Case Title: Gridine v. State

Citation: 

Docket Number: SC12-1223

State: florida

Court: Florida Supreme Court

Date: 2015-03-19T00:00:00Z

Document:
Supreme Court of Florida 
 
 
____________ 
 
No. SC12-1223 
____________ 
 
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. 
 
 
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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