LEROY MACKEY, APPELLANT,
v.
STATE OF FLORIDA, APPELLEE
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Appellant, convicted of first-degree murder as a juvenile, appeals his mandatory life-without-parole sentence. The court affirmed the conviction but reversed the sentence as unconstitutional under Miller v. Alabama, remanding for resentencing proceedings where the trial court must consider the defendant's youth and distinctive attributes before determining an appropriate sentence.
Mandatory life-without-parole sentences for juveniles violate the Eighth Amendment. The proper remedy is to remand for resentencing proceedings where the trial court must expressly consider the juvenile's distinctive attributes of youth and their penological justifications before imposing any sentence, including life without parole.
[1] Mandatory life-without-parole sentences for juveniles violate the Eighth Amendment.
[2] A trial court's determination that the State did not present false testimony is supported by the record when the record contains such support.
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence“mandatory life-without-parole sentences for juveniles violate the Eighth Amendment”
Establishes the constitutional holding from Miller v. Alabama that is the foundation for the court's reversal of the sentence.
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceAppellant was a juvenile at the time he committed first-degree murder and was sentenced to mandatory life imprisonment without parole. The trial court…
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Appellant appeals the trial court’s denial of his motion for a new trial with respect to his conviction for first-degree murder. Finding no error, we affirm the trial court’s ruling as well as Appellant’s conviction. The trial court’s determination that the State did not present false testimony is supported by the record; accordingly, we affirm appellant’s conviction without further discussion.
Appellant also asserts that, as he was a juvenile at the time of his offense, the trial court’s imposition of a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment without parole is unconstitutional under Miller v. Alabama, — U.S. —, 132 S.Ct. 2455, 2464, 183 L.Ed.2d 407 (2012). In Miller, the Supreme Court of the United States held that “mandatory life-without-parole sentences for juveniles violate the Eighth Amendment.” Id. (emphasis added).
The State concedes that Appellant’s sentence is unconstitutional. However, the State argues that the proper remedy is to resentence Appellant to a term of life with the possibility of parole after 25 years based on the “principles of statutory revival.” Two of our sister courts have accepted the State’s position, and the Florida Supreme Court has granted review of the issue. See Horsley v. State, 121 So.3d 1130 (Fla. 5th DCA 2013), review granted, No. SC13-1938, 2013 WL 6224657 (Fla.2013); Rodriguez-Giudicelli v. State, 143 So.3d 947 (Fla. 2d DCA 2014).
Consistent with this court’s decisions, as well as decisions of the First1 and Third2 District Courts of Appeal, we reverse and remand to the trial court “to conduct further sentencing proceedings and expressly consider whether any of the numerous ‘distinctive attributes of youth’ referenced in Miller apply in this case so as to diminish the ‘penological justifications’ for imposing a life-without-parole sentence upon appellant.” Daugherty v. State, 96 So.3d 1076, 1080 (Fla. 4th DCA 2012); see also Juarez v. State, 138 So.3d 1094 (Fla. 4th DCA *492014); Brighton v. State, 141 So.3d 579 (Fla. 4th DCA 2014). The trial court is “not preclude[d] ... from again imposing a life term without possibility of parole should the court upon reconsideration deem such sentence justified.” Daugherty, 96 So.3d at 1080; see also Thomas v. State, 135 So.3d 590, 593 (Fla. 1st DCA 2014) (Osterhaus, J., specially concurring) (noting with approval the trial court’s Miller resentencing of a juvenile offender to a “substantial term of [forty] years without parole”).
Affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded.
WARNER, FORST and KLINGENSMITH, JJ„ concur.
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
Citator
Authorities Cited
- Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460 (U.S. 2012)
- Washington v. State, 103 So. 3d 917 (Fla. 1st DCA 2012)
- Horsley v. State, 121 So. 3d 1130 (Fla. 5th DCA 2013)
- Markeil Deshon Thomas v. State, 135 So. 3d 590 (Fla. 1st DCA 2014)
- Daugherty v. State, 96 So. 3d 1076 (Fla. 4th DCA 2012)
- Hernandez v. State, 117 So. 3d 778 (Fla. 3d DCA 2013)
- Rodriguez-Giudicelli v. State, 143 So. 3d 947 (Fla. 2d DCA 2014)
- Brighton v. State, 141 So. 3d 579 (Fla. 4th DCA 2014)
- Berenice Juarez v. State, 138 So. 3d 1094 (Fla. 4th DCA 2014)