apply the United States Supreme Court's decisions in Graham and Miller , a majority of this Court took issue with extended presumptive parole release dates that may occur under Florida's parole statute and held that "[p]arole is, simply put, ‘patently inconsistent with the legislative intent’ as to how to comply with Graham and Miller ." Atwell , 197 So.3d at 1049 (quoting Horsley v. State , 160 So.3d 393, 395 (Fla. 2015) ).

However, the more recent decision of LeBlanc , 137 S.Ct. 1726, has clarified that the majority's holding does not properly apply United States Supreme Court precedent. We reject the dissent's assertion that we must adhere to our prior error in Atwell and willfully ignore the United States Supreme Court's clarification in LeBlanc . See Rotemi Realty, Inc. v. Act Realty Co. , 911 So.2d 1181, 1188 (Fla. 2005) ("[S]tare decisis counsels us to follow our precedents unless there has been ‘a significant change in circumstances after the adoption of the legal rule, or ... an error in legal analysis.’ " (emphasis added) (quoting Dorsey v. State , 868 So.2d 1192, 1199 (Fla. 2003) ) ).

In LeBlanc , 137 S.Ct. at 1729, the United States Supreme Court reversed the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals and held that a Virginia court's decision affirming a juvenile offender's sentence of life for a nonhomicide crime subject to the possibility of conditional geriatric release was not an unreasonable application of the Supreme Court's case law. The Virginia court had relied on Angel v. Commonwealth , 281 Va. 248, 704 S.E.2d 386 (2011), where the Virginia Supreme Court held that Virginia's geriatric release program complied with Graham "because it provided ‘the meaningful opportunity to obtain release based on demonstrated maturity and rehabilitation required by the Eighth Amendment.’ " LeBlanc , 137 S.Ct. at 1728 (quoting Angel , 704 S.E.2d at 402 ). "The [Virginia] statute establishing the program provides:"

Any person serving a sentence imposed upon a conviction for a felony offense ... (i) who has reached the age of sixty-five or older and who has served at least five years of the sentence imposed or (ii) who has reached the age of sixty or older and who has served at least ten years of the sentence imposed may petition the Parole Board for conditional release.

Id. (quoting Va. Code Ann. § 53.1-40.01 (2013) ). Further, "[t]he regulations for conditional release under this statute provide that if the prisoner meets the qualifications for consideration contained in the statute, the factors used in the normal parole consideration process apply to conditional release decisions under this statute." Id. (quoting Angel , 704 S.E.2d at 402 ).

As the United States Supreme Court explained in LeBlanc ,

Graham did not decide that a geriatric release program like Virginia's failed to satisfy the Eighth Amendment because that question was not presented. And it was not objectively unreasonable for the state court to conclude that, because the

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