Shimeeka Daquiel Gridine v. State of Florida

Supreme Court of Florida
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No. SC12-1223
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SHIMEEKA DAQUIEL GRIDINE,
Petitioner,
vs.
STATE OF FLORIDA,
Respondent.
[March 19, 2015]
PERRY, J.
This case is before the Court for review of the decision of the First District
Court of Appeal in Gridine v. State, 93 So. 3d 360 (Fla. 1st DCA 2012). In its
decision, the district court certified the following question as one of great public
importance:
DOES THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT DECISION IN
GRAHAM V. FLORIDA, 560 U.S. 48 (2010), PROHIBIT
SENTENCING A FOURTEEN–YEAR–OLD TO A PRISON
SENTENCE OF SEVENTY YEARS FOR THE CRIME OF
ATTEMPTED FIRST–DEGREE MURDER?
Id. at 361 (parallel citations omitted). We have jurisdiction. See art. V, § 3(b)(4),
Fla. Const.
For the reasons that we explained in Henry v. State, No. SC12-578, slip
op. at 9-10, we determine that the seventy-year prison sentence of this juvenile
nonhomicide offender does not provide a meaningful opportunity for future
release. Therefore, Gridine’s prison sentence is unconstitutional in light of
Graham. Accordingly, we answer the certified question in the affirmative, quash
the decision on review, and remand this case to Gridine’s sentencing court.
BACKGROUND AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY
On April 21, 2009, when Gridine was fourteen years old, he was charged as
an adult with attempted first-degree murder, attempted armed robbery, and
aggravated battery. Without entering into any agreement with the State regarding
his sentencing, Gridine pleaded guilty to all three counts. The trial court accepted
Gridine’s pleas1 and adjudicated him guilty as charged.2 The trial court imposed
prison terms of seventy years for the attempted first-degree murder conviction, and
twenty-five years for the attempted armed robbery conviction. Both of Gridine’s
1. At some point before the trial court sentenced Gridine, the State nolle
prossed the aggravated battery charge.
2. The trial court set a date for sentencing and ordered a joint report in
which the Florida Department of Corrections was to prepare the presentencing
investigation (PSI) portion, and the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice was to
prepare the predisposition portion. The Departments’ joint report recommended
that the trial court impose a youthful offender sentence of six years in prison,
followed by three years of probation.
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sentences were imposed with minimum mandatory prison terms of twenty-five
years.
Gridine appealed his convictions and sentences to the First District Court of
Appeal. However, before filing an initial brief with the First District, Gridine filed
a motion with the trial court pursuant to Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure
3.800(b)(2). In his motion, Gridine argued that the sentence of seventy years with
a twenty-five-year minimum mandatory prison term for the attempted first-degree
murder conviction was a de facto life sentence on a juvenile in a nonhomicide case.
He also argued that under the rationale of Graham, his seventy-year prison
sentence constituted cruel and unusual punishment that is prohibited by the Eighth
Amendment to the United States Constitution and the comparable provision under
article I, section 17, Florida Constitution.
The trial court heard Gridine’s argument on the motion and denied all of the
requested relief. The trial court later entered an Order Denying Defendant’s
Motion to Correct Sentencing Error, which included the following pertinent points:
Even assuming arguendo Graham were to apply in this case at bar, the
Defendant is not – by law – afforded [certain] categorical protection
in light of the nature [of] his crimes and the clear intent of his actions.
Further, by the Graham Court’s own reasoning, the defendant does not
enjoy the diminished culpability of Graham because he had a clear
and premeditated intent to kill. Indeed, his intent to kill is
memorialized forever in full color.
Just because this juvenile defendant failed in his criminal and
deadly endeavor does not preclude this Court from sentencing the
defendant commensurate with the Defendant’s intent – the same intent
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possessed by a juvenile murderer. Thus, the Court finds that the
Defendant’s sentence of 70 years imprisonment, with a 25-year
minimum mandatory sentence, as to Count One, Attempted Murder in
the First Degree, is both legal and appropriate.
State v. Gridine, No. 09-6473 (Fla. 4th Cir. Ct. Mar. 18, 2011) (emphasis in
original).
The First District affirmed the trial court’s order, concluding that Graham
does not apply in Gridine’s case. Gridine v. State, 89 So. 3d 909, 910 (Fla. 1st
DCA 2011) (“In its order denying the motion, the trial court found Graham
inapplicable to Mr. Gridine’s situation on grounds that he did not face a life
sentence without the possibility of parole. We agree.”). Gridine moved the district
court for rehearing and certification. The First District denied Gridine’s motion for
rehearing, but granted his motion to certify to this Court a question of great public
importance.
ANALYSIS
Standard of Review
The certified question of great public importance before this Court is subject
to de novo review because there are no disputed facts concerning whether Gridine
was a juvenile nonhomicide offender at the time he committed attempted first-
degree murder and attempted robbery with a firearm in Duval County. See
Haygood v. State, 109 So. 3d 735, 739 (Fla. 2013) (“The certified question
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presented by the district court is solely a legal question. Thus, this Court’s review
is de novo.”).
Merits
In Graham, the Supreme Court explicitly stated that its precedent addressed
that “defendants who do not kill, intend to kill, or foresee that life will be taken are
categorically less deserving of the most serious forms of punishment than are
murderers.” Graham, 560 U.S. at 69. The Supreme Court explained that “[t]here
is a line between homicide and other serious violent offenses against the individual
[and that] [s]erious nonhomicide crimes may be devastating in their harm . . .
but . . . they cannot be compared to murder in their severity and irrevocability.” Id.
(quoting Kennedy v. Louisiana, 554 U.S. 407, 437-38 (2008)) (internal quotation
marks omitted).
The State argues that Gridine’s attempted first-degree murder conviction
should be construed as a homicide offense, which would negate the application of
the Graham standard in this case. We disagree. Long-standing precedent
unambiguously instructs that attempted first-degree murder is deemed a
nonhomicide offense under Florida law. See Tipton v. State, 97 So. 2d 277, 281
(Fla. 1957) (“[U]nder the Florida homicide statute . . . [i]t is necessary for the act
to result in the death of a human being under the definition of homicide.”); see also
Manuel v. State, 48 So. 3d 94, 97 (Fla. 2d DCA 2010) (“[S]imple logic dictates
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that attempted murder is a nonhomicide offense because death, by definition, has
not occurred. . . . Thus, we are compelled to conclude that Mr. Manuel’s attempted
murder conviction is a ‘nonhomicide’ offense under both Tipton and Graham.”).
Because attempted first-degree murder is a nonhomicide offense, we find
that Graham is applicable to this case. Therefore, we declare that his seventy-year
prison sentence is unconstitutional because it fails to provide him with a
meaningful opportunity for early release based upon a demonstration of his
maturity and rehabilitation. See Graham, 560 U.S. at 75; Henry, slip op. at 9-10.
CONCLUSION
We hereby quash the First District’s decision to the extent it affirmed the
trial court’s seventy-year prison sentence imposed on Gridine without affording
him a meaningful opportunity for early release in the future. Furthermore, we
remand Gridine’s case to the sentencing court to conduct proceedings in
accordance with Henry.
It is so ordered.
NOT FINAL UNTIL TIME EXPIRES TO FILE REHEARING MOTION, AND
IF FILED, DETERMINED.
LABARGA, C.J., and PARIENTE, LEWIS, QUINCE, CANADY, and
POLSTON, JJ., concur.
Application for Review of the Decision of the District Court of Appeal - Certified
Great Public Importance
First District - Case No. 1D10-2517
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(Duval County)
Nancy Ann Daniels, Public Defender, and Gail Elizabeth Anderson, Assistant
Public Defender, Second Judicial Circuit, Tallahassee, Florida,
for Petitioner
Pamela Jo Bondi, Attorney General, Tallahassee, Florida; Wesley Harold Heidt,
Assistant Attorney General, and Kellie Anne Nielan, Assistant Attorney General,
Daytona Beach, Florida,
for Respondent
Bryan Scott Gowdy of Creed & Gowdy, P.A., Jacksonville, Florida,
for Amicus Curiae Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers
Marsha L. Levick, Juvenile Law Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and George
E. Schulz, Jr., of Holland & Knight, Jacksonville, Florida,
for Amicus Curiae Juvenile Law Center
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