State v. Williams , 261 N.C. App. 516 ( 2018 )

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF NORTH CAROLINA
No. COA16-178
Filed: 18 September 2018
Mecklenburg County, No. 08 CRS 230803-04
STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA,
v.
MONTREZ BENJAMIN WILLIAMS, Defendant.
Appeal by Defendant from Judgment entered 11 September 2015 by Judge
Hugh B. Lewis in Mecklenburg County Superior Court. Heard in the Court of
Appeals 22 August 2016. Supplemental briefing ordered on 21 May 2018.
Attorney General Joshua H. Stein, by Special Attorney General Lars F. Nance
and Assistant Attorney General Kimberly N. Callahan, for the State.
Appellate Defender Glenn Gerding, by Assistant Appellate Defender Kathryn L.
VandenBerg, for Defendant-Appellant.
INMAN, Judge.
More than a decade ago, the United States Supreme Court outlawed capital
punishment for even the worst offenders under the age of eighteen. Six years ago,
the United States Supreme Court held that the Eighth Amendment to the United
States Constitution also prohibits mandatory life sentences without parole for
juvenile offenders. Which leads to the next question: When does the Eighth
Amendment allow for the sentencing of a juvenile offender to prison for life without
the possibility of parole? Despite extensive critiques, courts in all jurisdictions are
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Opinion of the Court
still discerning the appropriate criteria and methodology for imposing the harshest
of sentences on young people whose entire lives lie before them and whose potential
for change is generally unknowable.
This appeal presents the conflict arising when a trial court expressly finds that
a juvenile offender’s likelihood of rehabilitation is uncertain and sentences him to life
in prison without parole. We hold that the United States Supreme Court’s mandate
that life without parole is reserved for those juvenile defendants who exhibit such
irretrievable depravity that rehabilitation is impossible compels us to vacate the
sentence in this case and remand for Defendant to be re-sentenced to life with the
possibility of parole.
I. Facts and Procedural History
In 2008, Defendant was indicted on two counts of first-degree murder in the
shooting deaths of Terry Rashad Long and Joshua Vinsel Davis. At the time of the
shooting, Defendant was seventeen years old. In 2011, following a trial in
Mecklenburg County Superior Court, a jury convicted Defendant on both charges
based on a theory of malice, premeditation, and deliberation. Defendant was
sentenced to two consecutive terms of life in prison without the possibility of parole.
This Court upheld Defendant’s conviction and sentence on appeal, State v. Williams,
220 N.C. App. 130, 724 S.E.2d 654 (2012), and the North Carolina Supreme Court
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dismissed his petitions for review. State v. Williams, 366 N.C. 240, 731 S.E.2d 167
(2012).
In June 2012, the United States Supreme Court decided Miller v. Alabama,
567 U.S. 460, 183 L. Ed. 2d 407 (2012), holding that mandatory sentences of life
without parole for juvenile offenders violate the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition
against cruel and unusual punishments. Weeks later, in July 2012, the North
Carolina General Assembly enacted an amendment to the sentencing statute, N.C.
Gen. Stat. § 15A-1340.19B, removing the mandatory life sentence without parole for
juvenile murderers and replacing it with a permissive sentencing scheme. 2012 N.C.
Sess. Law 2012-148, § 1. The amended statute delineates mitigating factors to be
considered in sentencing: (1) the offender’s age at the time of offense; (2) immaturity;
(3) ability to appreciate the risks and consequences of the conduct; (4) intellectual
capacity; (5) prior record; (6) mental health; (7) familial or peer pressure exerted upon
him; (8) likelihood that he would benefit from rehabilitation in confinement; and (9)
other mitigating factors and circumstances. N.C. Gen. Stat. § 15A-1340.19B (2017).
Following the Miller decision, Defendant filed a motion for appropriate relief
seeking a new sentencing hearing. Defendant’s motion was granted. At the
resentencing hearing, Defendant presented evidence related to several mitigating
factors. After consideration of the evidence and arguments by counsel, the trial court
entered a lengthy order containing 52 findings of fact and 16 conclusions of law;
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among them, the following conclusion: “There is no certain prognosis of Defendant[’]s
possibility of rehabilitation. The speculation of Defendant’s ability to be rehabilitated
can only be given minimal weight as a mitigating factor.” The trial court sentenced
Defendant to serve two consecutive sentences of life without parole, and Defendant
appealed.
II. Analysis
In his original brief to this Court, Defendant argued that his sentence should
be vacated because: (1) the trial court’s finding that Defendant’s potential for
rehabilitation was speculative removes him from the permissible class of juveniles
whom the United States Supreme Court has held are eligible for life without parole;
(2) the trial court failed to give the required weight to the mitigating factors of youth,
immaturity, diminished appreciation of risk, and negative peer and family pressure;
(3) the trial court relied on unsupported findings regarding escalation of prior offenses
and that the offense of which Defendant was convicted was a “Planned Ambush;” and
(4) that N.C. Gen. Stat. § 15A-1340.19B is unconstitutional on its face. Because we
are bound by the North Carolina Supreme Court’s recent decision in State v. James,
__ N.C. __, 813 S.E.2d 195 (2018), which upheld the constitutionality of N.C. Gen.
Stat. § 15A-1340.19B, we reject Defendant’s fourth argument and will not address it
further. Because we agree with Defendant’s first argument that the trial court’s
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finding rendered him ineligible for sentences of life without parole, we need not
address his remaining arguments.
A. Standard of Review
This Court reviews constitutional issues de novo. State v. Rogers, 352 N.C.
119, 124, 529 S.E.2d 671, 675 (2000). “Under a de novo review, the court considers
the matter anew and freely substitutes its own judgment for that of the lower
tribunal.” State v. Williams, 362 N.C. 628, 632-33, 669 S.E.2d 290, 294 (2008)
(internal quotation marks and citations omitted).
B. Discussion
After prohibiting mandatory sentences of life without parole for juvenile
offenders in Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460, 183 L. Ed. 2d 407 (2012), the United
States Supreme Court held in Montgomery v. Louisiana that “a lifetime in prison is
a disproportionate sentence for all but the rarest of children, those whose crimes
reflect irreparable corruption” and “who exhibit such irretrievable depravity that
rehabilitation is impossible.” __ U.S. __, __, __, 193 L. Ed. 2d 599, 611, 619 (2016)
(internal quotation marks and citations omitted) (emphasis added).
In this case we face a question of first impression: whether the Supreme
Court’s holdings require trial courts to determine, as a threshold matter, whether a
juvenile defendant is eligible for such punishment independent of other relevant
factors, or whether it merely identifies additional factors that the trial court must
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consider as it weighs the totality of circumstances in making its sentencing decision.
The answer lies in further study of Miller and its progeny.
In Miller, the United States Supreme Court held that mandatory sentences of
life in prison without parole for juveniles—anyone under the age of eighteen—violate
the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution’s prohibition against cruel
and unusual punishments. 567 U.S. at 465, 183 L. Ed. 2d at 415. The Court reasoned
that “juveniles have diminished culpability and greater prospects for reform . . .
[thereby making them] less deserving of the most severe punishments.” Id. at 471,
183 L. Ed. 2d at 418 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). The Court
provided no specific criteria for sentencing a juvenile to life in prison without parole
but predicted that “appropriate occasions for sentencing juveniles to this harshest
possible penalty will be uncommon.” Id. at 479, 183 L. Ed. 2d at 424.
Following Miller, courts disputed whether its holding proscribed a procedural
rule of constitutional law, which would apply only to prospective cases, or a
substantive rule that applied retroactively. In Montgomery, the Supreme Court held
that Miller “announced a substantive rule of constitutional law.” __ U.S. at __, 193
L. Ed. 2d at 620. However, the Court cautioned that States would be required to
develop procedural criteria to protect juveniles’ substantive rights: “[t]hat Miller does
not impose a formal factfinding requirement does not leave States free to sentence a
child whose crime reflects transient immaturity to life without parole. To the
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contrary, Miller established that this punishment is disproportionate under the
Eighth Amendment.” Id. at __, 193 L. Ed. 2d at 621. The Court’s justification for not
imposing a formal factfinding requirement is derived from the notion that, “[w]hen a
new substantive rule of constitutional law is established, [the United States Supreme
Court] is careful to limit the scope of any attendant procedural requirement to avoid
intruding more than necessary upon the States’ sovereign administration of their
criminal justice systems.” Id. at __, 193 L. Ed. 2d at 621 (citation omitted). Despite
this reservation, the Montgomery decision noted that “Miller did bar life without
parole . . . for all but the rarest juvenile offenders, those whose crimes reflect
permanent incorrigibility.” Id. at __, 193 L. Ed. 2d at 620.
As Justice Sotomayor highlighted in a concurring opinion in Tatum v. Arizona,
__ U.S. __, __, 196 L. Ed. 2d 284, 285 (2016) (Sotomayor, J., concurring), “the question
Miller and Montgomery require a sentencer to ask [is]: whether the petitioner was
among the very ‘rarest of juvenile offenders, those whose crimes reflect permanent
incorrigibility.’ ” (citation omitted).
We interpret the United States Supreme Court’s decisions to prohibit imposing
a sentence of life without the possibility of parole on any juvenile whom a trial court
has found is constitutionally ineligible for that sentence, independent of its
consideration of the totality of circumstances that might otherwise favor the harshest
sentence. A closer look at North Carolina precedent supports this conclusion.
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In State v. James, the North Carolina Supreme Court upheld the
constitutionality of the newly amended N.C. Gen. Stat. § 15A-1340.19B. James, __
N.C. at __, 813 S.E.2d at 207. The Court relied on principles of statutory construction
that direct our courts, when faced between two interpretations of a statute, to
construe the statute as constitutional. See id. at __, 813 S.E.2d at 203 (“Where a
statute is susceptible of two interpretations, one of which is constitutional and the
other not, the courts will adopt the former and reject the latter.” (internal quotation
marks and citations omitted)). James considered whether N.C. Gen. Stat. § 15A-
1340.19B creates a presumption of life without parole for juvenile offenders convicted
of first-degree murder on a basis other than the felony murder rule,1 id. at __, 813
S.E.2d at 200, the argument being that if such a presumption is present, N.C. Gen.
Stat. § 15A-1340.19B conflicts with Miller. Id. at __, 813 S.E.2d at 207.
The North Carolina Supreme Court in James skeptically viewed the State’s
argument that a statute including a presumption of life imprisonment without parole
for juvenile offenders would pass constitutional muster:
In view of the fact “that a lifetime in prison is a
disproportionate sentence for all but the rarest of children,
those whose crimes reflect ‘irreparable corruption,’ ” a
statutory sentencing scheme embodying a presumption in
favor of a sentence of life imprisonment without the
possibility of parole for a juvenile convicted of first-degree
murder on the basis of a theory other than the felony
1 Section 15A-1340.19B mandates that juveniles found guilty of first-degree murder on the sole
basis of the felony murder rule are to be sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole. N.C.
Gen. Stat. § 15A-1340.19B(a)(1) (2015).
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murder rule would be, at an absolute minimum, in
considerable tension with the General Assembly’s
expressed intent to adopt a set of statutory provisions that
complied with Miller and with the expressed intent of the
United States Supreme Court that, as a constitutional
matter, the imposition of a sentence of life imprisonment
without the possibility of parole upon a juvenile be a rare
event.
Id. at __, 813 S.E.2d at 206-07 (quoting Montgomery, __ U.S. at __, 193 L. Ed. 2d at
611). This analysis is consistent with that adopted by other state courts. See, e.g.,
People v. Gutierrez, 58 Cal. 4th 1354, 1328, 1387, 171 Cal. Rptr. 3d 421, 324 P.3d 245,
264, 267 (2014) (holding that interpreting a sentencing statute as establishing “a
presumption in favor of life without parole [for juvenile homicide offenders] raises
serious constitutional concerns under the reasoning of Miller and the body of
precedent upon which Miller relied”).
The James court instead held that N.C. Gen. Stat. § 15A-1340.19B provides
trial courts with an even choice between two equal alternative sentencing options—
life with parole or life without parole. James, __ N.C. at __, 813 S.E.2d at 204. In so
holding, James rejected the notion that a sentencing statute must presume a sentence
of life with the possibility of parole for juvenile offenders. See id. at __, 813 S.E.2d at
207 (“[T]rial judges sentencing juveniles convicted of first-degree murder on the basis
of a theory other than the felony murder rule should refrain from presuming the
appropriateness of a sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole
and select between the available sentencing alternatives based solely upon a
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consideration of ‘the circumstances of the offense,’ ‘the particular circumstances of
the defendant,’ and ‘any mitigating factors,’ as they currently do.” (internal citations
omitted)). Because it held that N.C. Gen. Stat. § 15A-1340.19B does not create a
presumption in favor of life without parole, the North Carolina Supreme Court did
not reach the issue of whether such a presumption would be constitutional under
Miller and its progeny.
James also contemplated whether Miller requires a trial court to make an
explicit finding that the juvenile is “ ‘irreparably corrupt’ or ‘permanently incorrigible’
before the juvenile can be sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of
parole.” James, __ N.C. at __, 813 S.E.2d at 208. To this end, the North Carolina
Supreme Court, interpreting N.C. Gen. Stat. § 15A-1340.19B in pari materia with
the other parts of the Juvenile Code,2 explained:
[A] trial judge required to sentence a juvenile convicted of
first-degree murder on the basis of a theory other than the
felony murder rule must consider “all the circumstances of
the offense,” “the particular circumstances of the
defendant,” and the mitigating circumstances enumerated
in subsection 15A-1340.19B(c), [N.C. Gen. Stat.] § 15A-
1340.19C, and comply with Miller’s directive that
sentences of life imprisonment without the possibility of
parole for juveniles convicted of first-degree murder should
be the exception, rather than the rule, with the “harshest
prison sentence” to be reserved for “the rare juvenile
offender whose crime reflects irreparable corruption,”
rather than “unfortunate yet transient immaturity.”
2 Other Juvenile Code provisions the Supreme Court cited included N.C. Gen. Stat. §§ 15A-
1340.19A through 15A-1340.19D, which set forth the scheme designed for sentencing juveniles
convicted of first-degree murder. James, __ N.C. at __, 813 S.E.2d at 198.
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Miller, 567 U.S. at 479-80, 183 L. Ed. 2d at 424. In our
view, the statutory provisions at issue in this case, when
considered in their entirety and construed in light of the
constitutional requirements set out in Miller and its
progeny as set out in more detail above, provide sufficient
guidance to allow a sentencing judge to make a proper, non-
arbitrary determination of the sentence that should be
imposed upon a juvenile convicted of first-degree murder
on a basis other than the felony murder rule to satisfy due
process requirements.
Id. at __, 813 S.E.2d at 208. James further held that the newly amended sentencing
statute was sufficient without additional procedural requirements, such as the
consideration of aggravating factors:
As a result of the fact that the statutory provisions at issue
in th[e] case require consideration of the factors enunciated
in Miller and its progeny and the fact that Miller and its
progeny indicate that life without parole sentences for
juveniles should be exceedingly rare and reserved for
specifically described individuals, we see no basis for
concluding that the absence of any requirement that the
sentencing authority find the existence of aggravating
circumstances or make any other narrowing findings prior
to determining whether to impose a sentence of life without
parole upon a juvenile convicted of first-degree murder on
a basis other than the felony murder rule renders the
sentencing process enunciated in [N.C. Gen. Stat.] §§ 15A-
1340.19A to 15A-1340.19D unconstitutionally arbitrary or
vague.
Id. at __, 813 S.E.2d at 209.
Following Miller, James, and their progeny, we hold that whether a defendant
qualifies as an individual within the class of offenders who are irreparably corrupt is
a threshold determination that is necessary before a life sentence without parole may
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be imposed by the trial court. This holding is not inconsistent with the North
Carolina Supreme Court’s rejection of a specific factfinding requirement. Rather, we
hold that, when a trial court does make a finding about a juvenile offender’s
possibility of rehabilitation that is inconsistent with the limited class of offenders
defined by the United States Supreme Court, a sentence of life in prison without the
possibility of parole is unconstitutional as applied to that offender.
In State v. Sims, this Court upheld the imposition of a life sentence without
parole for a juvenile offender who was not found to have any characteristic
inconsistent with constitutional restrictions. __ N.C. App. __, __, __ S.E.2d __, __
(COA17-45) (2018 WL 3732800). The defendant in Sims challenged, among other
things, the trial court’s finding regarding his likelihood of benefiting from
rehabilitation in confinement. Id. at __, __ S.E.2d at __. This Court concluded,
“[w]hile Miller states that life without parole would be an uncommon punishment for
juvenile offenders, the trial court has apparently determined that [the] defendant is
one of those ‘rare juvenile offenders’ for whom it is appropriate.” Id. at __, __ S.E.2d
at __ (emphasis added) (quoting Miller, 567 U.S. at 479, 183 L. Ed. 2d at 424). We
explained that “[t]he trial court’s unchallenged evidentiary findings combined with
its ultimate findings regarding the Miller factors demonstrate that the trial court’s
determination was the result of a reasoned decision.” Id. at __, __ S.E.2d at __. In
essence, the trial court in Sims impliedly found that the defendant fell within the
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class of irreparably corrupt offenders, and did not find any characteristic in the
defendant inconsistent with that class of offenders.
Turning to the case at hand, we conclude that the trial court erred by imposing
a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole after making a finding
contrary to the defined class of irreparably corrupt offenders described in our
precedent. Unlike in Sims, the trial court here made an explicit finding that “there
is no certain prognosis” for Defendant’s potential for rehabilitation. This finding
directly conflicts with the limitation of life in prison without parole to juvenile
offenders who are “irreparably corrupt” and “permanently incorrigible.” As Judge
Stroud, concurring in Sims, explained: “ ‘Permanent’ means forever. ‘Irreparable’
means beyond improvement. In other words, the trial court should be satisfied that
in 25 years, in 35 years, in 55 years—when the defendant may be in his seventies or
eighties—he will likely still remain incorrigible or corrupt, just as he was as a
teenager, so that even then parole is not appropriate.” Sims, __ N.C. App. at __, __
S.E.2d at __ (Stroud, J., concurring). Because the trial court made an explicit finding
contrary to a determination that Defendant is one of those rarest of juvenile offenders
for whom rehabilitation is impossible and a worthless endeavor, we hold the trial
court erred by imposing a life sentence without the possibility of parole.
III. Conclusion
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For the foregoing reasons, we vacate the trial court’s judgment and remand for
Defendant to be resentenced to two consecutive terms of life imprisonment with the
possibility of parole.
VACATED AND REMANDED.
Chief Judge McGEE and Judge STROUD concur.
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