Case Title: Morris v. State

Citation: 

Docket Number: SC16-2271

State: florida

Court: Florida Supreme Court

Date: 2018-05-10T00:00:00Z

Document:
Supreme Court of Florida 
 
 
_____________ 
 
No. SC16-2271 
_____________ 
 
 
DANTE RASHAD MORRIS,  
Petitioner, 
 
vs. 
 
STATE OF FLORIDA,  
Respondent. 
 
[May 10, 2018] 
 
PER CURIAM. 
Dante Rashad Morris, who was fifteen years old at the time of his crimes, 
challenges his concurrent sentences of thirty years’ imprisonment and fifteen 
years’ imprisonment for the crimes of attempted felony murder and attempted 
armed robbery, respectively.  See Morris v. State, 206 So. 3d 154, 154 (Fla. 2d 
DCA 2016).  Although Morris committed his crimes in 2012, before the enactment 
of chapter 2014-220, Laws of Florida, he was sentenced in 2014, after the statute 
was enacted.  However, by its own terms, chapter 2014-220 does not apply to  
 
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Morris.  § 921.1402(1) Fla. Stat. (2014).1 
 
On November 24, 2012, fifteen-year-old Dante Rashad Morris and five other 
teenaged boys attempted to rob a vendor at a farmer’s market.  During the attempt, 
one of the boys shot the vendor.  A jury found that Morris possessed a weapon 
during the commission of the robbery, but concluded that he did not fire the 
weapon.  Morris was convicted of one count of attempted felony murder and one 
count of attempted armed robbery.   
At the sentencing hearing, where Morris sought a downward departure and 
youthful offender sentence, the court weighed several factors that the 2014 
amendments to section 921.1401, Florida Statutes, now require, including the 
gravity of the offense and its impact on the victim’s health and livelihood, Morris’s 
home life and failure to cooperate with his mother, Morris’s continuous gang 
involvement and the peer pressure placed upon him, evidence of Morris’s mental 
health and learning disabilities, Morris’s lack of a prior record, and Morris’s age 
and lack of criminal history.  The court ultimately sentenced Morris as an adult, 
imposing a thirty-year sentence for the attempted felony murder and a concurrent 
fifteen-year sentence for the attempted armed robbery.  His sentence does not 
provide for judicial review.  Thereafter, Morris filed a motion to correct sentencing 
                                          
 
 
1.  We have jurisdiction.  See art. V, § 3(b)(3), Fla. Const.   
 
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errors pursuant to Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.800(b).  Morris, 206 So. 
3d at 154. 
The State concedes that Morris is entitled to judicial review of his sentence, 
stating “if it is unclear that the new statute applied to Morris who was sentenced 
after its effective date for crimes committed before that date, this case should be 
remanded solely for the ministerial correction of his sentence to add the 20-year 
review provision.”  Answer Br. of State, Morris v. State, No. SC16-2271, at 9.  
Because the sentencing court did not make the required findings at Morris’s 
sentencing hearing to comport with chapter 2014-220, Laws of Florida, and 
Morris’s sentence lacks any review mechanism, based upon this Court’s precedent, 
Morris is entitled to resentencing.  See Lee v. State, 234 So. 3d 562, 564 (Fla. 
2018) (“Lee’s sentence does not provide him an opportunity to obtain early release 
based on a demonstration of maturity and rehabilitation before the expiration of the 
imposed term.  Accordingly, Lee is entitled to resentencing under the juvenile 
sentencing provisions in chapter 2014-220.”); see also Johnson v. State, 215 So. 3d 
1237, 1243 (Fla. 2017) (“Post-Henry, we must ensure that a juvenile nonhomicide 
offender does not receive a sentence that provides for release only at the end of a 
sentence . . . .”). 
 
It is so ordered. 
LABARGA, C.J., and PARIENTE and QUINCE, JJ., concur. 
LEWIS, J., concurs in result. 
 
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LAWSON, J., dissents with an opinion, in which CANADY and POLSTON, JJ., 
concur. 
 
NOT FINAL UNTIL TIME EXPIRES TO FILE REHEARING MOTION AND, 
IF FILED, DETERMINED. 
 
LAWSON, J., dissenting. 
In order for a juvenile nonhomicide offender to be entitled to resentencing 
pursuant to Graham v. Florida, 560 U.S. 48 (2010), the offender’s sentence must 
not afford the offender a meaningful opportunity for release from incarceration 
during his or her lifetime.  Henry v. State, 175 So. 3d 675, 679-80 (Fla. 2015).  
Although this Court in Kelsey v. State, 206 So. 3d 5, 11 (Fla. 2016), seems to have 
held that Graham requires resentencing for all “juvenile offenders who are 
sentenced to terms longer than twenty years,” I agree with Justices Lewis, Canady, 
and Polston that Graham cannot be read as requiring the resentencing of a juvenile 
nonhomicide offender unless that offender was sentenced to life, or the functional 
equivalent of life, without an opportunity for early release.  Kelsey, 206 So. 3d at 
14 (Polston, J., dissenting).  Because Morris’s sentences in this case are not 
unconstitutional under Graham, as the Second District held below, I would 
approve the Second District’s decision and recede from Kelsey to the extent that it 
requires resentencing of juvenile nonhomicide offenders who were not sentenced 
to life or its equivalent.  I would also recede from Lee v. State, 234 So. 3d 562, 
563-64 (Fla. 2018), and the statement quoted from Johnson v. State, 215 So. 3d 
 
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1237 (Fla. 2017), which are cited by the majority as the basis for its decision, but 
which simply applied the erroneous rule announced in Kelsey. 
CANADY and POLSTON, JJ., concur. 
Application for Review of the Decision of the District Court of Appeal – Direct 
Conflict of Decisions 
 
Second District - Case No. 2D14-4165 
 
(Polk County) 
 
Howard L. Dimmig, II, Public Defender, and Terrence E. Kehoe, Special Assistant 
Public Defender, Tenth Judicial Circuit, Bartow, Florida, 
 
 
for Petitioner 
 
Pamela Jo Bondi, Attorney General, Tallahassee, Florida, John Klawikofsky, 
Bureau Chief, and Wendy Buffington, Assistant Attorney General, Tampa, Florida, 
 
 
for Respondent