Toye v. State

• Decision Date: 22 January 2014
• Docket Number: No. 2D12–5605.,2D12–5605.
• Parties: Ashley M. TOYE, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals

133 So.3d 540

Ashley M. TOYE, Appellant,

v.STATE of Florida, Appellee.

No. 2D12–5605.

District Court of Appeal of Florida, Second District.

Jan. 22, 2014.

Limitation Recognized

West's F.S.A. § 775.082(1)

Stuart M. Pepper, Cape Coral, for Appellant.

Pamela Jo Bondi, Attorney General, Tallahassee, and Jonathan P. Hurley, Assistant Attorney General, Tampa, for Appellee.

PER CURIAM.

Ashley Toye appeals the summary denial of her motion filed pursuant to Florida Rules of Criminal Procedure 3.800(a) and 3.850, in which she claimed that the decision in Miller v. Alabama, ––– U.S. ––––, 132 S.Ct. 2455, 183 L.Ed.2d 407 (2012), rendered her mandatory sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole illegal because she was a juvenile when she committed her offenses. The postconviction court dismissed her motion as untimely, relying on the Third District's decision in Geter v. State, 115 So.3d 375, 385 (Fla. 3d DCA 2012) (en banc), which held that the Miller decision does not apply retroactively. The First District reached the same conclusion in Gonzalez v. State, 101 So.3d 886, 888 (Fla. 1st DCA 2012). However for the reasons that follow, we conclude that Miller applies retroactively, certify conflict with Geter and Gonzalez, and reverse the postconviction court's order.¹

Background

A jury found Toye guilty of two counts of first-degree felony murder, two counts of kidnapping, two counts of aggravated assault, and one count of tampering with evidence based on events that occurred when Toye was seventeen years old. The trial court sentenced Toye to the required sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole for the felony murders, see§ 775.082(1), Fla. Stat. (2006), and to concurrent sentences totaling a term of twenty-fiveyears for the other charges. In 2008, before the Supreme Court issued its decision in Miller, this court affirmed Toye's judgments and sentences per curiam. Toye v. State, 988 So.2d 1104 (Fla. 2d DCA 2008) (table decision).

After the Miller decision was issued, Toye filed her postconviction motion claiming that her life sentence was illegal. The postconviction court denied the motion because it was filed more than two years after Toye's judgment and sentence became final. It also found that Miller did not apply retroactively and so did not constitute an exception to the two-year window of rule 3.850. We reverse, however, because we hold that the rule established in Miller—that a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole imposed on a juvenile homicide offender violates the Eighth Amendment—should be given retroactive effect.

Miller v. Alabama

In Miller, the Supreme Court held that “the Eighth Amendment forbids a sentencing scheme that mandates life in prison without possibility of parole for juvenile offenders.” 132 S.Ct. at 2469.Miller focused heavily on the concept of proportionality and relied on two lines of Eighth Amendment cases: (1) those that categorically banned “sentencing practices based on mismatches between the culpability of a class of offenders and the severity of a penalty,” such as Graham v. Florida, 560 U.S. 48, 130 S.Ct. 2011, 176 L.Ed.2d 825 (2010) (barring life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for juveniles convicted of nonhomicide offenses), and Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551, 125 S.Ct. 1183, 161 L.Ed.2d 1 (2005) (banning the death penalty for all juvenile offenders); and (2) those that prohibited the mandatory imposition of the death penalty and demanded individualized sentencing considerations before imposing the death penalty, such as Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U.S. 586, 98 S.Ct. 2954, 57 L.Ed.2d 973 (1978) (requiring that sentencing authorities not be precluded from considering the defendant's character and circumstances of the offense as mitigating circumstances for imposing the death penalty). Miller, 132 S.Ct. at 2463–64. As these cases demonstrate, the idea that “death is different” and the concept of proportionality are particularly applicable to juvenile offenders vis-à-vis sentencing.

In fact, the Miller Court acknowledged that juveniles are “constitutionally different from adults.” Id. at 2464. They are less mature, less responsible, and concomitantly more reckless and impulsive. Furthermore, juveniles sentenced to life in prison will serve a greater percentage of their lives in confinement than will an adult. These factors must be taken into account when sentencing juveniles, and they serve to bar mandatory sentences that would absolutely require juveniles to spend the remainder of their lives in prison. Id. at 2464–69. Hence, a juvenile who commits a homicide after Miller is entitled to have the court consider potentially mitigating factors before it may impose a life sentence without parole. However, only if Miller applies retroactively can Toye's sentence be revisited.

Retroactivity in Florida: The Witt Analysis

In determining whether a Supreme Court decision applies retroactively, Florida courts first look to the content and language of the opinion itself. Barrios–Cruz v. State, 63 So.3d 868, 871 (Fla. 2d DCA 2011). Because the Miller opinion is silent on retroactivity,² we must apply the three-prong test set forth in Witt v. State, 387 So.2d 922 (Fla.1980), to determine whether to apply Miller retroactively. See Johnson v. State, 904 So.2d 400, 408–09 (Fla.2005).³

Witt held that a change in decisional law that requires reversing a once-valid conviction and sentence applies retroactively only if it “(a) emanates from [the Florida Supreme] Court or the United States Supreme Court, (b) is constitutional in nature, and (c) constitutes a development of fundamental significance.” Witt, 387 So.2d at 931. There is no question that the first two prongs of the Witt analysis are satisfied in this case; we must focus solely on whether the Miller decision constitutes a development of fundamental significance.

Developments of Fundamental Significance

Under Witt, decisional developments of fundamental significance fall within two broad categories: (1) those that “ ‘place beyond the authority of the state the power to regulate certain conduct or impose certain penalties,’ and (2) ‘those ... which are of sufficient magnitude to necessitate retroactive application.’ ” Barrios–Cruz, 63 So.3d at 871 (quoting Witt, 387 So.2d at 929). In one sense, Miller would not seem to fall within the first category because it does not affect the State's power to impose certain penalties, i.e., a sentence of life without parole, because juvenile homicide offenders can still receive such a sentence under a discretionary sentencing scheme that takes into consideration the offender's “youth and attendant characteristics.” Miller, 132 S.Ct. at 2471. But the decisions in Miller and Roper effectively invalidated section 775.082(1), Florida Statutes (2012), as applied to juveniles convicted of a capital felony, such as Toye who was sentenced in 2006 under the identical statute. Hence, Miller invalidated the only statutory means for imposing a sentence of life without the possibility of parole on juveniles convicted of a capital felony. Cf. Chambers v. State, 831 N.W.2d 311, 343 (Minn.2013) (Page, J. dissenting) (arguing that since the Minnesota legislature made the sentences mandatory, sentencing authorities did not have authority from the legislature to conduct individualized determinations or exercise discretion of any kind). Arguably, Miller has dramatically disturbed the power of the State of Florida to impose a nondiscretionary sentence of life without parole on a juvenile convicted of a capital felony, and thus the decision falls within this first category of developments of fundamental significance.

Stovall–Linkletter Test

It is even more apparent that Miller falls within the second category of developments of fundamental significance—those “which are of sufficient magnitude to necessitate retroactive application” under the three-part Stovall–Linkletter⁴ test. Witt, 387 So.2d at 929. That three-fold test considers: “(a) the purpose to be served by the new rule; (b) the extent of reliance on the old rule; and (c) the effect on the administration of justice of a retroactive application of the new rule.” Id. at 926.

In developing the second category, the Florida Supreme Court adapted the then-current ABA Standards Relating to Post–Conviction Remedies. See id. at 929 n. 25. Under the ABA standards, Miller would apply retroactively because it is a significant change in the law that forbids sentencing authorities from ignoring a juvenile's “diminished culpability and heightened capacity for change,” thereby lessening the risk of disproportionate punishment. 132 S.Ct. at 2469. But because the sentencing authority cannot consider a juvenile's youth and attendant circumstances without an evidentiary hearing, Miller not only changed rules of procedure but also afforded a class of offenders the right to individualized sentencing determinations in accordance with the proportionality doctrine undergirding the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. Therefore, Miller is inarguably “a significant change in law, whether substantive or procedural, applied in the process leading to [the] applicant's conviction or sentence.” Witt, 387 So.2d at 929 n. 25 (quoting ABA Standards Relating to Post–Conviction Remedies § 2.1(a)(vi) (Approv. Draft 1968)). In addition, each part of the Stovall–Linkletter test supports this conclusion.

a.The Purpose to be Served

First, the purpose to be served by Miller weighs heavily in favor of applying it retroactively. Miller 's discussion of individualized attendant circumstances, such as the juvenile's age, the juvenile's family and home environment, the circumstances of the homicide, and the extent of the juvenile's participation in the homicide, makes clear that these particular considerations could not be generically predetermined by the legislature. 132 S.Ct. at 2469. The...