State v. RileyState v. Riley
ESPINOSA, J., with whom ZARELLA, J., joins, dissenting. I disagree with the majority‘s conclusion that the total effective sentence of 100 years imprisonment imposed by the trial court on the defendant, Ackeem Riley, violates the eighth amendment to the United States constitution.1 I agree with the Appellate Court‘s conclusion that, “[b]ecause the court exercised discretion in fashioning the defendant‘s sentence, and was free to consider any mitigating evidence the defendant was able to marshal, including evidence pertaining to his age and maturity“; State v. Riley, 140 Conn. App. 1, 4, 58 A.3d 304 (2013); the sentence complied with the decision of the United States Supreme Court in Miller v. Alabama, U.S. , 132 S. Ct. 2455, 183 L. Ed. 2d 407 (2012), which held that “the [e]ighth [a]mendment forbids a sentencing scheme that mandates life in prison without possibility of parole for juvenile offenders.” (Emphasis added.) Id., 2469. To be clear, therefore, Miller applies only to mandatory sentencing schemes. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.
I emphasize that the question before this court in the present case is not how broadly this court would construe the protections afforded to juvenile offenders pursuant to the eighth amendment, but how broadly the United States Supreme Court has extended that protection. In my view, the majority opinion misinterprets Miller and extends it beyond the scope intended by the Supreme Court. As the majority explains, Miller was the third in a trilogy of decisions by the United States Supreme Court addressing the problem of how to sentence juvenile offenders, defined as persons under eighteen years of age, who face the most extreme punishments available in our criminal justice system. All three decisions rest on a common analytic foundation. On the basis of three differences that distinguish juveniles from adults, namely: (1) “[a] lack of maturity and an underdeveloped sense of responsibility“; (2) a vulnerability to “negative influences and outside pressures, including peer pressure“; and (3) the possession of a character that “is not as well formed as that of an adult“; Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551, 569–70, 125 S. Ct. 1183, 161 L. Ed. 2d 1 (2005); the court determined that the eighth amendment required that juvenile offenders be accorded different treatment in sentencing for the most severe punishments. Specifically, the court held in Roper that the eighth amendment barred the execution of juvenile offenders. Id., 573–74. Subsequently, in Graham v. Florida, 560 U.S. 48, 75, 130 S. Ct. 2011, 176 L. Ed. 2d 825 (2010), the court held that the eighth amendment also prohibited the imposition of a sentence of life without the possibility of parole for juvenile offenders convicted of nonhomicide crimes. Finally, in Miller, the court held that when the offense is homicide,
Although all three decisions are grounded on the same basic principle, that, because of their particular characteristics, juvenile offenders are less culpable and have greater prospects for reform than adult offenders, each decision is very narrowly tailored to address the particular sentencing issue presented, and it would be a mistake to conflate the three decisions, or to overstate the breadth of the court‘s holding in any one or all of the three decisions. For instance, in Graham, the court was very careful not to extend its holding barring the imposition of a sentence of life without the possibility of parole to juvenile offenders convicted of homicides, on the basis of the court‘s express recognition that “[t]here is a line between homicide and other serious violent offenses against the individual.” (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Graham v. Florida, supra, 560 U.S. 69. The court maintained that distinction in Miller, when it confined its holding to a prohibition of mandatory sentences of life without the possibility of parole for juvenile offenders convicted of homicides, expressly delineating the distinction between its holdings in Graham and Miller, stating that ”Graham established one rule (a flat ban) for nonhomicide offenses, while we set out a different one (individualized sentencing) for homicide offenses.” Miller v. Alabama, supra, 132 S. Ct. 2466 n.6. The court further clarified: “we do not foreclose a sentencer‘s ability to [sentence a juvenile offender to life without the possibility of parole] in homicide cases . . . .” Id., 2469.
The court explained the distinction between its holdings in Roper and Graham and its holding in Miller: “Our decision does not categorically bar a penalty for a class of offenders or type of crime—as, for example, we did in Roper or Graham. Instead, it mandates only that a sentencer follow a certain process—considering an offender‘s youth and attendant characteristics—before imposing a particular penalty.” Id., 2471. Properly construed, therefore, Miller only requires that the sentencing scheme allow the defendant to present, and the sentencing court to consider, evidence regarding the defendant‘s youth in order to pass constitutional muster. Miller prohibits only the mandatory imposition of a sentence of life without the possibility of parole on a juvenile convicted of homicide. Because our sentencing scheme allows a defendant to present, and requires a sentencing court to consider, any mitigating evidence, Miller simply does not apply to Connecticut‘s sentencing scheme, which provides precisely what Miller requires, namely, individualized sentencing. See
This view finds overwhelming support in the deci
Despite the careful language of Miller itself and the narrow interpretation that most courts have applied to the decision, the majority reads Miller in a sweeping manner, concluding that Miller applies to discretionary sentencing schemes, notwithstanding the express language in the opinion restricting the scope of the decision to mandatory schemes. The question is not even a close one. As I have observed, the court‘s statement of its holding limits its scope to mandatory sentencing schemes. Moreover, as the majority acknowledges, the decision is replete with references to the mandatory imposition of a sentence of life without the possibility of parole. Indeed, the word “mandatory” appears in some form or another in Miller more than forty times. The majority can point to no language in Miller that expands its scope to discretionary sentencing schemes, and, as I have pointed out, express language in Miller states the contrary. “[W]e do not foreclose a sentencer‘s ability to [sentence a juvenile offender to life without the possibility of parole] in homicide cases . . . .” (Emphasis added.) Miller v. Alabama, supra, 132 S. Ct. 2469.
The majority‘s overly broad reading of Miller does not stop there. In addition to extending the application
The facts of the present case illustrate that Miller is inapplicable to our discretionary sentencing scheme. The defendant was sentenced following a hearing, at which the trial court considered the presentence investigation report, arguments by counsel and the testimony of witnesses. The defendant was afforded the opportunity to address the court on his own behalf and he declined, a fact that the majority glosses over. The court heard arguments and considered evidence as to the nature of the crime, the effect on the victims and their families, the defendant‘s subsequent involvement in a similar shooting within mere weeks after the one in the present case, the defendant‘s family background and upbringing, particularly his relationship with his parents, his educational background and employment history, his criminal record, his status as the father of a young child and his youth.
The presentence investigation report in particular provided the court with more than enough information about the defendant to allow the court to determine whether a total effective sentence of 100 years imprisonment was an appropriate sentence for this individual defendant. Specifically, the report sets forth the details of the crime and the extent of the defendant‘s involvement in it: On November 17, 2006, in a vehicle that the
The report also contains the defendant‘s criminal record, which reveals that the first time that the defendant was arrested was when he was fifteen years old, for carrying or selling a dangerous weapon, for which he was adjudged a youthful offender.3 While the defendant was still serving probation on that case, he was convicted of another crime, the substance of which is not specified in the report. Accordingly, he was found to have violated his probation. In 2005, also while still on probation for being adjudged a youthful offender, the defendant was arrested again, for possession of marijuana, for which he received an unconditional discharge. The defendant was arrested again in 2007, in connection with the 2006 drive-by shooting that gave rise to the present case. Finally, on March 6, 2007, the defendant was charged in connection with yet another drive-by shooting, only blocks away from the first shooting. At the time of the defendant‘s sentencing in the present case on May 5, 2009, the charges in connection with the second drive-by shooting were pending.
Because the defendant failed to provide any contact information for his immediate family, the family background information in the report is limited to information that the defendant himself provided, but that information is highly relevant. The defendant was raised by his mother, under fairly good economic conditions, and he described her in the report as being a loving mother, who provided him with a good home. Although his parents did not live together, the defendant reported that his father had been involved in his life when he was growing up, that he visited his father frequently, and that he had a good relationship with the father‘s girlfriend, who treated him like a son. The report further states that “[the defendant] reported no incidents of physical, mental or sexual abuse during his formative years. He reported that his home was never the subject of intervention by any social service agencies based on any issues of neglect or violence.” The report also details that at the time of sentencing, the defendant had a child who was five years old, whom he fathered at the age of fourteen, and for whom he provided monthly child support in the amount of $50.
According to the report, the defendant had been expelled from Weaver High School in 2004 due to a physical altercation with another student. He subsequently completed the tenth grade at East Hartford High
At the end of the hearing, the court emphasized the factors that it had relied on in imposing the total effective sentence of 100 years. The three victims were innocent bystanders, whose lives were tragically altered—and for Tray Davis, ended—by the defendant‘s senseless act of violence. The court likened the defendant, who “decided that it would be okay to drive by on a certain day and shoot many times with a semiautomatic weapon into a large group of teenagers just relaxing in front of a house not bothering anybody,” to a terrorist whose actions injected fear into the community. The court specifically remarked on the defendant‘s family background, noting that he had a loving mother and a relationship with his father. He “had all the opportunities that everybody else has in this world, especially in our country, to do whatever he wanted to do and become whatever he wanted to become. And he chose to become a murderer.” The court acknowledged that it did not have a sense of the defendant as a person because the defendant did not testify, either at trial or at the sentencing hearing, but the court also stated that it had considered the defendant‘s future dangerousness in determining the appropriate sentence, and that it had determined that it would never be safe to release the defendant into society again. These remarks of the trial judge indicate that the court viewed the defendant as being ” ‘the rare juvenile offender whose crime reflects irreparable corruption.’ ” Miller v. Alabama, supra, 132 S. Ct. 2469. The court can hardly be faulted for arriving at such a conclusion, when confronted with a defendant who opened fire on innocents because he mistakenly “believed” that they had been involved in a previous attack on his gang, then opened fire on a different group of people within two months after the first shooting. It is hardly surprising that the court concluded that it had before it not the usual juvenile murderer, but, in the court‘s own words, someone who “should be treated like a terrorist.”
I emphasize that it is significant that the primary reason that the trial court had little information about the defendant‘s maturity or lack thereof was because the defendant chose not to present that evidence at the sentencing hearing. He was free to present any evidence he wished to at the hearing—in perfect accordance with the requirements of Miller. Moreover, as I have explained, the trial court clearly exercised its discretion in sentencing the defendant. Accordingly, Miller does not apply, and the court‘s decision is entitled to the deference we traditionally accord to sentencing determinations, employing “every reasonable presumption . . . in favor of the correctness of the court‘s ruling.” (Internal quotation marks omitted.) State v. Dupas, 291 Conn. 778, 783, 970 A.2d 102 (2009). The majority fails to accord the trial court‘s sentencing determination the appropriate deference, and instead improperly expands Miller, despite the Supreme Court‘s clear statements in that decision that its holding was limited to mandatory sentencing schemes. Moreover, the rule announced by the majority today, requiring the trial court to utter “magic words” acknowledging on the record that the sentencing court has done what the law already requires, is not only unnecessarily paternalistic and not required by Miller, but also pointless. I would decline to require trial judges to expressly state that they are performing their duty as the law requires. Instead, I would trust them to exercise their broad sentencing discretion in accordance with the law.
Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.
Notes
For the delineation of the various sentences comprising the defendant‘s total effective sentence, see footnote 2 of the majority opinion.