State v. Shaffer

• Decision Date: 11 January 2012
• Docket Number: No. 2011–KP–1756.,2011–KP–1756.
• Citation: 77 So.3d 939
• Parties: STATE of Louisiana v. Matthew SHAFFER.
• Court: Louisiana Supreme Court

77 So.3d 939

STATE of Louisiana
v.
Matthew SHAFFER.

No. 2011–KP–1756.

Supreme Court of Louisiana.

Nov. 23, 2011.Rehearing Denied Jan. 11, 2012.

[77 So.3d 940]

PER CURIAM.¹

[2011-1756 (La. 1] In these consolidated applications, relators seek review following denial in the district court of their motions to correct an illegal sentence and for relief from their terms of life imprisonment at hard labor following their convictions for aggravated rape, La.R.S. 14:42, a non-homicide crime, committed when they were all under the age of 18 years.

Relators contend that the United States Supreme Court's recent decision in Graham v. Florida, 560 U.S. ––––, 130 S.Ct. 2011, 176 L.Ed.2d 825 (2010), which held that the Eighth Amendment precludes sentencing a juvenile to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for commission of a non-homicide offense, dictates setting aside their sentences of life imprisonment and resentencing. The sentences for relators Shaffer and Leason do not expressly preclude eligibility for parole, as does the sentence for relator Dyer. ² However, [2011-1756 (La. 2] Shaffer and Leason argue that they, too, are ineligible for parole consideration by virtue of the proviso in La.R.S. 15:574.4(B), which has stated since 1968 La. Acts 191, that “[n]o prisoner serving a life sentence shall be eligible for parole consideration until his life sentence has been commuted to a fixed term of years.” See

[77 So.3d 941]

Bosworth v. Whitley, 627 So.2d 629, 635 (La.1993) (“[S]ince [R.S.] 15:574.4(B) provides unequivocally that no inmate serving a life sentence shall be eligible for parole, parole consideration would be withheld from the defendant, by operation of law, despite the fact that the applicable penalty provision did not include the words ‘without benefit of parole.’ ”) (citing State v. Wilson, 362 So.2d 536, 539 n. 3 (La.1978)). A similar commutation proviso controls access by inmates serving life sentences to the parole provisions in La.R.S. 15:574.4(A)(2), which otherwise state that: “[N]otwithstanding ... any other law to the contrary, unless eligible for parole at an earlier date, a person committed to the Department of Public Safety and Corrections for a term or terms of imprisonment with or without benefit of parole for thirty years or more shall be eligible for parole consideration upon serving at least twenty years of the term or terms of imprisonment in actual custody and upon reaching the age of forty-five.”

In light of these commutation provisos, and the difficulty of obtaining commutation of sentence in this state, La. Const. art. 4, § 5(E)(1)(“The governor ... upon favorable recommendation of the Board of Pardons, may commute sentences....”)(emphasis added), relators argue that even those life sentences which by express terms do not preclude parole eligibility for inmates who committed non-homicide crimes when they were juveniles are directly governed by Graham. Drawing on prior jurisprudence of this Court, they further argue that the appropriate remedy is to resentence them according to the penalties provided for the next lesser and included responsive verdict of attempted aggravated rape.³

We agree with relators that Louisiana must comply with the Graham decision but reject their proposed solution. In Graham, the Supreme Court held [2011-1756 (La. 3] that “for a juvenile offender who did not commit homicide the Eighth Amendment forbids the sentence of life without parole.” Graham, 560 U.S. at ––––, 130 S.Ct. at 2030. The Court specifically observed: “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 ... some meaningful opportunity to obtain release based on demonstrated maturity and rehabilitation.” Id. The Court noted that a life sentence without parole “deprives the convict of the most basic liberties without giving hope of restoration, except perhaps by executive clemency—the remote possibility of which does not mitigate the harshness of the sentence.” Id., 560 U.S. at ––––, 130 S.Ct. at 2027 (citing Solem v. Helm, 463 U.S. 277, 300–301, 103 S.Ct. 3001, 3015, 77 L.Ed.2d 637 (1983) (striking down a life sentence without parole for a habitual offender convicted of issuing a “no account” check, Court notes the difference between the availability of parole as a

[77 So.3d 942]

“regular part of the rehabilitative process” and commutation of sentence as “an ad hoc exercise of executive clemency”)). Graham reflects the Supreme Court's determination that juveniles are a special class of offenders deserving of special protections otherwise not accorded adult offenders, and for purposes of the Eighth Amendment, a juvenile is a person under the age of 18 years at the time of the offense. Id., 560 U.S. at ––––, 130 S.Ct. at 2030 (“Because ‘[t]he age of 18 is the point where society draws the line for many purposes between childhood and adulthood,’ those who were below that age when the offense was committed may not be sentenced to life without parole for a nonhomicide crime.”)(quoting Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551, 574, 125 S.Ct. 1183, 1198, 161 L.Ed.2d 1 (2005))(state may not impose capital punishment on offenders who were under the age of 18 years when their crimes were committed).

The decision in Graham does not require this Court to order the immediate release of relators from state supervision or to adopt a remedy that would guarantee immediate release by virtue of credit for time served. To this extent, the rulings below are affirmed. Graham does require that relators, and all other persons similarly situated, have a meaningful opportunity to secure release as a “regular part of the rehabilitative process.” We therefore hold, as we must under Graham, that the Eighth Amendment precludes the state from interposing the Governor's ad hoc exercise of executive clemency as a gateway to accessing procedures the state has established for ameliorating long terms of imprisonment as part of the rehabilitative process to which inmates serving life terms for non-homicide crimes committed when they were under the age of 18 years would otherwise have access, once they reach the age of 45 years and have served 20 years of their sentences in actual custody.⁴ The state thus may not enforce the commutation provisos in [2011-1756 (La. 4] La.R.S. 15:574.4(A)(2) and 15:574.4(B) against relators and all other similarly situated persons, and the former provisions offer objective criteria set by the legislature that may bring Louisiana into compliance with the Graham decision.⁵

We therefore amend the sentence of relator Dyer to delete the restriction on parole eligibility. The Department of Corrections

[77 So.3d 943]

is directed to revise relator Dyer's prison master to reflect that his sentence is no longer without benefit of parole. Further, the Department is directed to revise relators' prison masters according to the criteria in La.R.S. 15:574.4(A)(2) to reflect an eligibility date for consideration by the Board of Parole.⁶ We reiterate that this Court is not ordering relators released on parole. The determination of whether relators may be released on parole falls within the exclusive purview of the Board of Parole, charged with the duty of ordering parole “only for the best interest of society, not as an award of clemency.” La. R.S. 15:574.4.1(B). Access to the Board's consideration will satisfy the mandate of Graham.

AFFIRMED WITH INSTRUCTIONS

JOHNSON, J., dissents and assigns reasons.

[2011-1756 (La. 1] JOHNSON, J., dissents and assigns reasons.

The United States Supreme Court's historic decision in Graham v. Florida, 560 U.S. ––––, 130 S.Ct. 2011, 176 L.Ed.2d 825 (2010) held that “for a juvenile offender who did not commit homicide, the Eighth Amendment forbids the sentence of life without parole.” Graham, 560 U.S. at ––––, 130 S.Ct. at 2030. Prior to Graham, the United States was the only nation in the world still adhering to the practice of sentencing juvenile offenders to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for non-homicide offenses.¹ In the United States, only a handful of jurisdictions still...