Rebecca Lee Falcon v. State of Florida

Supreme Court of Florida
____________
No. SC13-865
____________
REBECCA LEE FALCON,
Petitioner,
vs.
STATE OF FLORIDA,
Respondent.
[March 19, 2015]
PARIENTE, J.
The issue in this case is whether the United States Supreme Court’s decision
in Miller v. Alabama, 132 S. Ct. 2455, 2469 (2012)—which “forbids a sentencing
scheme that mandates life in prison without possibility of parole for juvenile
offenders”—applies to juvenile offenders whose convictions and sentences were
already final at the time Miller was decided. Considering this issue, and in reliance
on its prior decision in Gonzalez v. State, 101 So. 3d 886, 888 (Fla. 1st DCA
2012), the First District Court of Appeal concluded in Falcon v. State, 111 So. 3d
973, 973 (Fla. 1st DCA 2013), that Miller did not apply retroactively to juvenile
offenders seeking to challenge the constitutionality of their sentences, pursuant to
Miller, through collateral review.
All of Florida’s other district courts of appeal have addressed this same
issue, with conflicting results. The Third and Fifth District Courts of Appeal have
concluded, consistent with the First District, that Miller is not retroactive, while the
Second and Fourth District Courts of Appeal have held, to the contrary, that it is.
Compare Geter v. State, 115 So. 3d 375, 385 (Fla. 3d DCA 2012), and Anderson v.
State, 105 So. 3d 538, 538 (Fla. 5th DCA 2013) (table decision), with Toye v.
State, 133 So. 3d 540, 547 (Fla. 2d DCA 2014), and Cotto v. State, 141 So. 3d 615,
617 (Fla. 4th DCA 2014).
Noting the split of state and federal authority on the issue of whether Miller
should be given retroactive effect, the First District in Falcon certified the
following question of great public importance for this Court’s review:
WHETHER THE RULE ESTABLISHED IN MILLER V.
ALABAMA, 132 S. Ct. 2455, 2460 (2012), “THAT MANDATORY
LIFE WITHOUT PAROLE FOR THOSE UNDER THE AGE OF 18
AT THE TIME OF THEIR CRIMES VIOLATES THE EIGHTH
AMENDMENT[ ],” SHOULD BE GIVEN RETROACTIVE
EFFECT?
Falcon, 111 So. 3d at 973-74. We accepted jurisdiction to resolve this
important issue that has an impact on many cases pending in our state courts.
See art. V, § 3(b)(4), Fla. Const.
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Applying this Court’s test for retroactivity, as articulated in Witt v. State,
387 So. 2d 922, 931 (Fla. 1980), we conclude that the rule set forth in Miller
constitutes a “development of fundamental significance” and therefore must be
given retroactive effect.1 We would reach the same conclusion if we were to apply
the test for retroactivity set forth in Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288, 307 (1989).
Accordingly, we answer the certified question in the affirmative and hold
that the Supreme Court’s decision in Miller applies retroactively to juvenile
offenders whose convictions and sentences were final at the time Miller was
1. Although state and federal courts are split on the issue of the retroactive
application of Miller, our conclusion finds support in the recent trend of courts
across the country holding that Miller applies retroactively, even under the less
expansive test for retroactivity applied under federal law and by many states
pursuant to Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288 (1989). See, e.g., In re Pendleton, 732
F.3d 280, 282 (3d Cir. 2013) (concluding after “extensive briefing” that the
defendants had “made a prima facie showing that Miller is retroactive”); Johnson
v. United States, 720 F.3d 720, 721 (8th Cir. 2013) (noting that the “government
here has conceded that Miller is retroactive”); People v. Davis, 6 N.E.3d 709, 722
(Ill. 2014) (holding that Miller applies retroactively); State v. Ragland, 836
N.W.2d 107, 117 (Iowa 2013) (retroactive); Diatchenko v. Dist. Att’y for Suffolk
Dist., 1 N.E.3d 270, 281 (Mass. 2013) (retroactive); Jones v. State, 122 So. 3d 698,
703 (Miss. 2013) (retroactive); State v. Mantich, 842 N.W.2d 716, 732 (Neb. 2014)
(retroactive); Petition of State of N.H., 103 A.3d 227, 236 (N.H. 2014)
(retroactive); Aiken v. Byars, 765 S.E.2d 572, 575 (S.C. 2014) (retroactive); Ex
parte Maxwell, 424 S.W.3d 66, 68 (Tex. Crim. App. 2014) (retroactive); State v.
Mares, 335 P.3d 487, 508 (Wyo. 2014) (retroactive). But see Johnson v. Ponton,
No. 13-7824, 2015 WL 924049, at *5 (4th Cir. Mar. 5, 2015) (holding that Miller
does not apply retroactively); In re Morgan, 713 F.3d 1365, 1367-68 (11th Cir.
2013) (not retroactive); State v. Tate, 130 So. 3d 829, 844 (La. 2013) (not
retroactive); Chambers v. State, 831 N.W.2d 311, 331 (Minn. 2013) (not
retroactive); Commonwealth v. Cunningham, 81 A.3d 1, 10-11 (Pa. 2013) (not
retroactive).
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decided. Under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.850(b)(2), any affected
juvenile offender shall have two years from the time the mandate issues in this case
to file a motion for postconviction relief in the trial court seeking to correct his or
her sentence pursuant to Miller.
Based on our decision in Horsley v. State, No. SC13-1938, slip op. at 3 (Fla.
Mar. 19, 2015), we conclude that the appropriate remedy for any juvenile offender
whose sentence is now unconstitutional under Miller is a resentencing pursuant to
the framework established in legislation enacted by the Florida Legislature in
2014. See ch. 2014-220, Laws of Fla. We therefore quash the First District’s
decision and remand this case for resentencing in conformance with chapter 2014-
220, Laws of Florida, which has been codified in sections 775.082, 921.1401, and
921.1402 of the Florida Statutes.
FACTS AND BACKGROUND
Rebecca Lee Falcon was fifteen years old in late 1997 when she took part in
an attempted robbery that resulted in the death of a cab driver. According to an
affidavit from a clinical psychologist specializing in adolescent development, who
conducted several evaluations and interviews with Falcon in the years after the
crime, Falcon’s childhood leading up to that point had been traumatic, including
having suffered sexual and emotional abuse from her stepfather and continued
sexual exploitation from peers at school. By the time of the crime, Falcon asserted
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that she was experiencing “low self-esteem,” had started smoking marijuana, and
was “desperate for attention” such that she would “do things just for approval.”
On the night of the crime, Falcon reported that her boyfriend, with whom
she professed to have fallen in love because he was “the first person who seemed
to care for” her, ended their relationship since he was seeing someone else.
Hoping to “sleep off her sadness,” she consumed alcohol and became intoxicated.
Falcon stated that, while drunk, she received an invitation to sneak out of the house
and made an “impulsive” decision to go because she “was still not popular” and
wanted “to be accepted.”
Asserting that she was trying “to fit in” and act “brave” to mask her “true
feelings of insecurity,” Falcon “agreed to the idea of a robbery,” expecting to “get
the money and go” as she claimed she had seen in “the movies.” However, when
the robbery did not proceed as expected, she alleged that she “panicked” and,
though not “want[ing] to kill someone,” ultimately participated in causing the
shooting death of the attempted robbery victim.
Falcon was convicted of first-degree murder and attempted armed robbery
with a firearm and sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole
for the murder and 207.5 months in prison for the attempted armed robbery. Under
the version of the relevant Florida statute then in effect, section 775.082(1), Florida
Statutes (1997), Falcon’s sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole
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for the first-degree murder was mandatory.2 Her convictions and sentences were
affirmed on direct appeal by the First District in 2001. See Falcon v. State, 781 So.
2d 1086, 1086 (Fla. 1st DCA 2001) (table decision).
More than a decade after her convictions and sentences became final, the
United States Supreme Court issued its decision in Miller, 132 S. Ct. at 2469,
holding that the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment
“forbids a sentencing scheme that mandates life in prison without possibility of
parole for juvenile offenders.” There is no dispute following Miller that the statute
under which Falcon was sentenced for first-degree murder, which mandated life in
prison without the possibility of parole, is unconstitutional as applied to juvenile
offenders.
Subsequently, in August 2012, Falcon filed a motion for postconviction
relief and to correct an illegal sentence, asserting that her mandatory sentence of
2. The statute under which Falcon was sentenced provided in pertinent part
as follows:
A person who has been convicted of a capital felony shall be
punished by death if the proceeding held to determine sentence
according to the procedure set forth in s. 921.141 results in findings
by the court that such person shall be punished by death, otherwise
such person shall be punished by life imprisonment and shall be
ineligible for parole.
§ 775.082(1), Fla. Stat. (emphasis added). Because she was a juvenile under the
age of eighteen at the time of the murder, Falcon is ineligible for the death penalty.
See Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551, 568 (2005).
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life imprisonment without the possibility of parole is unconstitutional under Miller
and that she is therefore entitled to be resentenced. In her motion, Falcon argued
that Miller should be applied retroactively and that the trial court must vacate her
life sentence and, pursuant to Miller, conduct an individualized resentencing
hearing in order to take into account her age and age-related characteristics in
imposing an appropriate sentence.
The trial court denied Falcon’s motion on the basis that the First District had
already held, in Gonzalez, 101 So. 3d at 888, that Miller did not apply
retroactively. Specifically, in Gonzalez, the First District concluded, consistent
with a prior decision from the Third District, that Miller was a procedural, rather
than substantive, change in the law and that retroactive application of Miller
“would greatly affect the administration of justice” by opening the floodgates for
postconviction motions. Id. at 887 (citing Geter, 115 So. 3d at 383).
Falcon appealed the trial court’s denial of her motion for postconviction
relief to the First District, which affirmed the denial of relief based on its previous
decision in Gonzalez. Falcon, 111 So. 3d at 974. However, the First District
certified a question of great public importance to this Court as to whether Miller
should be applied retroactively. Id.
Chief Judge Benton concurred in the First District’s decision on the basis of
the First District’s Gonzalez precedent, but wrote separately to explain that, in his
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view, the Supreme Court’s decision in Miller should be applied retroactively. In
support of this conclusion, Chief Judge Benton relied on the fact that the Supreme
Court had granted relief to two separate defendants in its Miller decision, Evan
Miller of Alabama and Kuntrell Jackson of Arkansas, whose cases were
consolidated and argued in tandem. Id. at 974 (Benton, C.J., concurring).
Miller, the defendant in the Alabama case, initially appealed his conviction
and sentence directly to the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals, and then obtained
further, direct review in the United States Supreme Court. However, “Jackson, the
defendant in the Arkansas case—like the appellant in our case—had reached the
end of the line on direct appeal, without obtaining any relief.” Id. (footnote
omitted). Only after Jackson did not prevail in challenging his sentence on direct
appeal and he sought collateral relief, which the state courts denied, did the United
States Supreme Court grant review in Jackson’s case and ultimately provide him
relief. Based upon the Supreme Court’s treatment of Jackson, Chief Judge Benton
concluded that Miller should be applied retroactively. Id. at 975-76.
ANALYSIS
The question certified by the First District in this case asks whether the
United States Supreme Court’s decision in Miller, 132 S. Ct. at 2469, which held
that the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment
“forbids a sentencing scheme that mandates life in prison without possibility of
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parole for juvenile offenders,” should be applied retroactively. In answering the
certified question, we undertake the following analysis. First, we summarize the
Supreme Court’s decision in Miller and explain its relation to the Supreme Court’s
prior decision in Graham v. Florida, 560 U.S. 48 (2010). Then, with this
background established, we analyze whether Miller should be given retroactive
effect under this Court’s retroactivity standard, as articulated in Witt, 387 So. 2d
922. Finally, after concluding that the Supreme Court’s decision in Miller should
be given retroactive effect, we explain the appropriate remedy for trial courts to
employ when applying Miller retroactively to cases on collateral review.
I. The Supreme Court’s Decision in Miller & Its Relation to Graham
A discussion of Miller appropriately begins with the Supreme Court’s prior
decision in Graham, which laid the jurisprudential foundation upon which the
subsequent Miller decision was based. In Graham, 560 U.S. at 82, the Supreme
Court held that a sentence of life without the possibility of parole violates the
Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment when imposed
on a juvenile offender convicted of a nonhomicide offense. In deciding Graham,
the Supreme Court explained that juveniles are fundamentally different than adults
for sentencing purposes, noting that juveniles are more vulnerable to negative
outside forces than adults, are incapable of engaging in conduct that is as morally
reprehensible as adults, and possess a greater potential for change than adults. Id.
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at 67-68. Based upon these differences, the Supreme Court established a
categorical rule that bars the imposition of a sentence of life imprisonment without
the possibility of parole in all circumstances for every juvenile offender convicted
of a nonhomicide offense. Id. at 82.
Subsequently, in Miller, the Supreme Court reviewed two cases in which
defendants were sentenced to mandatory terms of life imprisonment without the
possibility of parole for homicide offenses committed while they were juveniles.
The Supreme Court reversed the sentences imposed and held that “mandatory life
without parole for those under the age of 18 at the time of their crimes violates the
Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on ‘cruel and unusual punishments.’ ” Id.
Although the Supreme Court did not categorically foreclose a sentencer’s ability to
impose a sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole on a
homicide offender, as it did with respect to nonhomicide offenders in Graham,
Miller held that before a sentencer may impose a sentence of life imprisonment
without the possibility of parole on a juvenile homicide offender, the sentencer
must first “take into account how children are different, and how those differences
counsel against irrevocably sentencing them to a lifetime in prison.” Id. at 2469.
Although the Supreme Court made clear that it was not addressing the
defendants’ argument “that the Eighth Amendment requires a categorical bar on
life without parole for juveniles, or at least for those 14 and younger,” the Supreme
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Court cautioned that “given all [it has] said in Roper [v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551
(2005)], Graham, and [Miller] about children’s diminished culpability and
heightened capacity for change, . . . appropriate occasions for sentencing juveniles
to this harshest possible penalty will be uncommon.” Id. The Supreme Court
emphasized that this is “especially so because of the great difficulty [the Supreme
Court] noted in Roper and Graham of distinguishing at this early age between ‘the
juvenile offender whose crime reflects unfortunate yet transient immaturity, and
the rare juvenile offender whose crime reflects irreparable corruption.’ ” Id.
(quoting Roper, 543 U.S. at 573).
Because the statutory sentencing scheme in effect in Florida from May 1994
until July 2014 mandated a sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of
parole for a capital homicide offense committed by a juvenile, there is no dispute
that, under Miller, the statute is unconstitutional as applied to juvenile offenders.
The district courts of appeal are split, however, on the issue of whether Miller
should apply retroactively to provide relief to those juvenile offenders whose
sentences would be unconstitutional under Miller but whose convictions and
sentences were already final when Miller was decided. Compare Geter, 115 So. 3d
at 385, with Toye, 133 So. 3d at 541.
II. Retroactivity of Miller
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When the United States Supreme Court or this Court renders a decision
favorable to criminal defendants, this Court has held that “such decisions apply in
all cases to convictions that are not yet final—that is convictions for which an
appellate court mandate has not yet issued.” Hughes v. State, 901 So. 2d 837, 839
(Fla. 2005) (citing Smith v. State, 598 So. 2d 1063, 1066 (Fla. 1992)). However,
once a conviction is final, the State acquires an interest in the finality of the
conviction. As this Court has previously stated:
The importance of finality in any justice system, including the
criminal justice system, cannot be understated. It has long been
recognized that, for several reasons, litigation must, at some point,
come to an end. In terms of the availability of judicial resources,
cases must eventually become final simply to allow effective appellate
review of other cases. There is no evidence that subsequent collateral
review is generally better than contemporaneous appellate review for
ensuring that a conviction or sentence is just. Moreover, an absence
of finality casts a cloud of tentativeness over the criminal justice
system, benefitting neither the person convicted nor society as a
whole.
Witt, 387 So. 2d at 925. Nonetheless, this Court has also recognized that the
doctrine of finality can be abridged when
a more compelling objective appears, such as ensuring fairness and
uniformity in individual adjudications. Thus, society recognizes that a
sweeping change of law can so drastically alter the substantive or
procedural underpinnings of a final conviction and sentence that the
machinery of post-conviction relief is necessary to avoid individual
instances of obvious injustice. Considerations of fairness and
uniformity make it very difficult to justify depriving a person of his
liberty or his life, under process no longer considered acceptable and
no longer applied to indistinguishable cases.
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Id. (internal quotation marks omitted).
In determining whether a change in the law should apply retroactively, this
Court must balance these two competing interests—the need for decisional finality
with the concern for fairness and uniformity. This determination is governed by
this Court’s decision in Witt, 387 So. 2d at 931, which held that a change in the
law does not apply retroactively in Florida “unless the change: (a) emanates from
this Court or the United States Supreme Court, (b) is constitutional in nature, and
(c) constitutes a development of fundamental significance.”
In this case, it is clear, and the parties agree, that the first two prongs are
met. Miller is obviously a decision emanating from the United States Supreme
Court, and its holding that the Eighth Amendment “forbids a sentencing scheme
that mandates life in prison without possibility of parole for juvenile offenders” is
clearly constitutional in nature. Miller, 132 S. Ct. at 2469. Accordingly, the
determinative question in this case is whether Miller “constitutes a development of
fundamental significance.” Witt, 387 So. 2d at 931.
In Witt, this Court stated that “[a]lthough specific determinations regarding
the significance of various legal developments must be made on a case-by-case
basis, history shows that most major constitutional changes are likely to fall within
two broad categories.” Id. at 929. The first are those changes of law “which place
beyond the authority of the state the power to regulate certain conduct or impose
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certain penalties” and the second are “those changes of law which are of sufficient
magnitude to necessitate retroactive application as ascertained by the three-fold
test of [the United States Supreme Court’s decisions in] Stovall [v. Denno, 388
U.S. 293 (1967)] and Linkletter [v. Walker, 381 U.S. 618 (1965)].” Id. The three-
fold analysis under Stovall and Linkletter includes an analysis of “(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.”
Witt, 387 So. 2d at 926.
Falcon asserts that the Supreme Court’s decision in Miller falls within the
first category. Specifically, Falcon contends that the Supreme Court’s decision
announces a new substantive bar to mandatory life sentences without the
possibility of parole for all juveniles and proclaims that the Eighth Amendment
forbids such mandatory sentencing schemes. Conversely, the State argues that
Miller does not preclude states from imposing life sentences without the possibility
of parole, but instead simply alters the procedures that must be followed before
such a sentence may be imposed.
We reject the State’s argument. As articulated by the Second District in
Toye, Miller “effectively invalidated section 775.082(1), Florida Statutes (2012),
as applied to juveniles convicted of a capital felony . . . . Hence, Miller invalidated
the only statutory means for imposing a sentence of life without the possibility of
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parole on juveniles convicted of a capital felony.” Toye, 133 So. 3d at 543. In
other words, “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” that place beyond the authority of the
state the power to regulate certain conduct or impose certain penalties. Id.
Judge Van Nortwick, specially concurring in Smith v. State, reached a
similar conclusion:
Under Miller, a defendant cannot be given a mandatory sentence of
life without parole if the defendant was a juvenile when the offense
was committed. That is, Miller categorically bans mandatory life
sentences for juveniles. Thus, Miller “[p]laces beyond the authority
of the state [of Florida] the power to . . . impose [a] certain
penalt[y]”—mandatory life sentences for juveniles.
113 So. 3d 1058, 1062 (Fla. 1st DCA 2013) (Van Nortwick, J., specially
concurring).
Clearly, by invalidating section 775.082(1), Florida Statutes, as applied to
juveniles convicted of a capital homicide offense, Miller announced a prohibition
on the state’s power to “impose certain penalties”—nondiscretionary sentences of
life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Indeed, prior to the Supreme
Court’s decision in Miller, trial courts in Florida were required, under the statutory
sentencing scheme then in effect, to sentence a juvenile offender convicted of a
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capital homicide offense to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
This statute, all parties agree, is no longer constitutional after Miller.
The fact that Miller did not categorically foreclose a trial court’s ability to
impose a sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole in
“uncommon” circumstances, after individualized consideration, is not dispositive
in determining whether Miller fits within the first category of major constitutional
changes that “place beyond the authority of the state the power to regulate certain
conduct or impose certain penalties.” Witt, 387 So. 2d at 929. The state is no
longer able to impose a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment without the
possibility of parole on a juvenile—the only statutory penalty that was provided for
a capital homicide offense for over twenty years under Florida law until Miller
ruled that sentence unconstitutional. Under these circumstances, this alone is
sufficient reason to conclude that Miller should be applied retroactively.
As this Court stated in Witt, “[c]onsiderations of fairness and uniformity
make it very ‘difficult to justify depriving a person of his liberty or his life, under
process no longer considered acceptable and no longer applied to indistinguishable
cases.’ ” Id. at 925 (quoting ABA Standards Relating to Postconviction Remedies
37 (Approved Draft 1968)). Here, if Miller is not applied retroactively, it is
beyond dispute that some juvenile offenders will spend their entire lives in prison
while others with “indistinguishable cases” will serve lesser sentences merely
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because their convictions and sentences were not final when the Miller decision
was issued. The patent unfairness of depriving indistinguishable juvenile offenders
of their liberty for the rest of their lives, based solely on when their cases were
decided, weighs heavily in favor of applying the Supreme Court’s decision in
Miller retroactively.
For all these reasons, we conclude that the Supreme Court’s decision in
Miller constitutes a “development of fundamental significance” under Witt and
therefore applies retroactively. We would reach the same conclusion that Miller is
retroactive if we were to apply the federal test established in Teague, 489 U.S. at
307. Pursuant to Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.850(b)(2), any affected
juvenile offender shall have two years from the time the mandate issues in this case
to file a motion for postconviction relief in the trial court seeking to correct his or
her sentence based on Miller.
Because we have concluded that Miller constitutes a change of law “which
place[s] beyond the authority of the state the power to regulate certain conduct or
impose certain penalties,” Witt, 387 So. 2d at 929, we need not determine whether
the rule articulated in Miller satisfies the three-fold analysis under Stovall and
Linkletter. We do observe, however, that our holding of retroactivity is consistent
with the Supreme Court’s own treatment of Arkansas defendant Kuntrell Jackson
in the Miller decision itself. As Chief Judge Benton observed in his concurrence
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below, Jackson’s direct appeal of his conviction and sentence was already final
when he sought collateral relief through a postconviction habeas petition that the
Supreme Court ultimately consolidated with the Miller case. See Falcon, 111 So.
3d at 974-75 (Benton, C.J., concurring). In reversing the Arkansas state court’s
denial of relief and remanding Jackson’s case for resentencing, the Supreme Court
strongly suggested that the rule articulated in Miller should apply retroactively to
cases on collateral review.
Having concluded that juvenile offenders whose convictions and sentences
were final prior to the Supreme Court’s decision in Miller may seek collateral
relief based on that decision, we now turn to the appropriate remedy for trial courts
to employ when addressing these cases on collateral review.
III. The Appropriate Remedy
In Horsley v. State, No. SC13-1938, slip op. at 3 (Fla. Mar. 19, 2015), we
have concluded that legislation enacted by the Florida Legislature in 2014 to bring
Florida’s juvenile sentencing statutes into compliance with Miller and Graham
provides the appropriate remedy for all juvenile offenders whose sentences are
unconstitutional under Miller, even if the juvenile’s offense was committed prior to
the July 1, 2014, effective date of the legislation. In this case, the State has
conceded that, if Miller applies retroactively, there are “no principled distinctions”
as to the appropriate remedy for cases on collateral review and those pending on
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direct appeal, as in the posture of Horsley. Thus, based on the reasoning fully set
forth in Horsley, we conclude that trial courts should apply chapter 2014-220,
Laws of Florida, and conduct a resentencing proceeding in conformance with that
legislation, when presented with a timely rule 3.850 motion for postconviction
relief from any juvenile offender whose sentence is unconstitutional under Miller.
Here, the trial court should hold an individualized sentencing hearing for
Falcon pursuant to section two of chapter 2014-220, Laws of Florida, in which the
trial court shall consider the enumerated and any other pertinent factors “relevant
to the offense and [Falcon’s] youth and attendant circumstances.” Ch. 2014-220,
§ 2, Laws of Fla.3 Under section 1 of chapter 2014-220, Laws of Florida, the trial
court must determine whether Falcon “actually killed, intended to kill, or attempted
to kill the victim.” Ch. 2014-220, § 1, Laws of Fla.4 If the trial court determines
3. Although the particular facts of Falcon’s crime are not directly relevant to
the legal issues we address at this time, record evidence suggests that she is exactly
the type of juvenile offender the United States Supreme Court was referring to in
Miller and its other recent juvenile sentencing cases regarding the “characteristics
of youth, and the way they weaken rationales for punishment”—a juvenile with a
troubled upbringing, whose offense was influenced by “familial and peer
pressures,” and who has shown great capacity for remorse and rehabilitation.
Miller, 132 S. Ct. at 2465-66, 2468.
4. The record currently before us does not conclusively establish this fact.
Although there appears to be some indication that Falcon has admitted to firing the
gun, the jury did not find Falcon to have had actual possession of a firearm during
the attempted armed robbery. We leave this determination for the trial court on
remand.
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that Falcon “actually killed, intended to kill, or attempted to kill the victim,” then
Falcon must receive a sentence of at least forty years’ imprisonment, with
subsequent judicial review of her sentence after having served twenty-five years of
that sentence. If the trial court concludes that Falcon did not “actually kill, intend
to kill, or attempt to kill the victim,” the trial court has broader discretion to impose
a sentence of any lesser term of years, with judicial review after fifteen years if
Falcon is sentenced to more than fifteen years’ imprisonment.5
CONCLUSION
For all these reasons, we hold that the United States Supreme Court’s
decision in Miller applies retroactively to any juvenile offender seeking to
challenge the constitutionality of his or her sentence pursuant to Miller through
collateral review. Under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.850(b)(2), any
affected juvenile offender shall have two years from the time the mandate issues in
this case to file a motion for postconviction relief in the trial court seeking to
correct his or her sentence pursuant to Miller.
We further conclude that a trial court presented with a timely motion under
rule 3.850 from any juvenile offender whose sentence is unconstitutional under
5. Because Falcon has already served more than fifteen years of a sentence
for her first-degree murder conviction, it is possible, depending on the sentence she
ultimately receives on remand, that she will be immediately eligible for a sentence
review after being resentenced. However, we leave it to the trial court to resolve
any specific issues relating to application of the new legislation in this case.
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Miller shall apply the juvenile sentencing legislation enacted by the Florida
Legislature in 2014 and conduct a resentencing proceeding consistent with the
provisions of chapter 2014-220, Laws of Florida, and our decision in Horsley.
Accordingly, we answer the First District’s certified question regarding
retroactivity in the affirmative, quash the underlying decision, and remand this case
for resentencing in conformance with chapter 2014-220, Laws of Florida.
It is so ordered.
LABARGA, C.J., and LEWIS, QUINCE, CANADY, POLSTON, and PERRY, JJ.,
concur.
NOT FINAL UNTIL TIME EXPIRES TO FILE REHEARING MOTION, AND
IF FILED, DETERMINED.
Application for Review of the Decision of the District Court of Appeal - Certified
Great Public Importance
First District - Case No. 1D13-34
(Bay County)
Elliot H. Scherker of Greenberg Traurig, P.A., Miami, Florida; Paolo Giuseppe
Annino, Co-Director, Public Interest Law Center, Florida State College of Law,
Tallahassee, Florida; and Karen Marcia Gottlieb, Coconut Grove, Florida,
for Petitioner
Pamela Jo Bondi, Attorney General, and Trisha Meggs Pate, Bureau Chief,
Tallahassee, Florida,
for Respondent
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Marsha L. Levick, Juvenile Law Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and George
E. Schulz, Jr. of Holland & Knight, Jacksonville, Florida,
for Amici Curiae Juvenile Law Center, et al.
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