Celvin Brooks v. State ( 2019 )

Opinion issued September 24, 2019
In The
Court of Appeals
For The
First District of Texas
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NO. 01-18-00175-CR
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CELVIN BROOKS, Appellant
V.
THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee
On Appeal from the 184th District Court
Harris County, Texas
Trial Court Case No. 1515314
CONCURRING OPINION
Relying on Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460 (2012), Celvin Brooks argues
that the imposition of a mandatory life sentence without the possibility of parole
until he has served 40 years of his sentence is unconstitutional, given that he
committed the crime as a juvenile. As it must, our court rejects his argument. In
Lewis v. State, 428 S.W.3d 860 (Tex. Crim. App. 2014), the Texas Court of Criminal
Appeals held that the mandatory sentencing scheme at issue does not run afoul of
the constitution as interpreted in Miller. See id. at 863–64. We are bound to follow
and apply Lewis. Because Lewis was wrongly decided, however, I do so under
protest.
In Miller, the United States Supreme Court held that the imposition of
mandatory life imprisonment without the possibility of parole on juvenile defendants
violates the Eighth Amendment’s guarantee against cruel and unusual punishment.
567 U.S. at 479. As the Court explained, fundamental cognitive differences in
juvenile offenders make them inherently less culpable than adults. See id. at 470–
73. Owing to the Eighth Amendment’s requirement that punishment be
proportionate, the inherent differences between juveniles and adults make juveniles
“constitutionally different from adults for purposes of sentencing.” Id. at 471.
Consequently, when sentencing juvenile offenders, the State may not impose its
severest penalties without taking their youth into consideration. Id. at 474.
Lewis interprets Miller narrowly, holding that Miller forbids sentencing
schemes that impose a mandatory life sentence without the possibility of parole and
no more. 428 S.W.3d at 863–64. According to the Court of Criminal Appeals,
Texas’s statutory scheme thus passes constitutional muster because it allows
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juveniles subject to a mandatory life sentence the possibility of parole after 40 years.
See id.
While Lewis correctly states Miller’s holding, it gives insufficient weight to
the rationale underlying that holding: that juvenile offenders are constitutionally
different. Miller itself was an extension of prior decisions that turned on this
constitutional difference. See 567 U.S. at 470–80 (relying on Roper v. Simmons, 543
U.S. 551 (2005) (Eighth Amendment bars capital punishment for juveniles), and
Graham v. Florida, 560 U.S. 48 (2010) (Eighth Amendment bars life without
possibility of parole for juveniles who commit nonhomicide offenses)). Instead of
confining these prior decisions to their literal holdings, Miller relied on their
“foundational principle: that imposition of a State’s most severe penalties on
juvenile offenders cannot proceed as though they were not children.” Id. at 474.
This foundational principle is as applicable to mandatory life imprisonment
of a juvenile offender without the possibility of parole until he has served 40 years.
A mandatory sentence of four decades minimum—one of the State’s most severe
criminal penalties—in all circumstances precludes the sentencer from considering
the offender’s youth and its hallmark features in assessing the juvenile offender’s
punishment, contrary to the Eighth Amendment. See Miller, 567 U.S. at 479–80,
489.
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Gordon Goodman
Justice
Panel consists of Justices Keyes, Kelly, and Goodman.
Justice Goodman, concurring.
Publish. TEX. R. APP. P. 47.2(b).
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