Title: Michigan v. Boykin (Opinion on Application - Remand to CoA)

State: michigan

Issuer: Michigan Supreme Court

Document:

PEOPLE v BOYKIN 
PEOPLE v TATE 
 
Docket Nos. 157738 and 158695.  Argued on application for leave to appeal January 12, 
2022.  Decided July 28, 2022. 
 
 
In Docket No. 157738, Demariol D. Boykin was convicted by a jury of first-degree murder, 
MCL 750.316(1)(c), and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony (felony-
firearm), MCL 750.227b.  He was initially sentenced to a mandatory term of life without the 
possibility of parole for first-degree murder, to be served consecutively to a two-year term for 
felony-firearm.  His convictions and sentences were affirmed in an unpublished per curiam opinion 
of the Court of Appeals, issued July 14, 2005 (Docket No. 253224) (Boykin I).  Subsequently, the 
United States Supreme Court decided Miller v Alabama, 567 US 460 (2012), which held that 
sentencing an individual to mandatory life without the possibility of parole for a crime they 
committed before the age of 18 (a juvenile offender) violated the Eighth Amendment’s ban on 
cruel and unusual punishments and that trial courts are required to consider the attributes of youth 
when sentencing a juvenile offender to life without parole.  In Montgomery v Louisiana, 577 US 
190 (2016), the Supreme Court held that Miller was a substantive constitutional rule that was 
retroactive on state collateral review.  The Michigan Legislature accounted for these changes by 
enacting MCL 769.25 and MCL 769.25a, which eliminated sentences of mandatory life 
imprisonment without the possibility of parole for all individuals who were convicted of specific 
crimes, including first-degree murder, for acts committed while they were juveniles.  As a juvenile 
offender who was sentenced to a mandatory term of life imprisonment without the possibility of 
parole, Boykin was entitled to resentencing under MCL 769.25a.  At resentencing, the prosecution 
did not move to seek a sentence of life without parole but instead sought a sentence of 40 to 60 
years’ imprisonment, which the trial court imposed.  Boykin appealed this sentence by right.  The 
Court of Appeals, MARKEY, P.J., and GADOLA, JJ. (SHAPIRO, J., dissenting), affirmed in an 
unpublished per curiam opinion issued March 20, 2018 (Docket No. 335862), holding that because 
the prosecutor had not sought a sentence of life without parole, the trial court was not required to 
consider defendant’s youth when imposing sentence.  Boykin sought leave to appeal in the 
Supreme Court, which directed and heard oral argument on the application for leave to appeal.  
507 Mich 960 (2021). 
 
 
In Docket No. 158695, Tyler M. Tate was convicted by a jury of first-degree premeditated 
murder, MCL 750.316(1)(a); making a false report of a felony to police, MCL 750.411a(1)(b); and 
 
 
Michigan Supreme Court 
Lansing, Michigan 
Syllabus 
 
Chief Justice: 
Bridget M. McCormack 
 
 
Justices: 
Brian K. Zahra 
David F. Viviano 
Richard H. Bernstein 
Elizabeth T. Clement 
Megan K. Cavanagh 
Elizabeth M. Welch 
This syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been  
prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. 
Reporter of Decisions: 
Kathryn L. Loomis 
lying to a police officer in a criminal investigation, MCL 750.479c(2)(d)(i).  He was sentenced on 
April 24, 2017, under MCL 769.25, which had become law in 2014.  As with Boykin, the 
prosecution did not move to seek a sentence of life without the possibility of parole but instead 
sought the imposition of a 40- to 60-year sentence, which the trial court imposed.  Tate appealed 
his sentence by right, and the Court of Appeals, M. J. KELLY, P.J., and MARKEY and FORT HOOD, 
JJ., affirmed in an unpublished per curiam opinion issued September 20, 2018 (Docket No. 
338360).  Tate sought leave to appeal in the Supreme Court, which directed oral argument on the 
application for leave to appeal.  507 Mich 961 (2021). 
 
 
In an opinion by Justice BERNSTEIN, joined by Chief Justice MCCORMACK and Justices 
CLEMENT (except as to Part IV(B)), CAVANAGH, and WELCH, the Supreme Court, in lieu of 
granting leave to appeal, held: 
 
Sentencing courts must consider a juvenile offender’s youth as a mitigating factor at 
sentencing hearings conducted under MCL 769.25 or MCL 769.25a when the juvenile offender is 
sentenced to a term of years.  However, this consideration need not be articulated on the record.  
Therefore, the Court of Appeals was correct when it held that there is no constitutional mandate to 
make specific findings on the record as to the Miller factors when a juvenile offender is sentenced 
to a term of years but that sentencing courts should be guided by the factors set forth in People v 
Snow, 386 Mich 586 (1972).  Consideration of the Snow factors necessarily includes the 
consideration of youth as a mitigating factor.  Because it is unclear whether the trial courts properly 
considered youth to be mitigating in either of these consolidated cases, yet the Court of Appeals 
affirmed the trial courts’ sentencing decisions, the portions of both Court of Appeals opinions 
discussing defendants’ sentencing challenges were vacated and the cases were remanded to the 
Court of Appeals for further consideration. 
 
 
1.  Where the Legislature has assigned a range of sentencing outcomes for any given 
conviction, the trial court has authority to sentence a defendant within that range.  Within that 
range, the sentence should be tailored to the particular circumstances of the case and offender.  It 
is the trial court’s duty to exercise discretion in a way that ensures the individualized sentence 
conforms with the principle of proportionality set forth in People v Milbourn, 435 Mich 630, 651 
(1990).  Under Snow, an appropriate sentence should give consideration to the reformation of the 
offender, the protection of society, the discipline of the offender, and the deterrence of others from 
committing the same offense.  Within each of the two statutes at issue in these cases, MCL 769.25 
and MCL 769.25a, there is a range of sentencing outcomes.  Unless the prosecution moves to 
sentence a defendant to life in prison without the possibility of parole, juvenile defendants who are 
convicted of certain enumerated acts may receive a minimum sentence of 25 to 40 years and a 
maximum sentence of 60 years.    
 
 
2.  The Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishments requires courts to think 
differently about how juvenile offenders are sentenced.  Since Roper v Simmons, 543 US 551 
(2005), which held that the death penalty is an unconstitutional punishment for a juvenile offender 
, the Supreme Court has been clear that juvenile status matters at sentencing and that special 
consideration must be paid to youthful offenders before the harshest sentences may be imposed.  
The Roper Court explained that juvenile offenders have diminished culpability because they lack 
maturity and a developed sense of responsibility, are more vulnerable to negative influences and 
outside pressures, and do not yet have a well-formed character.  Applying this same logic, the 
Supreme Court held in Graham v Florida, 560 US 48 (2010), that sentences of life without the 
possibility of parole are unconstitutional for juvenile offenders who did not commit homicide, 
noting that juvenile offenders are at a significant disadvantage in criminal proceedings because of 
the characteristics discussed in Roper.  In Miller, the Supreme Court applied the logic and rationale 
from Roper and Graham that children are different from adults for purposes of sentencing in the 
context of mandatory life-without-parole sentences for homicide offenses, explaining that the 
characteristics of youth and the way they weaken rationales for punishments may render a sentence 
of life without the possibility of parole disproportionate even for a homicide offense.  Therefore, 
when sentencing juvenile offenders to sentences of life imprisonment without the possibility of 
parole, trial courts are required to take into account how children are different and how those 
differences counsel against irrevocably sentencing them to a lifetime in prison.   
 
 
3.  Consideration of youth and its attendant circumstances is required by Michigan’s 
sentencing jurisprudence.  Michigan’s sentencing caselaw focuses on Milbourn’s principle of 
proportionality, which requires sentences imposed to be proportionate to the seriousness of the 
circumstances surrounding the offense and the offender.  Because the United States Supreme Court 
has held that youth—a circumstance of the offender—matters at sentencing, Michigan caselaw 
requires that this relevant offender characteristic must be considered at sentencing.  In Snow, the 
Michigan Supreme Court expressed the importance of four basic sentencing considerations: 
reformation of the offender, the protection of society, disciplining of the wrongdoer, and deterring 
others from committing similar offenses.  Without considering the mitigating factors of youth, a 
sentence cannot adequately address any of these factors.  Therefore, in all sentencing hearings 
conducted under MCL 769.25 or MCL 769.25a, trial courts are to consider the defendant’s youth 
and must treat it as a mitigating factor.  However, there is no constitutional, statutory, or common-
law requirement that this consideration be stated on the record.  Therefore, trial courts need not 
articulate their bases for considering an offender’s youth during sentencing hearings conducted 
under MCL 769.25 and MCL 769.25a in which the offender is sentenced to a term of years. 
 
 
4.  In Boykin II, the Court of Appeals held that consideration of Boykin’s youth was 
unnecessary because Miller only pertained to defendants who are sentenced to serve life without 
the possibility of parole, and the majority never addressed whether the trial court properly 
considered youth to be a mitigating factor when Boykin was sentenced.  Accordingly, that opinion 
was vacated and the case was remanded to the Court of Appeals to consider that question.  In Tate, 
rather than rejecting Tate’s arguments, the Court of Appeals applied People v Wines, 323 Mich 
App 343 (2018), rev’d in nonrelevant part 506 Mich 954 (2020), which held that trial courts must 
consider the distinctive attributes of youth when sentencing a minor to a term of years pursuant to 
MCL 769.25a.  The panel identified ways in which it believed the trial court gave consideration to 
Tate’s attributes of youth; however, the examples appeared to only represent a small portion of the 
record established by the sentencing court, and it was not clear that defendant’s youth was 
considered a mitigating factor rather than an aggravating factor.  Although trial courts are not 
required to make a record that they considered each mitigating factor listed in Miller, whether the 
totality of the record established by the trial court complied with the requirement that a trial court 
consider youth to be a mitigating factor was a close question deserving of additional appellate 
review.  Accordingly, Part V of the Court of Appeals opinion, which discussed Tate’s sentence, 
was vacated and the case was remanded to the Court of Appeals for reconsideration. 
 
 
Court of Appeals judgments vacated in part; cases remanded to the Court of Appeals for 
further consideration. 
 
 
Chief Justice MCCORMACK, concurring, fully agreed with the majority opinion but wrote 
separately to comment on the majority’s conclusion that the Michigan Constitution does not 
require a trial court to articulate on the record how it considered the mitigating characteristics of 
youth when it sentences a juvenile defendant to a sentence other than life without the possibility 
of parole.  She noted that the Michigan Constitution was not mentioned in these cases until Tate 
argued in a supplemental brief that his 40-year minimum sentence was disproportionate under 
Const 1963, art 1, § 16 and that this provision requires an on-the-record explanation of how the 
mitigating characteristics of youth affected the trial court’s sentencing decision.  While neither the 
statutory scheme nor the federal Constitution categorically requires an on-the-record articulation 
of how the characteristics of youth affect a sentencing court’s decision, the majority correctly held 
that sentencing courts must consider those characteristics and treat them as mitigating.  A trial 
court’s failure to do so explicitly on the record, notwithstanding the absence of a categorical rule 
requiring an on-the-record articulation, stands a high chance of rendering its sentence a violation 
of Const 1963, art 1, § 16, and therefore an abuse of its discretion.  The principles animating Miller, 
Graham, and Roper, together with Michigan precedent requiring individualized sentencing, may 
render a sentence where the effect of youth is unexplained at such high risk of violating those 
principles as to be constitutionally impermissible. 
 
 
Justice CLEMENT, concurring in part and dissenting in part, agreed with the majority that 
trial courts are required to consider the mitigating effects of youth when sentencing a juvenile to a 
term-of-years sentence because youth affects the traditional penological goals that guide a 
sentencer’s discretion.  However, she dissented as to the majority’s application of that rule to Tate 
because the trial court’s record of its decision-making sufficiently justified the sentence imposed 
in order to facilitate appellate review, which is the sole articulation requirement mandated by 
Michigan’s sentencing jurisprudence.  The majority’s decision to remand this case to the Court of 
Appeals for reconsideration muddied, if not contradicted, the majority’s holding that no statutory 
or constitutional authority compels the trial court to make an on-the-record explanation of its 
consideration of youth.  To the extent that the majority believed that Tate was deserving of a shorter 
minimum sentence because of the mitigating effects of youth, that was a proportionality issue that 
should have been addressed at this stage and not remanded to the Court of Appeals, which already 
considered and rejected Tate’s proportionality argument. 
 
 
Justice ZAHRA, joined by Justice VIVIANO, dissenting, stated that Miller’s holding does not 
cover a lengthy term of imprisonment that falls short of life without parole, and given the absence 
of a constitutional, statutory, or precedential basis to do so, he would not have extended Miller’s 
reasoning to term-of-years sentences under MCL 769.25 and MCL 769.25a.  He noted that the 
holding in Miller was limited to correcting the constitutional infirmity of sentencing schemes 
mandating life without parole for juvenile homicide offenders by requiring that sentencers be given 
the opportunity to consider the mitigating qualities of youth and the discretion to impose a lesser 
sentence, but that neither Miller nor its progeny required sentencers to consider the distinctive 
attributes of a juvenile homicide offender’s youth when imposing a sentence less than life without 
parole.  Further, MCL 769.25 and MCL 769.25a do not require sentencing courts to consider 
mitigating qualities of youth when sentencing a juvenile homicide offender to a term of years, and 
the Legislature’s omission of this requirement was presumed to be an intentional policy choice 
that the judiciary may not second-guess or override.  By enacting MCL 769.25 and MCL 769.25a, 
the Legislature put in place a scheme that necessarily accounts for a juvenile homicide offender’s 
youth, even when the sentence imposed is a term of years.  Moreover, while courts fashioning a 
proportionate sentence must take into account an offender’s background, there was no basis in 
Milbourn to require that a trial judge tailor every defendant’s sentence in relationship to the 
defendant’s age.  Given that sentencing courts are not required to articulate an on-the-record 
explanation of how youth or the Miller factors affect a term-of-years sentence imposed under MCL 
769.25 or MCL 769.25a, there was no legal basis for affirming the Court of Appeals decision in 
Wines.  Justice ZAHRA would have held that traditional sentencing considerations should apply 
when the sentence to be imposed on a juvenile homicide offender is less than life without parole, 
and he would have affirmed defendants’ 40- to 60-year sentences. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
FILED  July 28, 2022 
 
 
 
S T A T E  O F  M I C H I G A N 
 
SUPREME COURT 
 
 
PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN, 
 
 
Plaintiff-Appellee, 
 
 
v 
No. 157738 
 
DEMARIOL DONTAYE BOYKIN, 
 
 
 
Defendant-Appellant. 
 
 
 
PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN, 
 
 
Plaintiff-Appellee, 
 
 
v 
No. 158695 
 
TYLER MAURICE TATE, 
 
 
 
Defendant-Appellant. 
 
 
 
BEFORE THE ENTIRE BENCH  
 
BERNSTEIN, J.  
 
Michigan Supreme Court 
Lansing, Michigan 
OPINION 
 
Chief Justice: 
Bridget M. McCormack  
 
 
Justices: 
Brian K. Zahra 
David F. Viviano 
Richard H. Bernstein 
Elizabeth T. Clement 
Megan K. Cavanagh 
Elizabeth M. Welch 
 
 
 
 
 
 
2 
These consolidated cases concern the sentencing of two individuals who were 
convicted of first-degree murder for crimes they committed before they turned 18, and who 
both received term-of-years sentences under MCL 769.25 or MCL 769.25a.  In particular, 
we must decide whether trial courts have an obligation to expressly set forth how a 
defendant’s age at the time a crime was committed might affect the judge’s sentencing 
decision and whether trial courts must consider the distinctive attributes of youth, such as 
those discussed in Miller v Alabama, 567 US 460; 132 S Ct 2455; 183 L Ed 2d 407 (2012), 
when sentencing a juvenile defendant to a term-of-years sentence.  We hold that trial courts 
must consider a juvenile defendant’s youth to be a mitigating factor when sentencing them 
to term-of-years sentences under MCL 769.25 or MCL 769.25a; however, we find no basis 
for requiring trial courts to articulate on the record how a defendant’s youth affected the 
decision.  Accordingly, we vacate the judgments of the Court of Appeals to the extent they 
addressed sentencing issues and remand both cases to the Court of Appeals to determine 
whether the sentencing courts properly considered defendants’ youth as a mitigating factor. 
I.  FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY 
A.  PEOPLE v BOYKIN 
In 2003, when he was 17, defendant Demariol Dontaye Boykin was involved in a 
fatal shooting.  The victim was engaged in a fistfight with one of Boykin’s brothers, while 
Boykin, Boykin’s father, and another one of his brothers watched.  At one point, believing 
that the victim had removed an object from a pocket and struck his brother with it, Boykin 
pulled out a gun.  The victim turned and ran but Boykin chased him, firing his gun a few 
times.  The victim was hit by two bullets and fell down.  Boykin ran up to the victim and 
continued to kick and punch him while he was on the ground; his two brothers also joined 
 
 
 
 
3 
in the beating.  Boykin then tried to shoot the victim again at close range, but the gun 
misfired, so Boykin hit the victim in the face with the gun before fleeing the scene with his 
brothers in his father’s car.  The victim later died in the emergency room. 
Boykin was charged with and convicted by a jury of first-degree murder, MCL 
750.316(1)(c), and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony (felony-
firearm), MCL 750.227b.1  He was initially sentenced to a mandatory term of life without 
the possibility of parole for first-degree murder, to be served consecutively to a two-year 
term for felony-firearm.  Boykin’s convictions and sentences were affirmed on appeal.  
People v Boykin, unpublished per curiam opinion of the Court of Appeals, issued July 14, 
2005 (Docket No. 253224) (Boykin I).  Before this action, Boykin also filed a number of 
unsuccessful postconviction measures to overturn his conviction and sentences. 
After Boykin was sentenced in 2003, there were several notable changes in the law 
that substantively affected sentencing for juvenile defendants.  In 2012, the United States 
Supreme Court decided Miller, which held that sentencing individuals to mandatory life 
without the possibility of parole for crimes they committed before the age of 18 violated 
the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishments.  Miller, 567 US at 489.  
Four years later, the Supreme Court announced that Miller was a substantive constitutional 
rule that was retroactive on state collateral review.  Montgomery v Louisiana, 577 US 190; 
136 S Ct 718; 193 L Ed 2d 599 (2016).  The Michigan Legislature accounted for these 
changes by enacting a sentencing scheme that eliminated mandatory life without the 
                                              
1 Boykin and both brothers were charged and convicted with respect to their roles in this 
altercation.  Neither of Boykin’s brothers is a party to this appeal. 
 
 
 
 
4 
possibility of parole for all individuals who were convicted of specific crimes, including 
first-degree murder, for acts committed while they were juveniles.  MCL 769.25; MCL 
769.25a.2   
As a juvenile offender who was sentenced to a mandatory term of life imprisonment 
without the possibility of parole, Boykin was entitled to resentencing under MCL 769.25a.  
His resentencing took place on October 28, 2016.  The prosecution did not move the court 
to seek a sentence of life without the possibility of parole.  Instead, the prosecution sought 
the imposition of a 40- to 60-year sentence, whereas Boykin argued for a 25- to 60-year 
sentence.  After hearing from Boykin and the victim’s brother, the trial court agreed with 
the prosecution and sentenced Boykin to serve 40 to 60 years in prison.  Boykin appealed 
his sentence by right.  The Court of Appeals affirmed in a split, unpublished decision.  
People v Boykin, unpublished per curiam opinion of the Court of Appeals, issued March 20, 
2018 (Docket No. 335862) (Boykin II). 
Boykin sought leave to appeal in this Court.  We directed the Clerk to schedule oral 
argument at the same session as People v Tate and directed the parties to address: 
                                              
2 This sentencing scheme did not eradicate sentences of life without the possibility of parole 
for this class of defendant.  Rather, it enabled the prosecution to move the trial court to 
seek a life-without-parole sentence for a particular defendant sentenced under MCL 769.25 
or MCL 769.25a.  MCL 769.25(3); MCL 769.25a(4).  If, as here, the prosecution did not 
seek a life-without-parole sentence, a defendant must be sentenced to a term of years with 
a minimum sentencing range of 25 to 40 years and a maximum sentence of 60 years.  MCL 
769.25(9); MCL 769.25a(4)(c).  The chief difference between MCL 769.25 and MCL 
769.25a is that MCL 769.25 eliminated mandatory sentences of life without the possibility 
of parole for juveniles who were sentenced after Miller and MCL 769.25a enacted a 
resentencing scheme for these juvenile offenders already sentenced in the event Miller was 
given retroactive application.  Therefore, since Montgomery held that Miller was to be 
given retroactive application, MCL 769.25a is the applicable statute for defendant Boykin’s 
resentencing. 
 
 
 
 
5 
(1) whether the Court of Appeals correctly held in People v Wines, 323 Mich 
App 343 (2018), rev’d in nonrelevant part 506 Mich 954 (2020), that trial 
courts must consider the distinctive attributes of youth, such as those 
discussed in Miller . . . , when sentencing a minor to a term of years pursuant 
to MCL 769.25a; (2) if Wines was correctly decided, whether sentencing 
judges have an obligation to explicitly set forth their analysis of how the 
defendant’s age impacted their sentencing discretion when proceeding under 
MCL 769.25a or MCL 769.25; and (3) if Wines applies to this case, whether 
the trial court complied with its requirements, and if it did not, what more the 
court was required to do.  [People v Boykin, 507 Mich 960, 960-961 (2021)]. 
B.  PEOPLE v TATE 
Defendant Tyler Maurice Tate was involved in a gang-related shooting when he was 
16 years old.  Tate, Tyshon Taylor, Brendon Stanton-Lipscomb, and Demetrius Armour 
were all affiliated with a gang known as the Eastside Ghetto Boys or Rob Gang.3  Tate and 
Taylor were at the Eastland Mall in Harper Woods on December 26, 2015, when they 
overheard the victim make a disparaging remark about the Rob Gang.  After Stanton-
Lipscomb was called and informed of what had happened, Stanton-Lipscomb asked for the 
victim to be escorted outside, where Stanton-Lipscomb planned to shoot him.  Tate then 
led the victim and another person to the outside of the mall, where Stanton-Lipscomb was 
hiding.  Stanton-Lipscomb shot the victim several times, causing fatal wounds.  The other 
individual escaped without injury. 
Tate was convicted by a jury of first-degree premeditated murder, MCL 
750.316(1)(a), making a false report of a felony to police, MCL 750.411a(1)(b), and lying 
to a police officer in a criminal investigation, MCL 750.479c(2)(d)(i).  He was sentenced 
on April 24, 2017, under MCL 769.25, which had become law in 2014.  As with Boykin, 
                                              
3 Each of these three individuals was also charged and prosecuted separately for his 
involvement in the incidents leading to Tate’s convictions.  They are not parties to this 
appeal. 
 
 
 
 
6 
the prosecution did not move to seek a sentence of life without the possibility of parole, 
and instead sought the imposition of a 40- to 60-year sentence, whereas Tate argued for a 
25- to 60-year sentence.  After hearing from Tate and the victim’s mother, the trial court 
agreed with the prosecution and sentenced Tate to serve 40 to 60 years in prison for his 
murder conviction, concurrent to one to four years each for his remaining convictions. 
Tate appealed his sentence by right.  The Court of Appeals affirmed.  People v Tate, 
unpublished per curiam opinion of the Court of Appeals, issued September 20, 2018 
(Docket No. 338360). 
Tate sought leave to appeal in this Court.  We directed the Clerk of this Court to 
schedule oral argument, directing the parties to address the same issues as in Boykin.  
People v Tate, 507 Mich 961 (2021).  
II.  STANDARD OF REVIEW 
Sentencing decisions are reviewed for an abuse of discretion.  People v Steanhouse, 
500 Mich 453, 471; 902 NW2d 327 (2017).  An abuse-of-discretion standard recognizes 
that there may be more than one principled outcome and the trial court may not deviate 
from that principled range of outcomes.  People v Babcock, 469 Mich 247, 269; 666 NW2d 
231 (2003). 
This case also concerns matters of constitutional and statutory interpretation, which 
are reviewed de novo.  People v McKinley, 496 Mich 410, 414-415; 852 NW2d 770 (2014). 
 
 
 
 
7 
III.  ANALYSIS 
A.  SENTENCING AUTHORITY 
The Michigan Constitution vests sentencing authority in the Legislature.  Const 
1963, art 4, § 45; see also People v Hegwood, 465 Mich 432, 436; 636 NW2d 127 (2001) 
(citations omitted).  “The authority to impose sentences and to administer the sentencing 
statutes enacted by the Legislature lies with the judiciary.”  Hegwood, 465 Mich at 436-
437. 
Where the Legislature has assigned a range of sentencing outcomes for any given 
conviction, the trial court has authority to sentence a defendant within that range.  Within 
that range, the sentence should be tailored to the particular circumstances of the case and 
offender.  People v McFarlin, 389 Mich 557, 574; 208 NW2d 504 (1973).  It is the trial 
court’s duty to exercise discretion in a way that ensures the individualized sentence 
conforms with the principle of proportionality.  People v Milbourn, 435 Mich 630, 651; 
461 NW2d 1 (1990).  An appropriate sentence should give consideration to the reformation 
of the offender, the protection of society, the discipline of the offender, and the deterrence 
of others from committing the same offense.  People v Snow, 386 Mich 586, 592; 194 
NW2d 314 (1972), citing Williams v New York, 337 US 241; 69 S Ct 1079; 93 L Ed 1337 
(1949).  However, these are not the only relevant sentencing criteria and trial courts are not 
required to consider each of these factors when imposing a sentence.  People v Broden, 
428 Mich 343, 350; 408 NW2d 789 (1987). 
Within each of the two statutes at issue here, MCL 769.25 and MCL 769.25a, there 
is a range of sentencing outcomes.  Unless the prosecution moves to sentence a defendant 
to life in prison without the possibility of parole, juvenile defendants who are convicted of 
 
 
 
 
8 
certain enumerated acts may receive a minimum sentence of 25 to 40 years and a maximum 
sentence of 60 years.4  MCL 769.25(4), (9); MCL 769.25a(4)(c). 
B.  YOUTH IS A MITIGATING FACTOR THAT TRIAL COURTS MUST CONSIDER 
WHEN SENTENCING JUVENILE OFFENDERS UNDER MCL 769.25 AND 
MCL 769.25a 
Sentencing juvenile defendants who were convicted of first-degree murder is an 
exceptionally daunting task for trial courts.  On one hand, first-degree murder is an 
extremely serious offense, as it recognizes that at least one person is deceased.  On the 
other hand, defendants who are sentenced under MCL 769.25 and MCL 769.25a were 
juveniles when they committed their crimes.  Even as we keep in mind the solemnity of 
the acts that bring us to our consideration of the legal issues at hand, the Supreme Court 
has clearly signaled that the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishments 
requires us to think differently about how we sentence juvenile offenders.   
Since 2005, the Supreme Court’s message has been clear: one’s juvenile status 
matters, and special consideration must be paid to youthful offenders before the harshest 
sentences may be imposed.  In the first of many cases dealing with juvenile offenders and 
sentencing, the Supreme Court held that the death penalty is an unconstitutional 
punishment for offenders who were under the age of 18 when their offenses were 
                                              
4 In Boykin II, the majority asserted that the trial court “sentenced defendant to a term of 
years, choosing not to impose a sentence of life without parole.”  Boykin II, unpub op at 3.  
This assertion is clearly erroneous.  The trial court possesses no authority to sentence a 
juvenile defendant to life without parole unless the prosecution first moves for that sentence 
and the proper hearing is conducted.  See MCL 769.25(4) and (9); MCL 769.25a(4)(c).  
Because the prosecution never moved to sentence Boykin to a sentence of life without the 
possibility of parole, the trial court could only impose a sentence within the applicable 
range of terms of years. 
 
 
 
 
9 
committed.  Roper v Simmons, 543 US 551; 125 S Ct 1183; 161 L Ed 2d 1 (2005).  In 
Roper, the Supreme Court relied on three general differences between juvenile and adult 
offenders that “demonstrate that juvenile offenders cannot with reliability be classified 
among the worst offenders.”  Id. at 569.  Those differences are: (1) juveniles have a “ ‘lack 
of maturity and an underdeveloped sense of responsibility,’ ” which “often result[s] in 
impetuous and ill-considered actions and decisions”; (2) juveniles are “more vulnerable or 
susceptible to negative influences and outside pressures, including peer pressure,” and (3) 
“the character of a juvenile is not as well formed as that of an adult.”  Id. at 569-570 
(citation omitted).  These reasons mean that juvenile offenders have “a greater claim than 
adults to be forgiven for failing to escape negative influences in their whole environment” 
and make it “less supportable to conclude that even a heinous crime committed by a 
juvenile is evidence of irretrievably depraved character.”  Id. at 570.  “Once the diminished 
culpability of juveniles is recognized, it is evident that the penological justifications for the 
death penalty apply to them with lesser force than to adults.”  Id. at 571. 
Five years later, applying this same logic, the Supreme Court held that sentences of 
life without the possibility of parole are unconstitutional for juvenile offenders who did not 
commit homicide.  Graham v Florida, 560 US 48, 76; 130 S Ct 2011; 176 L Ed 2d 825 
(2010) (holding that “[a]n offender’s age is relevant to the Eighth Amendment, and 
criminal procedure laws that fail to take defendants’ youthfulness into account at all would 
be flawed”).  In the process, Graham added another reason why youth matters—that “the 
features that distinguish juveniles from adults also put them at a significant disadvantage 
in criminal proceedings.”  Id. at 78. 
 
 
 
 
10 
In Miller, the Supreme Court applied the logic and rationale from Roper and 
Graham that “children are constitutionally different from adults for purposes of 
sentencing” in the context of mandatory life-without-parole sentences for homicide 
offenses.  Miller, 567 US at 471.  Although Graham’s holding only concerned non-
homicide offenses, the Supreme Court held that its underlying rationale was broader—the 
characteristics of youth and the way they weaken rationales for punishments may render a 
sentence of life without the possibility of parole disproportionate even for a homicide 
offense.  Id. at 473.  The Supreme Court noted that the problem with mandatory life-
without-parole sentences is that they make youth and the factors of youth, as articulated by 
Roper and Graham, irrelevant and “pose[] too great a risk of disproportionate punishment.”  
Id. at 479.  Therefore, when sentencing juvenile offenders to sentences of life imprisonment 
without the possibility of parole, trial courts are required to “take into account how children 
are different, and how those differences counsel against irrevocably sentencing them to a 
lifetime in prison.”  Id. at 480.5  Not having the ability to take these differences into account 
“disregards the possibility of rehabilitation even when the circumstances most suggest it.”  
Id. at 478. 
Following Roper, Graham, and Miller, the Supreme Court has continued to 
articulate that “children are constitutionally different from adults in their level of 
culpability,” when holding that Miller created a substantive rule of constitutional law that 
was to be given retroactive effect.  Montgomery, 577 US at 213.  Most recently, the 
Supreme Court again made clear that youth is a mitigating factor in sentencing juveniles.  
                                              
5 Because Miller incorporated the factors articulated in Roper and Graham, these factors 
together are colloquially known as the Miller factors. 
 
 
 
 
11 
Jones v Mississippi, 593 US ___; 141 S Ct 1307, 1319; 209 L Ed 2d 390 (2021) (explaining 
that, “[f]aced with a convicted murderer who was under 18 at the time of the offense and 
with defense arguments focused on the defendant’s youth, it would be all but impossible 
for a sentencer to avoid considering that mitigating factor”) (emphasis added). 
In these cases, the Supreme Court has identified and analyzed the unique attributes 
of youth and emphasized the importance of considering these attributes during sentencing.6  
Thus far, however, the Supreme Court has recognized a constitutional requirement to 
consider these attributes only in the context of sentencing juveniles to life without the 
possibility of parole.  Now we must decide whether consideration of these attributes is 
required when imposing a term-of-years sentence on a juvenile defendant.  Keeping in 
mind the Supreme Court’s consistent statement across Eighth Amendment cases that 
“youth matters in sentencing,” Jones, 593 US at ___; 141 S Ct at 1314, we hold that 
consideration of youth and its attendant circumstances is also required by this state’s 
sentencing jurisprudence. 
                                              
6 There is little practical difference between this majority opinion and the outcome 
preferred by the dissent.  In order to come to a disagreement, the dissent narrowly reads 
Roper, Miller, Montgomery, and Jones at the same time that it broadly reads this opinion.  
The Supreme Court has been clear that youth matters in sentencing decisions.  Most 
recently, the Supreme Court stated verbatim that, “if the sentencer has discretion to 
consider the defendant’s youth, the sentencer necessarily will consider the defendant’s 
youth.”  Jones, 593 US at ___; 141 S Ct at 1319.  This opinion simply echoes that 
sentiment.  Whereas the dissent is correct that Miller and Montgomery were decided in the 
context of mandatory sentences of life without the possibility of parole, Jones was decided 
squarely within the discretionary sentencing regime that was mandated by Miller and 
Montgomery.  Thus, we respectfully disagree that the Supreme Court’s holdings should be 
limited to the context of mandatory sentences of life without the possibility of parole. 
 
 
 
 
12 
Our sentencing caselaw focuses on the principle of proportionality, which requires 
sentences imposed “to be proportionate to the seriousness of the circumstances surrounding 
the offense and the offender.”  Milbourn, 435 Mich at 636 (emphasis added).  Accordingly, 
because the Supreme Court has held that youth—a circumstance of the offender—matters 
at sentencing, our own caselaw requires that such a relevant offender characteristic must 
be considered at sentencing.  In Snow, this Court decided the legality of a sentence that was 
made harsher because the defendant decided to face trial rather than plead guilty.  In 
holding that the defendant was entitled to resentencing because the record was silent about 
why the defendant’s sentence departed from the ordinary minimum sentence, this Court 
expressed the importance of four basic sentencing considerations.  Snow, 386 Mich at 592, 
594.  Those four considerations are: (1) “reformation of the offender”; (2) “protection of 
society”; (3) “disciplining of the wrongdoer”; and (4) “deterrence of others from 
committing like offenses.”  Id. at 592. 
Youth affects these considerations.  For example, since “a greater possibility exists 
that a minor’s character deficiencies will be reformed,” the mitigating qualities of youth 
necessarily transform the analysis of the first Snow criterion.  Roper, 543 US at 570.  
Without considering the mitigating factors of youth, then, a sentence cannot adequately 
address the reformation of the offender.  Next, because youth have a “heightened capacity 
for change” relative to adults, the needs for protecting society should be given 
individualized consideration, which necessarily considers the way youth affects the 
defendant’s ability to change.  Miller, 567 US at 479; see also Jones, 593 US at ___ n 7; 
141 S Ct at 1337 n 7 (Sotomayor, J., dissenting) (explaining that “[t]he Eighth Amendment 
requires that sentencers (and reviewing courts) not presume that most juveniles will forever 
 
 
 
 
13 
remain the ‘murderers’ they once were”) (citation and comma omitted).  In addition, 
because it is “less supportable to conclude that even a heinous crime committed by a 
juvenile is evidence of irretrievably depraved character,” Snow’s focus on discipline of the 
wrongdoer must be viewed differently under the lens of youth.  See Roper, 543 US at 570.  
“Nor can deterrence do the work in this context, because ‘ “the same characteristics that 
render juveniles less culpable than adults” ’ . . . make them less likely to consider potential 
punishment.”  Miller, 567 US at 472, quoting Graham, 560 US at 72, quoting Roper, 543 
US at 71.  Given that youth is a mitigating factor, it will inevitably factor into Snow’s four 
considerations. 
We thus hold, consistent with the Supreme Court’s repeated recognition of youth’s 
effect on sentencing and our own sentencing jurisprudence, that in all sentencing hearings 
conducted under MCL 769.25 or MCL 769.25a, trial courts are to consider the defendant’s 
youth and must treat it as a mitigating factor. 
C.  TRIAL COURTS NEED NOT ARTICULATE THEIR BASES FOR CONSIDERING 
THE OFFENDERS’ YOUTH WHEN SENTENCING YOUTHFUL OFFENDERS TO 
TERMS OF YEARS 
The requirement to consider youth at sentencing is not necessarily the same as a 
requirement to articulate the Miller factors on the record during a sentencing hearing.  
There are a few possible sources of law that would require courts to articulate these factors 
on the record, such as a statute, the United States Constitution, the Michigan Constitution, 
or our caselaw.  None of those sources of law expresses such a requirement.7  Therefore, 
                                              
7 Because we are not persuaded by the briefs that the Michigan Constitution considers this 
specific issue in a meaningfully different way than these other sources of law, we decline 
 
 
 
 
14 
we hold that trial courts need not articulate their bases for considering an offender’s youth 
during sentencing hearings conducted under MCL 769.25 and MCL 769.25a in which the 
offender is sentenced to a term of years. 
MCL 769.25 is the relevant statute outlining sentencing procedure for juvenile 
defendants convicted of these enumerated offenses, including first-degree murder.8  In 
enacting this statute, the Legislature differentiated between two plausible outcomes for 
offenders who were convicted of certain enumerated acts committed before they turned 18.  
A defendant could either receive a term of years with a minimum sentence of 25 to 40 years 
and a maximum of 60 years or, if the prosecution timely moved to have the court consider 
it, life without the possibility of parole.  Compare MCL 769.25(3) to MCL 769.25(4).  If 
the prosecution seeks life without the possibility of parole, the trial court must conduct a 
hearing in which it considers the Miller factors.  MCL 769.25(6).  At that hearing, the trial 
court “shall specify on the record the aggravating and mitigating circumstances considered 
by the court and the court’s reasons supporting the sentence imposed.”  MCL 769.25(7).  
But if the prosecution does not move for life without the possibility of parole or if the trial 
court decides such a sentence is disproportionate, there is no analogous statutory provision 
requiring that the trial court specify on the record any specific factors or other sentencing 
criteria.  MCL 769.25(9).  This is a meaningful distinction.  Thus, we find that there is no 
                                              
to hold that there is an independent basis for an on-the-record articulation requirement 
under the Michigan Constitution. 
8 MCL 769.25a is also relevant for many members of this class of offender, including 
Boykin, who were sentenced before Montgomery held that Miller was retroactive.  
However, MCL 769.25a mirrors the pertinent requirements of MCL 769.25 and expressly 
incorporates the hearing procedures of MCL 769.25 without meaningful difference.  See, 
e.g., MCL 769.25a(4)(b).  Our holding thus pertains to both statutes. 
 
 
 
 
15 
statutory support for requiring trial courts to articulate the mitigating factors of defendant’s 
youth on the record in MCL 769.25 or MCL 769.25a hearings unless life without the 
possibility of parole is sought. 
Nor does the United States Constitution impose such a requirement.  Jones held that 
an on-the-record sentencing explanation of the Miller factors is not necessary in cases 
where a life-without-parole sentence is imposed.  Jones, 593 US at ___; 141 S Ct at 1320-
1321 (“Because the Constitution does not require an on-the-record explanation of 
mitigating circumstances by the sentence in death penalty cases, it would be incongruous 
to require an on-the-record explanation of the mitigating circumstance of youth by the 
sentence in life-without-parole cases”).  By extension, then, the Constitution also does not 
require an on-the-record explanation of the mitigating circumstances of youth in term-of-
years cases. 
We also find no requirement for an on-the-record articulation of how youth or the 
Miller factors affected a sentence in our caselaw.  Youth matters in sentencing decisions 
involving juvenile offenders, and the trial court is responsible for tailoring a sentence to an 
individual defendant and for giving reasons for imposing each sentence in order to facilitate 
appellate review.  McFarlin, 389 Mich 557; People v Coles, 417 Mich 523, 549; 339 NW2d 
440 (1983), overruled on other grounds by Milbourn, 435 Mich at 635.  However, like 
Jones’s observation about the Supreme Court’s precedent, none of this Court’s sentencing 
jurisprudence requires trial courts to fulfill these responsibilities by articulating specific 
factors on the record.  Instead, our sentences must follow the principle of proportionality, 
which “requires ‘sentences imposed by the trial court to be proportionate to the seriousness 
of the circumstances surrounding the offense and the offender.’ ”  Steanhouse, 500 Mich 
 
 
 
 
16 
at 474, quoting Milbourn, 435 Mich at 636.  “[S]entencing courts must justify the sentence 
imposed in order to facilitate appellate review.”  People v Lockridge, 498 Mich 358, 392; 
870 NW2d 502 (2015) (citation omitted).  But never before have we imposed a requirement 
that a sentencing court give a detailed on-the-record explanation of one or more specific 
factors, and we do not impose such a requirement here. 
The Court of Appeals previously considered the question before us and held that 
there is no constitutional mandate to make specific, on-the-record findings about the Miller 
factors, but that sentencing courts should be guided by the Snow factors, which necessarily 
includes the consideration of youth as a mitigating factor.  People v Wines, 323 Mich App 
343, 352; 916 NW2d 855 (2018), rev’d in part on other grounds 506 Mich 954 (2020).  We 
affirm the Court of Appeals holding in Wines, which “requires only that when the trial 
court exercises its discretion in sentencing a defendant that it consider the defendant’s age” 
and is thus “consistent with the traditional penological goals expressed by this Court in 
[Snow].”  Wines, 506 Mich 954, 958 (CLEMENT, J., concurring). 
However, merely considering the mitigating qualities of youth within Snow’s 
sentencing criteria stops short of requiring trial courts to articulate a basis on the record to 
explain how youth affected the sentence imposed.  We again look to Jones as a helpful 
guide to explain the holding in Wines.  Jones explains: 
[A]n on-the-record sentencing explanation is not necessary to ensure that a 
sentencer considers a defendant’s youth.  Jones’s argument to the contrary 
rests on the assumption that meaningful daylight exists between (i) a 
sentencer’s discretion to consider youth, and (ii) the sentencer’s actual 
consideration of youth.  But if the sentencer has discretion to consider the 
defendant’s youth, the sentencer necessarily will consider the defendant’s 
youth, especially if defense counsel advances an argument based on the 
defendant’s youth.  Faced with a convicted murderer who was under 18 at 
 
 
 
 
17 
the time of the offense and with defense arguments focused on the 
defendant’s youth, it would be all but impossible for a sentencer to avoid 
considering that mitigating factor.  [Jones, 593 US at ___; 141 S Ct at 1319]. 
 
The Court of Appeals’ decision in Wines is aligned with the sentiment expressed in 
Jones—which was another case in a long line of Supreme Court cases explaining that youth 
matters—as well as with Michigan sentencing caselaw and our present holding.  Trial 
courts must consider youth as a mitigating factor in hearings conducted under MCL 769.25 
or MCL 769.25a even when the defendant is sentenced to a term of years; however, this 
consideration need not be articulated on the record.  See Wines, 506 Mich at 958 
(CLEMENT, J., concurring).9  In other words, there is no authority that imposes a higher 
standard of articulation regarding youth beyond our general requirement that a trial court 
must adequately explain its sentence on the record in order to facilitate appellate review.  
Lockridge, 498 Mich at 392. 
IV.  APPLICATION 
A.  DOCKET NO. 157738 
In Boykin II, the Court of Appeals held that consideration of Boykin’s youth was 
unnecessary because Miller only pertained to defendants who are sentenced to serve life 
without the possibility of parole.  Boykin II, unpub op at 3-4.  Accordingly, the majority 
never addressed whether the trial court properly considered youth to be a mitigating factor 
                                              
9 That said, nothing in this opinion deprives trial courts of the discretion to articulate how 
an offender’s youth or the Miller factors apply to that particular offender’s sentence.  
Rather, articulating how the court considered the defendant’s youth when fashioning an 
appropriate sentence enhances an appellate court’s ability to review the proportionality of 
that sentence. 
 
 
 
 
18 
when defendant was sentenced.  In light of our holding, we vacate that opinion and remand 
to the Court of Appeals to consider that question. 
B.  DOCKET NO. 158695 
In Tate, rather than rejecting Tate’s arguments, the Court of Appeals applied Wines.  
Tate, unpub op at 6.  The panel went on to identify ways in which it believed the trial court 
gave consideration to defendant’s attributes of youth.  For example, the trial court 
commented that “ ‘perhaps your age, and your maturity, were working against you,’ but it 
found that Tate ‘knew exactly what [he] was doing.’ ”  Id. at 7.  And the panel added that 
the trial court “observed that Tate ‘volunteered to participate in the assassination of [the 
victim] . . . .’ ”  Id.  Assuming that these statements comply with our requirement that youth 
must be a mitigating factor, they appear to only represent a small portion of the record 
established by the sentencing court.10  It bears repeating that youth is a mitigating factor at 
                                              
10 The trial court stated: 
You participated in this murder, then you ran and hid.   
You boasted, subsequence [sic] to the murder, that the Police couldn’t 
find you, the Police couldn’t get you.   
This Court, now having had the opportunity to, to see this 
circumstance three times, cannot comprehend why you would volunteer to 
participate in this execution.   
Was it a thrill seeking?  Was it an opportunity to be the man, and 
enhance your reputation, in your community?   
I have no idea.   
But the fact is, that perhaps your age, and your maturity, were working 
against you.   
 
 
 
 
19 
sentencing, not an aggravating factor.11  Although trial courts are not required to make a 
record that they considered each mitigating factor listed in Miller when sentencing these 
defendants, whether these statements and the totality of the record established by the trial 
court comply with our requirement that a trial court consider youth to be a mitigating factor 
is a close question deserving of additional appellate review.  Thus, we vacate Part V of the 
Court of Appeals opinion, which discusses Tate’s sentence, and remand to the Court of 
Appeals for reconsideration in light of this opinion. 
V.  CONCLUSION 
Sentencing courts must consider youth as a mitigating factor at sentencing hearings 
conducted under MCL 769.25 or MCL 769.25a when the defendant is sentenced to a term 
of years.  However, the court’s consideration of youth need not be articulated on the record.  
Therefore, the Court of Appeals was correct when it held that there is no constitutional 
mandate to make specific findings on the record as to the Miller factors but that sentencing 
courts should be guided by the Snow factors, which necessarily include consideration of 
youth as a mitigating factor.  Wines, 323 Mich App at 352.  Because it is unclear whether 
the trial courts properly considered youth to be mitigating in either of these consolidated 
                                              
But in our civilized society, you’re [sic] actions, despite your age, do 
not make your actions forgivable.   
Once again, you knew exactly what you were doing. 
11 The Supreme Court left open the door to the possibility that a defendant could raise a 
successful Eighth Amendment challenge if a trial court “expressly refuses as a matter of 
law to consider relevant mitigating circumstances.”  Jones, 593 US at ___ n 7; 141 S Ct at 
1320 n 7.  A defendant may also raise a successful sentencing challenge if the sentencing 
court refuses to consider relevant mitigating factors or circumstances as mitigating. 
 
 
 
 
20 
cases, yet the Court of Appeals affirmed the trial courts’ sentencing decisions, we vacate 
the portions of both Court of Appeals opinions discussing defendants’ sentencing 
challenges, and we remand both cases to the Court of Appeals for further consideration not 
inconsistent with this opinion. 
 
 
Richard H. Bernstein 
 
Bridget M. McCormack 
 
Elizabeth T. Clement (except as to 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Part IV(B)) 
 
Megan K. Cavanagh 
 
Elizabeth M. Welch 
S T A T E  O F  M I C H I G A N 
 
SUPREME COURT 
 
 
PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN, 
 
 
Plaintiff-Appellee, 
 
 
v 
No. 157738 
 
DEMARIOL DONTAYE BOYKIN, 
 
 
 
Defendant-Appellant. 
 
 
 
PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN, 
 
 
Plaintiff-Appellee, 
 
 
v 
No. 158695 
 
TYLER MAURICE TATE, 
 
 
 
Defendant-Appellant. 
 
 
 
MCCORMACK, C.J. (concurring). 
I concur fully in the majority opinion.  I write separately to say more about the 
majority’s conclusion that the Michigan Constitution does not contain a requirement that a 
trial court articulate on the record how it considered the mitigating characteristics of youth 
when it sentences a juvenile defendant to a sentence other than life without the possibility 
of parole.  The United States Supreme Court has made clear that “children are different” 
for sentencing purposes and that sometimes, a sentencing court may not constitutionally 
sentence a juvenile without considering the mitigating characteristics of youth.  Miller v 
Alabama, 567 US 460, 480; 132 S Ct 2455; 183 L Ed 2d 407 (2012); see also Graham v 
 
2 
 
Florida, 560 US 48, 76; 130 S Ct 2011; 176 L Ed 2d 825 (2010); Roper v Simmons, 543 
US 551; 125 S Ct 1183; 161 L Ed 2d 1 (2005).  Exactly how that principle applies in 
interpreting the Michigan Constitution has not been explored in these cases and is therefore 
left for another day. 
The Michigan Constitution played a backseat role throughout these cases’ 
progression through the trial and appellate courts; it was not until defendant Tyler M. Tate’s 
supplemental brief in this Court that it made its first appearance.  And then, Tate argued 
that his 40-year minimum sentence was disproportionate under Article 1, § 16 of the 
Michigan Constitution and our decision in People v Bullock, 440 Mich 15; 485 NW2d 866 
(1992).  But Bullock’s four-factor test for evaluating the proportionality of a particular 
sentence does not address Tate’s argument that Article 1, § 16 requires an on-the-record 
explanation of how the mitigating characteristics of youth affected a trial court’s sentencing 
decision for the sentence imposed to be constitutional.  See, e.g., State v Null, 836 NW2d 
41, 74 (Iowa, 2013) (“We think the direction from the Supreme Court that trial courts 
consider everything said about youth in Roper, Graham, and Miller means more than a 
generalized notion of taking age into consideration as a factor in sentencing. . . .  [W]e 
conclude article I, section 17 [of the Iowa Constitution] requires that a district court 
recognize and apply the core teachings of Roper, Graham, and Miller in making sentencing 
decisions for long prison terms involving juveniles.”).  Tate’s argument is therefore a poor 
fit with the authority he cites. 
But we know youth matters in sentencing under the state Constitution as well as the 
federal Constitution.  See People v Stovall, ___ Mich ___; ___ NW2d ___ (2022) (Docket 
No. 162425).  While neither the statutory scheme nor the federal Constitution categorically 
 
3 
 
requires an on-the-record articulation of how the characteristics of youth affect a 
sentencing court’s decision, the Court correctly rules that sentencing courts must consider 
those characteristics and treat them as mitigating.  A trial court’s failure to do so explicitly 
on the record, notwithstanding no categorical rule requiring it, stands a high chance of 
rendering its sentence a violation of Article 1, § 16, and therefore necessarily an abuse of 
its discretion.  People v Duncan, 494 Mich 713, 723; 835 NW2d 399 (2013) (“A trial court 
necessarily abuses its discretion when it makes an error of law.”). 
And whether a categorical rule may be constitutionally required under Article 1, 
§ 16 is a question left for another day.  The principles animating Miller, Graham, and Roper 
apply no less forcefully in this context.  Those principles, together with our precedent 
requiring individualized sentencing, see People v McFarlin, 389 Mich 557, 574; 208 
NW2d 504 (1973), may render a sentence where the effect of youth is unexplained at such 
high risk of violating those principles as to be constitutionally impermissible.  See 
generally Null, 836 NW2d at 74.  
 
 
Bridget M. McCormack 
S T A T E  O F  M I C H I G A N 
 
SUPREME COURT 
 
 
PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN, 
 
 
Plaintiff-Appellee, 
 
 
v 
No. 157738 
 
DEMARIOL DONTAYE BOYKIN, 
 
 
 
Defendant-Appellant. 
 
 
 
PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN, 
 
 
Plaintiff-Appellee, 
 
 
v 
No. 158695 
 
TYLER MAURICE TATE, 
 
 
 
Defendant-Appellant. 
 
 
 
CLEMENT, J. (concurring in part and dissenting in part). 
Consistently with my concurring statement in People v Wines, 506 Mich 954, 958 
(2020) (CLEMENT, J., concurring), I agree with the majority that trial courts are required to 
consider the mitigating effects of youth when sentencing a juvenile to a term-of-years 
sentence because youth affects the traditional penological goals that guide a sentencer’s 
discretion.  See People v Snow, 386 Mich 586, 592; 194 NW2d 314 (1972).  Within this 
context, the United States Supreme Court’s discussion of the mitigating effects of youth in 
Miller v Alabama, 567 US 460; 132 S Ct 2455; 183 L Ed 2d 407 (2012), is relevant in 
understanding how youth relates to those traditional penological goals.  Neither this 
 
2 
 
decision nor Wines holds that the Eighth Amendment requires specific consideration of 
each attribute of youth identified in Miller, nor does either decision require that the trial 
court make explicit findings as to each of those attributes on the record.  Although this 
Court has chosen elsewhere to extend Miller, see, e.g., People v Stovall, ___ Mich ___; 
___ NW2d ___ (2022) (Docket No. 162425); People v Parks, ___ Mich ___; ___ NW2d 
___ (2022) (Docket No. 162086), the majority opinion in this case does not do so, and 
accordingly, I concur with its holding that the mitigating effects of youth must be 
considered during term-of-years juvenile sentencing.  
While I agree with the majority’s iteration of this general rule, I respectfully dissent 
as to the majority’s application of that rule to defendant Tate.  At Tate’s sentencing, the 
trial court listened to defense counsel’s youth-based leniency arguments and noted that it 
had also reviewed Tate’s presentence investigation report, which contained additional 
material about Tate’s age, family environment, and criminal history.  The trial court 
acknowledged that “perhaps [Tate’s] age, and [his] maturity, were working against [him],” 
but also highlighted Tate’s volunteered and intentional role in the murder, his flight from 
and lengthy evasion of law enforcement, his lack of remorse, and his “violent, deplorable” 
nature.  On the basis of this full consideration of Tate’s background and the nature of the 
offense, the trial court sentenced him to a 40- to 60-year term of imprisonment.  The trial 
court’s record of its decision-making sufficiently justified the sentence imposed in order to 
facilitate appellate review, the sole articulation requirement mandated by our sentencing 
jurisprudence.  People v Lockridge, 498 Mich 358, 392; 870 NW2d 502 (2015).   
Despite this, the majority now chooses to remand this case to the Court of Appeals 
for reconsideration, explaining that the trial court’s comments “appear to only represent a 
 
3 
 
small portion of the record established by the sentencing court” and that “whether these 
statements and the totality of the record established by the trial court comply with our 
requirement that a trial court consider youth to be a mitigating factor is a close question 
deserving of additional appellate review.”  In my opinion, this disposition on the basis of 
the brevity of the trial judge’s statements deeply muddies—if not outright contradicts—the 
majority’s holding that no statutory or constitutional authority compels the trial court to 
make an on-the-record explanation of its consideration of youth.  To the extent that the 
majority may believe that Tate is deserving of a shorter minimum sentence because of the 
mitigating effects of youth (i.e., that the trial court weighed the mitigating effects of youth 
incorrectly), that is a proportionality issue that should be addressed by this Court and not 
remanded to the Court of Appeals, which has already considered and rejected Tate’s 
proportionality argument.  
 
 
Elizabeth T. Clement 
S T A T E  O F  M I C H I G A N 
 
SUPREME COURT 
 
 
PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN, 
 
 
Plaintiff-Appellee, 
 
 
v 
No. 157738 
 
DEMARIOL DONTAYE BOYKIN, 
 
 
 
Defendant-Appellant. 
 
 
 
PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN, 
 
 
Plaintiff-Appellee, 
 
 
v 
No. 158695 
 
TYLER MAURICE TATE, 
 
 
 
Defendant-Appellant. 
 
 
 
ZAHRA, J. (dissenting). 
I dissent from the majority’s decision.  The majority opinion concludes that 
“[s]entencing courts must consider youth as a mitigating factor at sentencing hearings 
conducted under MCL 769.25 or MCL 769.25a when the defendant is sentenced to a term 
of years,” but that “the court’s consideration of youth need not be articulated on the 
record.”1  To the extent the majority opinion holds that a juvenile homicide offender’s 
youth operates as a mitigating factor for purposes of sentencing, I take no exception, as 
                                              
1 Ante at 19. 
 
2 
 
“Miller [v Alabama] repeatedly described youth as a sentencing factor akin to a mitigating 
circumstance.”2  But the majority opinion’s holding is not so narrow.  Instead, the majority 
opinion concludes more broadly that when sentencing a juvenile homicide offender to a 
term of years under MCL 769.25 and MCL 769.25a, sentencing courts are required to 
consider the mitigating qualities of youth within the penological objectives outlined in 
People v Snow3 and that a failure to adequately consider those mitigating qualities will 
result in reversal.  I do not agree with this broader holding, as it lacks precedential support 
and runs counter to the guidance provided by the Supreme Court of the United States that 
“an on-the-record sentencing explanation is not necessary to ensure that a sentencer 
considers a defendant’s youth” because a sentencer that has the discretion to consider a 
defendant’s youth “necessarily will consider the defendant’s youth . . . .”4  I would not 
upset our Legislature’s policy choice of declining to extend Miller—which until now has 
only applied to this state’s juvenile homicide offenders facing life without parole—to term-
of-years sentences imposed under MCL 769.25 and MCL 769.25a.  Instead, I would hold 
that traditional sentencing considerations apply to these sentencing hearings; that is, when 
deciding what constitutes an appropriate term-of-years sentence for a juvenile homicide 
offender, a sentencing court should ultimately be guided by the principle of proportionality, 
                                              
2 Jones v Mississippi, 593 US ___, ___; 141 S Ct 1307, 1315; 209 L Ed 2d 390 (2021), 
citing Miller v Alabama, 567 US 460; 132 S Ct 2455; 183 L Ed 2d 407 (2012).   
3 People v Snow, 386 Mich 586, 592; 194 NW2d 314 (1972) (providing the following 
penological objectives of sentencing: (1) “reformation of the offender,” (2) “protection of 
society,” (3) punishment of the offender, and (4) “deterrence of others from committing 
like offenses”). 
4 Jones, 593 US at ___; 141 S Ct at 1319. 
 
3 
 
which aims to tailor the sentence to the particular offense and offender before it and which 
may require the court to consider how the offender’s age correlates with the sentence 
imposed.  Applying that standard, I would affirm each defendant’s sentence, as both 
sentencing courts adequately explained the sentences imposed in relation to each defendant 
and their offenses and, therefore, did not abuse their discretion in sentencing defendants to 
40 to 60 years’ imprisonment. 
I.  APPLICABLE LAW 
A.  UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT PRECEDENT 
In 2012, the Supreme Court of the United States held in Miller that “mandatory life 
without parole for those under the age of 18 at the time of their crimes violates the Eighth 
Amendment’s prohibition on ‘cruel and unusual punishments.’ ”5  The Supreme Court 
explained that “children are constitutionally different from adults for purposes of 
sentencing,” citing the following three grounds:  
First, children have a lack of maturity and an underdeveloped sense of 
responsibility, leading to recklessness, impulsivity, and heedless risk-taking.  
Second, children are more vulnerable to negative influences and outside 
pressures, including from their family and peers; they have limited control 
over their own environment and lack the ability to extricate themselves from 
horrific, crime-producing settings.  And third, a child’s character is not as 
well formed as an adult’s; his traits are less fixed and his actions less likely 
to be evidence of irretrievable depravity.[6] 
Given these asserted differences, the Miller Court concluded that subjecting 
juveniles to the same mandatory life-without-parole sentence applicable to adults 
                                              
5 Miller, 567 US at 465. 
6 Id. at 471 (citations, quotation marks, ellipses, and brackets omitted). 
 
4 
 
contravened the “foundational principle” from the Court’s prior decisions in Roper v 
Simmons7 and Graham v Florida8: “that imposition of a State’s most severe penalties on 
juvenile offenders cannot proceed as though they were not children.”9  Unlike Graham and 
Roper, however, the Court in Miller did “not categorically bar a penalty for a class of 
offenders or type of crime[.]”10  Instead, Miller “allowed life-without-parole sentences for 
defendants who committed homicide when they were under 18, but only so long as the 
sentence is not mandatory—that is, only so long as the sentencer has discretion to ‘consider 
the mitigating qualities of youth’ and impose a lesser punishment.”11  Accordingly, before 
imposing life without parole on a juvenile homicide offender, a sentencing court must have 
the opportunity to consider: “[a defendant’s] chronological age and its hallmark features—
among them, immaturity, impetuosity, and failure to appreciate risks and consequences”; 
“the family and home environment that surrounds him—and from which he cannot usually 
extricate himself—no matter how brutal or dysfunctional”; “the circumstances of the 
homicide offense, including the extent of his participation in the conduct and the way 
familial and peer pressures may have affected him”; whether “he might have been charged 
                                              
7 Roper v Simmons, 543 US 551, 578; 125 S Ct 1183; 161 L Ed 2d 1 (2005) (holding that 
the Eighth Amendment bars the imposition of the death penalty on offenders under the age 
of 18). 
8 Graham v Florida, 560 US 48, 74; 130 S Ct 2011; 176 L Ed 2d 825 (2010) (holding “that 
for a juvenile offender who did not commit homicide the Eighth Amendment forbids the 
sentence of life without parole”). 
9 Miller, 567 US at 474. 
10 Id. at 483.   
11 Jones, 593 US at ___; 141 S Ct at 1314 (emphasis omitted), quoting Miller, 567 US at 
476.   
 
5 
 
[with] and convicted of a lesser offense if not for incompetencies associated with youth—
for example, his inability to deal with police officers or prosecutors (including on a plea 
agreement) or his incapacity to assist his own attorneys”; and “the possibility of 
rehabilitation . . . .”12  These are commonly referred to as the Miller factors. 
Four years later, in Montgomery v Louisiana, the Supreme Court held that Miller 
applies retroactively to juvenile homicide offenders whose convictions and sentences were 
final when Miller was decided.13  Yet Montgomery did nothing to change the limited scope 
of Miller’s holding.  As the Supreme Court recently stated in Jones v Mississippi, “Miller 
cited Roper and Graham for a simple proposition: Youth matters in sentencing.  And 
because youth matters, Miller held that a sentencer must have discretion to consider youth 
before imposing a life-without-parole sentence . . . .”14  The Court in Jones further 
explained that “an on-the-record sentencing explanation . . . is not necessary to ensure that 
a sentencer considers a defendant’s youth . . . .”15  At bottom, “Miller required a 
discretionary sentencing procedure” only for those juvenile homicide offenders subject to 
life without parole, and “the Court did not suggest that those discretionary sentencing 
regimes required some kind of sentencing explanation.”16   
                                              
12 Miller, 567 US at 477-478. 
13 Montgomery v Louisiana, 577 US 190; 136 S Ct 718; 193 L Ed 2d 599 (2016). 
14 Jones, 593 US at ___; 141 S Ct at 1316.   
15 Id. at ___; 141 S Ct at 1319. 
16 Id. at ___, ___; 141 S Ct at 1317, 1320. 
 
6 
 
B.  MICHIGAN LAW 
In response to Miller, our Legislature enacted MCL 769.25 and MCL 769.25a.17  
Under these statutes, if the prosecuting attorney files a motion seeking imposition of a life-
without-parole sentence on a juvenile homicide offender convicted of certain enumerated 
offenses, including first-degree murder, the sentencing court must conduct a hearing on 
that motion as part of the sentencing process.18  At that hearing, the sentencing court is 
statutorily required to “consider the factors listed in [Miller]” and to “specify on the record 
the aggravating and mitigating circumstances considered by the court and the court’s 
reasons supporting the sentence imposed.”19  If the prosecutor does not seek life without 
parole, however, the sentencing court is not required to conduct such a hearing.  Instead, 
the statutes require the court to sentence the offender to a term of years in which the 
minimum sentence is no less than 25 years and no more than 40 years and the maximum 
sentence is no less than 60 years.20  That is, absent a motion from the prosecutor seeking 
life without parole, there is no statutory obligation for the sentencing court to consider the 
                                              
17 MCL 769.25a was enacted in anticipation that the United States Supreme Court would 
hold that Miller applies retroactively.  It provides essentially the same substantive relief as 
MCL 769.25. 
18 MCL 769.25(2), (3), (6); MCL 769.25a(4)(b). 
19 MCL 769.25(6); MCL 769.25(7).  The trial court is permitted to “consider any other 
criteria relevant to its decision, including the individual’s record while incarcerated,” MCL 
769.25(6), as well as “evidence presented at trial,” MCL 769.25(7). 
20 MCL 769.25(4), (9); MCL 769.25a(4)(c).  A juvenile homicide offender benefiting from 
Montgomery’s holding that Miller applies retroactively and who is not subject to a life-
without-parole sentence, like Boykin, would actually receive a maximum sentence of 
exactly 60 years, MCL 769.25a(4)(c), whereas a juvenile whose convictions and sentences 
were final after Miller, like Tate, would receive a maximum sentence of “not less than 60 
years,” MCL 769.25(9).  Both Tate and Boykin received 40- to 60-year sentences.  
 
7 
 
Miller factors, nor is the court required to state on the record the aggravating and mitigating 
circumstances the court considered in sentencing the juvenile homicide offender to a term 
of years. 
The lack of statutory guidance for sentencing courts imposing term-of-years 
sentences under MCL 769.25 and MCL 769.25a does not mean that those courts may 
simply rubber-stamp the maximum allowable sentence under those statutes.  Rather, this 
Court in People v Milbourn stated that “with regard to the judicial selection of an individual 
sentence within the statutory minimum and maximum for a given offense,” judicial 
sentencing discretion is to be exercised according to the “principle of proportionality,” 
which “requires sentences imposed by the trial court to be proportionate to the seriousness 
of the circumstances surrounding the offense and the offender.”21  In order “to assure that 
the sentences imposed across the discretionary range are proportionate to the seriousness 
of the matters that come before the court for sentencing . . . , the judge, of course, must 
take into account the nature of the offense and the background of the offender.”22  Further, 
in order to facilitate appellate review of a sentence, a sentencing court must justify the 
sentence imposed by articulating the criteria on which it relied to fashion a sentence that is 
proportionate to the offense and the offender.23  Whether the sentence imposed violates the 
                                              
21 People v Milbourn, 435 Mich 630, 635-636; 461 NW2d 1 (1990).  See also People v 
Steanhouse, 500 Mich 453, 459-460, 474-475; 902 NW2d 327 (2017).   
22 Milbourn, 435 Mich at 651. 
23 People v Lockridge, 498 Mich 358, 392; 870 NW2d 502 (2015) (“[S]entencing courts 
must justify the sentence imposed in order to facilitate appellate review.”), citing People v 
Coles, 417 Mich 523, 550; 339 NW2d 440 (1983) (requiring “that the trial court state on 
the record which criteria were considered and what reasons support the court’s decision 
 
8 
 
principle of proportionality is reviewed for an abuse of discretion, which occurs when the 
outcome falls outside the range of reasonable and principled outcomes.24   
II.  ANALYSIS 
The majority opinion holds that sentencing courts are required to consider the 
mitigating qualities, circumstances, and factors of youth within the penological objectives 
outlined in Snow (reformation, protection, punishment, and deterrence) when sentencing a 
juvenile homicide offender to a term-of-years sentence under MCL 769.25 and MCL 
769.25a.  It stresses, however, that an on-the-record explanation of those mitigating 
qualities is not necessary and claims that its holding falls short of requiring courts to 
articulate how the Miller factors—which the Supreme Court has also characterized as 
“mitigating qualities,” “mitigating circumstances,” “mitigating factors,” and “distinctive 
attributes” of youth25—affected the term-of-years sentence.  This holding, convoluted as it 
is, lacks legal support of any kind: it is not required by the United States or Michigan 
Constitution; it is not required by statute; and it is not required by precedent.   
The majority opinion derives its holding from Miller, but the Supreme Court’s 
holding in Miller was limited: it corrected the constitutional infirmity of sentencing 
schemes mandating life without parole for juvenile homicide offenders by requiring that 
sentencers be given the opportunity to consider the mitigating qualities of youth and the 
                                              
regarding the length and nature of punishment imposed”), overruled in part on other 
grounds by Milbourn, 435 Mich 630. 
24 People v Skinner, 502 Mich 89, 131-132; 917 NW2d 292 (2018); People v Babcock, 469 
Mich 247, 269; 666 NW2d 231 (2003). 
25 Miller, 567 US at 472, 476, 489 (quotation marks and citations omitted). 
 
9 
 
discretion to impose a lesser sentence.26  Nowhere in Miller—or Roper, Graham, or 
Jones—did the Court state that sentencers must consider the distinctive attributes of a 
juvenile homicide offender’s youth when imposing a sentence less than life without parole.  
Although the Court in Jones suggested that the broader rationale of Roper, Graham, and 
Miller is that “youth matters in sentencing,”27 their holdings are limited to the specific 
sentences before the Court.  In any event, the proposition that youth matters in sentencing 
is hardly a novel statement of blackletter law that can be first attributed to the Roper-
Graham-Miller trilogy.  Miller itself stated that the differences between juvenile and adult 
offenders are commonsensical and confirm what “ ‘any parent knows,’ ”28 and society has 
long recognized that an offender’s age may warrant a less severe punishment.29  I would 
                                              
26 Id. at 479 (holding that “the Eighth Amendment forbids a sentencing scheme that 
mandates life in prison without possibility of parole for juvenile offenders,” and that “[b]y 
making youth (and all that accompanies it) irrelevant to imposition of that harshest prison 
sentence, such a scheme poses too great a risk of disproportionate punishment”).  See also 
Jones, 593 US at ___; 141 S Ct at 1316 (“[T]he Miller Court stated that a judge or jury 
must have the opportunity to consider the defendant’s youth and must have discretion to 
impose a different punishment than life without parole.”) (quotation marks and citation 
omitted); Skinner, 502 Mich at 120 (“Miller simply held that mandatory life-without-parole 
sentences for juveniles violate the Eighth Amendment and that before such a sentence can 
be imposed on a juvenile, the sentencer must consider the mitigating qualities of youth.”). 
27 Jones, 593 US at ___; 141 S Ct at 1316. 
28 Miller, 567 US at 471, quoting Roper, 543 US at 569. 
29 See People v Fields, 448 Mich 58, 77; 528 NW2d 176 (1995) (stating that a defendant’s 
age is a relevant factor to determining whether a departure from the guidelines minimum 
sentence range is warranted and that “courts often cite the young age of a defendant as a 
reason to deviate from a minimum sentence”).  See also Goodwin v Iowa District Court for 
Davis Co, 936 NW2d 634, 652 (Iowa, 2019) (McDonald, J., concurring) (explaining that 
the neuroscience evidence supporting the claim that juvenile offenders are less culpable 
than adult offenders “does not tell us something new for which the law did not already 
account”); see also id., quoting Sanders, ed, Juvenile Offenders for a Thousand Years: 
Selected Readings from Anglo-Saxon Times to 1900 (Chapel Hill: University of North 
 
10 
 
not use the “simple proposition”30 that youth matters in sentencing as a basis to extend 
Roper, Graham, and Miller beyond their own terms as the majority opinion does here. 
The majority’s holding also has no basis in this state’s jurisprudence.  MCL 769.25 
and MCL 769.25a do not require sentencing courts to consider mitigating qualities of youth 
when sentencing a juvenile homicide offender to a term of years.  In fact, the Legislature 
requires courts to consider Miller’s mitigating factors only when the sentence sought is life 
without parole.  The Legislature’s omission of this requirement when the sentence sought 
is a term of years is presumed to be intentional,31 and it represents a policy choice made by 
the Legislature that the judiciary may not second-guess or override.32  Further, by enacting 
MCL 769.25 and MCL 769.25a, the Legislature put in place a scheme that necessarily 
accounts for a juvenile homicide offender’s youth, even when the sentence imposed is a 
term of years.  That is, the prosecution’s decision not to file a motion seeking life without 
parole means that the defendant is benefiting from Miller by receiving a term-of-years 
                                              
Carolina Press, 1970), p xviii (“ ‘[A]s far back as written records go children who have 
broken the law have been treated on the whole more leniently than have adult 
offenders.’ ”). 
30 Jones, 593 US at ___; 141 S Ct at 1316. 
31 People v Lewis, 503 Mich 162, 167; 926 NW2d 796 (2018). 
32 See People v McIntire, 461 Mich 147, 152; 599 NW2d 102 (1999) (“[O]ur judicial role 
precludes imposing different policy choices than those selected by the Legislature . . . .”); 
People v Morris, 450 Mich 316, 336; 537 NW2d 842 (1995) (“[J]udicial misgivings 
regarding the wisdom of the policy do not provide a legal foundation for overriding 
legislative intent. . . .  The wisdom of the policy is a political question to be resolved in the 
political forum.  To reach a contrary result would be simply to repudiate the legislative 
choice.”). 
 
11 
 
sentence and not being subject to the law’s harshest term of imprisonment.33  Thus, not 
only are MCL 769.25 and MCL 769.25a “constitutionally necessary and constitutionally 
sufficient,”34 the manner by which these statutes operate ensures that a juvenile homicide 
offender’s youth is being taken into account at sentencing.   
Moreover, while courts fashioning a proportionate sentence must take into account 
an offender’s background, which would include the offender’s age, there is “no basis in 
Milbourn for a requirement that the trial judge tailor every defendant’s sentence in 
relationship to the defendant’s age.”35  “A judge may . . . consider a defendant’s age at 
sentencing in deciding whether the sentence about to be imposed is proper, just as the judge 
considers the recommended range under the guidelines and any other factors not expressly 
prohibited by law.”36  Simply put, “Miller mandated ‘only that a sentencer follow a certain 
process—considering an offender’s youth and attendant characteristics—before imposing’ 
a life-without-parole sentence.”37  Accordingly, Miller does not alter this state’s sentencing 
jurisprudence for juvenile homicide offenders facing a lesser sentence.   
                                              
33 See, e.g., James v United States, 59 A3d 1233, 1238 (DC, 2013) (explaining that the 
sentencing statute necessarily takes into account juvenile homicide offenders’ youth and 
its attendant characteristics “by limiting the minimum sentence to thirty years for offenders 
under the age of eighteen at the time of their offense, as compared to life imprisonment 
without opportunity for release which is available against adults”).  
34 Jones, 593 US at ___; 141 S Ct at 1313. 
35 People v Lemons, 454 Mich 234, 258; 562 NW2d 447 (1997). 
36 Id. at 259 (emphasis added). 
37 Jones, 593 US at ___; 141 S Ct at 1314, quoting Miller, 567 US at 483. 
 
12 
 
Given that sentencing courts are not required to articulate an on-the-record 
explanation of how youth or the Miller factors affect a term-of-years sentence imposed 
under MCL 769.25 or MCL 769.25a, there is no legal basis for affirming the Court of 
Appeals decision in People v Wines.38  Despite recognizing that “there is no constitutional 
mandate requiring the trial court to specifically make findings as to the Miller factors 
except in the context of a decision whether to impose a sentence of life without parole,” 
the Court of Appeals in Wines nonetheless concluded that “when the sentence of life 
imprisonment without parole is not at issue, the [sentencing] court should be guided by a 
balancing of the Snow objectives and in that context is required to take into account the 
attributes of youth, such as those described in Miller.”39  According to Wines, “[t]he 
process of properly balancing [the Snow] objectives in the case of a minor defendant 
necessitates consideration of the distinctive attributes of youth,” and “a failure to consider 
the distinctive attributes of youth, such as those discussed in Miller,” when imposing a 
term-of-years sentence under MCL 769.25 and MCL 769.25a amounts to an abuse of 
discretion warranting reversal.40 
There are a number of issues with the Court of Appeals’ holding in Wines that the 
majority opinion fails to address.  For example, Wines was incorrect to suggest that Miller’s 
holding requires courts to make specific findings regarding the Miller factors when 
deciding whether to impose life without parole—a requirement the Supreme Court of 
                                              
38 People v Wines, 323 Mich App 343; 916 NW2d 855 (2018), rev’d in part on other 
grounds 506 Mich 954 (2020). 
39 Id. at 352. 
40 Id. at 351-352. 
 
13 
 
United States and this Court have rejected.41  Further, Miller’s only holding was that 
mandatory life without parole for juveniles violates the Eighth Amendment.  Thus, there is 
no basis to apply it outside that constitutional context.42  Wines also failed to recognize that 
Snow’s penological objectives “are not the only relevant criteria” for determining an 
appropriate sentence and that they do not instruct trial courts “on every factor they must 
consider when imposing [a] sentence.”43  And nowhere in Wines did the panel discuss the 
principle of proportionality.  Finally, the Court of Appeals’ holding in Wines is unclear as 
to what exactly courts are required to consider when life without parole is not at issue.  
Particularly, it failed to explain whether “ ‘taking into account the attributes of youth’ [is] 
distinguishable in some way from considering the Miller factors and, if so, what is that 
distinction?”44  The majority opinion adds to the confusion left by Wines’s holding by 
requiring sentencing courts to consider “the mitigating qualities of youth within Snow’s 
sentencing criteria”45—which do not represent an exhaustive list of criteria to be 
considered in fashioning an appropriate sentence—but failing to explain how a court’s 
                                              
41 See Jones, 593 US at ___; 141 S Ct 1307 (rejecting the argument that Miller imposed a 
formal fact-finding requirement); Skinner, 502 Mich 89 (same). 
42 Indeed, nothing in the majority’s opinion suggests a 40- to 60-year sentence for a juvenile 
homicide offender is unconstitutional.   
43 People v Broden, 428 Mich 343, 350; 408 NW2d 789 (1987), citing Coles, 417 Mich 
550. 
44 People v Wines, 506 Mich 954, 957 (2020) (MARKMAN, J., concurring in part and 
dissenting in part) (brackets omitted). 
45 Ante at 16.  
 
14 
 
consideration of mitigating qualities within Snow’s framework differs from consideration 
of the mitigating factors articulated in Miller.46   
The majority opinion contends that Jones provides helpful guidance to explain the 
holding of Wines.  I agree we should heed the words of Jones, particularly its discussion 
of what Miller requires (a discretionary sentencing procedure for juvenile homicide 
offenders subject to life without parole) and does not require (an on-the-record 
consideration of the offender’s youth and its attendant characteristics).  Yet the majority 
opinion fails to do just that by affirming Wines and requiring sentencing courts to consider 
a juvenile homicide offender’s youth as a mitigating factor when imposing a term-of-years 
sentence under MCL 769.25 and MCL 769.25a.  As the Court stated in Jones, “[I]f the 
sentencer has discretion to consider the defendant’s youth, the sentencer necessarily will 
consider the defendant’s youth,” as “it would be all but impossible for a sentencer to avoid 
considering that mitigating factor” when tasked with sentencing a juvenile homicide 
offender.47  In other words, there is no need to require sentencing courts to consider a 
juvenile homicide offender’s youth in whatever manner the majority opinion now 
demands; youth is necessarily taken into account by giving courts the discretion to do so.  
                                              
46 Even the majority opinion’s modified-Snow framework leaves many questions 
unanswered.  Are sentencing courts required to consider each of the modified Snow factors 
when sentencing a juvenile homicide offender to a term of years under MCL 769.25 and 
MCL 769.25a?  Is a discussion of those factors alone sufficient for sentencing courts to 
provide an adequate consideration of youth?  What if, instead, the sentencing court 
addresses some or all of the Miller factors and fails to address some or all of the Snow 
factors?  Under what circumstance is a sentencing court’s consideration of a juvenile 
homicide offender’s youth enough to satisfy appellate review of the term-of-years 
sentence? 
47 Jones, 593 US at ___; 141 S Ct at 1319.  
 
15 
 
Also, nothing prevents defense counsel from arguing that mitigating factors of youth favor 
a lenient sentence.  The majority opinion simply pays lip service to Jones and, instead, 
reads as though youth is the only factor sentencing courts are to consider when sentencing 
juvenile homicide offenders.  This Court has rejected that notion, explaining—in the 
context of whether to impose a life-without-parole sentence—that while “an offender’s age 
is likely to be given significant weight in the court’s deliberations and may well constitute 
the single best factor for ascertaining whether a Miller-benefited offender would actually 
gain relief,” it is not “the exclusive factor that the trial court should consider in imposing a 
sentence on a juvenile homicide offender.”48  Accordingly, not only does a juvenile 
homicide offender necessarily benefit from Miller by receiving a term-of-years sentence 
instead of life without parole, but contrary to the majority opinion’s suggestion, the 
“mitigating qualities” and “distinctive attributes” of youth discussed in Miller do not 
represent an exclusive or exhaustive list of the criteria sentencers are to consider for all 
juvenile homicide offenders.  
In sum, there exists no constitutional, statutory, or judicial directive requiring 
sentencing courts to consider the mitigating qualities of youth when imposing term-of-
years sentences under MCL 769.25 and MCL 769.25a.  Absent such a directive, I would 
not extend Miller’s limited constitutional holding in whatever manner the majority opinion 
now extends it by affirming the Court of Appeals’ decision in Wines.  Instead, I would hold 
that traditional sentencing considerations apply to these sentencing hearings.  That is, when 
deciding what constitutes an appropriate term-of-years sentence for a juvenile homicide 
                                              
48 People v Carp, 496 Mich 440, 520; 852 NW2d 801 (2014), cert gtd and opinion vacated 
on other grounds sub nom Carp v Michigan, 577 US 1186 (2016).   
 
16 
 
offender, a sentencing court should ultimately be guided by the principle of proportionality, 
which aims to tailor the sentence to the particular offense and offender before it and which 
may require the court to consider how the offender’s age correlates with the sentence 
imposed.  By extending Miller to a whole new class of sentences, the majority opinion 
undermines the policy choices made by the Michigan Legislature in enacting MCL 769.25 
and MCL 769.25a, which do not require sentencing courts to consider the Miller factors, 
the “distinctive attributes of youth,” or “the mitigating qualities of youth” when imposing 
a term-of-years sentence. 
III.  APPLICATION 
Tellingly, the majority opinion does not even attempt to apply its holding to the facts 
of these two cases—at least not with any meaningful guidance.  In Boykin, the majority 
opinion concludes that the Court of Appeals failed to address whether the sentencing court 
properly considered youth as a mitigating factor and that the panel instead held that 
consideration of Boykin’s youth was unnecessary because Miller only applies to 
defendants sentenced to life without parole.  Contrary to the majority opinion’s assertion, 
the Court of Appeals did not hold that consideration of Boykin’s youth was unnecessary; 
it rejected Boykin’s sweeping argument that Miller requires juveniles to be considered 
differently for purposes of sentencing and that the sentencing court was required to 
consider the Miller factors.  Given that Miller only applies to juvenile homicide offenders 
facing life without parole, and because MCL 769.25 and MCL 769.25a already treat 
juvenile homicide offenders differently than adult offenders, the panel correctly rejected 
 
17 
 
Boykin’s argument.  Further, the panel did actually address the sentencing court’s 
consideration of Boykin’s youth as a mitigating factor in the context of Miller, stating:  
Though not mandated by Miller, the trial court actually did consider 
the Miller factors when resentencing defendant.  The trial court stated that it 
was considering all the Miller factors and specifically mentioned its 
consideration of defendant’s psychological evaluations, defendant’s 
childhood, and his misconducts while in prison involving intoxicating 
substances and weapons.  Evaluating these factors, the trial court determined 
that defendant’s youth and immaturity were not an excuse for his conduct, 
and that “there was nothing to suggest here anything other than this was a 
cold, calculated, premeditated killing of an innocent human being who 
represented no threat to defendant.”[49] 
The sentencing court also incorporated the penological objectives into its 
sentencing, stating in its conclusion that “[b]ased on everything presented . . . , 
confinement is necessary for punishment, for the protection of this community, and the 
hope of Mr. Boykin’s rehabilitation in a more controlled environment.”  In light of the 
sentencing court’s express incorporation of the Miller factors, its extensive discussion of 
how those factors affected the sentence imposed, and its consideration of Snow’s 
penological objectives, it is difficult to see what more the sentencing court could have done 
to warrant an affirmance of Boykin’s sentence. 
Boykin argues that the sentencing court did not consider his youth as a mitigating 
factor.  Boykin’s argument is largely based on the court’s comments that he was a mere 80 
days shy of turning 18 when he committed the murder and that he “certainly was of a 
mature age and cannot blame youth or immaturity as an excuse for this conduct.”  Boykin’s 
argument lacks merit for several reasons.  First, when imposing its sentence, the court 
                                              
49 People v Boykin, unpublished per curiam opinion of the Court of Appeals, issued March 
20, 2018 (Docket No. 335862), p 4 n 2 (brackets omitted).  
 
18 
 
expressly incorporated and considered the Miller factors, which are mitigating by nature.50  
Second, Roper recognized that some juveniles “have already attained a level of maturity 
some adults will never reach,”51 and Miller contemplated sentencers considering a juvenile 
homicide offender’s age as compared to other juveniles.52  Accordingly, the sentencing 
court’s reference to Boykin’s age in proximity to turning 18 and its statement that he 
“certainly was of a mature age” is consistent with the Supreme Court’s recognition that not 
all juveniles are necessarily immature.  Third, the court’s statement that Boykin “cannot 
blame youth or immaturity as an excuse for this conduct” is not the equivalent of refusing, 
as a matter of law, to consider his youth as a mitigating factor; rather, the court was simply 
weighing Boykin’s youth and one of its hallmark characteristics against defendant’s 
intentional homicidal acts.53  Although youth is undisputedly a mitigating factor, it does 
not serve as a justification for committing society’s most heinous crime.  And, as detailed 
by the sentencing court, Boykin’s offense was indeed heinous.  Boykin was the shooter 
                                              
50 See Skinner, 502 Mich at 115 (“It is undisputed that all of [the Miller] factors are 
mitigating factors.”).   
51 Roper, 543 US at 574. 
52 Miller, 567 US at 477, 480 n 8 (explaining that sentencing schemes mandating life 
without parole demanded that “every juvenile . . . receive the same sentence as every 
other—the 17-year-old and the 14-year-old, the shooter and the accomplice, the child from 
a stable household and the child from a chaotic and abusive one”—and therefore requiring 
that sentencers “take into account the differences among defendants and crimes” to remedy 
the constitutional problem with those schemes).   
53 See Jones, 593 US at ___; 141 S Ct at 1320 n 7 (contrasting a potentially viable Eighth 
Amendment claim when the sentencer “refuses as a matter of law to consider the 
defendant’s youth” with a sentencer “deeming the defendant’s youth to be outweighed by 
other factors or deeming the defendant’s youth to be an insufficient reason to support a 
lesser sentence under the facts of the case,” which is permissible).   
 
19 
 
and the aggressor; he brought a gun to a fistfight that he was not involved in; he shot the 
victim in the back three or four times as the victim tried to run away; and he admitted trying 
to fire the gun as it was pressed against the victim’s cheek.  When the gun jammed, Boykin 
instead kicked the victim repeatedly as he lay dying on the sidewalk before fleeing the 
scene.  In short, the sentencing court considered Boykin’s background and his youth as 
mitigating factors but concluded that the aggravating nature of the homicide supported a 
sentence of 40 to 60 years’ imprisonment.  This was not an abuse of discretion.   
In Tate, the majority opinion recognizes that the sentencing court expressly 
considered Tate’s youth but states that the court’s comments represent only a small portion 
of the record and suggests that more is required to comply with the majority opinion’s 
requirement that sentencing courts consider youth as a mitigating factor.  This result is 
puzzling for a number of reasons.  First, it contradicts the majority opinion’s own holding 
that sentencing courts need not even articulate their bases for considering an offender’s 
youth when imposing a term-of-years sentence under MCL 769.25 and MCL 769.25a.  
Second, it turns a juvenile homicide offender’s age into the preeminent consideration for 
courts imposing a term-of-years sentence under MCL 769.25 and MCL 769.25a, thereby 
downplaying the severity of the offender’s crimes and the impact on the victims and their 
families.  Third, it flies in the face of this state’s own practice of affirming sentences when 
the sentencer has adequately explained the reasons for imposing its sentence.54  Here, the 
                                              
54 See Lockridge, 498 Mich at 392, citing Coles, 417 Mich at 550.  See also Jones, 593 US 
at ___; 141 S Ct at 1321 (“[W]hen a state judge imposes a sentence of imprisonment, 
particularly a lengthy sentence, the judge often will explain both the sentence and the 
judge’s evaluation of any mitigating circumstances. . . .  Even when state law requires a 
sentencer to supply reasons, many States do not impose a formulaic checklist of topics or 
a magic-words requirement with respect to particular mitigating circumstances.  And 
 
20 
 
record establishes that the sentencing court adequately explained the reasons for imposing 
its sentence and considered how Tate’s youth affected that sentence.  Tate’s counsel 
advocated for a 25-year minimum sentence, focusing on Tate’s young age and arguing that 
such a sentence would serve the traditional penological objectives.  “Faced with a 
convicted murderer who was under 18 at the time of the offense and with defense 
arguments focused on the defendant’s youth, it [was] all but impossible for [the sentencing 
court] to avoid considering that mitigating factor.”55  Moreover, as recounted by the Court 
of Appeals, the sentencing court explicitly considered Tate’s youth and its attendant 
characteristics as a mitigating circumstance in fashioning its sentence: 
[T]he trial court considered Tate’s youth and maturity level, commenting that 
“perhaps your age, and your maturity, were working against you,” but it 
found that Tate “knew exactly what he was doing.”  Tate argues that the trial 
court failed to consider his lesser degree of culpability in comparison to 
[codefendant Brendon] Stanton-Lipscomb.  Tate emphasizes that his role 
was “vastly different” than Stanton-Lipscomb, who was determined to shoot 
[Tyrell] Lane regardless of Tate’s involvement.  Contrary to what Tate 
argues, the trial court did discuss Tate’s role in the offense in comparison to 
Stanton-Lipscomb’s role.  The court acknowledged that Tate “did not start 
the process of this execution,” but it found that he was a willing participant 
in the plan to kill a young man, and that Tate played a “very active role in 
the cold and calculated assassination of a very young man, Mr. Lane.”  The 
court also observed that Tate “volunteered to participate in the assassination 
of Mr. Lane” after Taylor had refused to do so. 
Further, Tate’s efforts to distinguish his culpability from Stanton-
Lipscomb’s culpability are unavailing considering that they did not receive 
similar sentences.  Stanton-Lipscomb received a mandatory sentence of life 
without parole.  Although the prosecution could have requested a life-
without-parole sentence for Tate, it did not.  The differences in the culpability 
                                              
appellate courts do not necessarily reverse merely because the sentencer could have said 
more about mitigating circumstances.”). 
55 Id. at ___; 141 S Ct at 1319. 
 
21 
 
are, therefore, reflected in the decision not to pursue a sentence that would 
have subjected Tate to imprisonment for life without parole.[56]   
Tate also asserts that he was “cooperative, articulate, and well-spoken 
during the presentence interview,” and “expressed remorse for the victim’s 
family.”  However, the trial court commented that it was struck by Tate’s 
statement in the presentence report that “I have nothing to do with it.”  The 
court also found that Tate’s post-offense messages on Facebook showed that 
he had no remorse and showed that he was “a violent, deplorable young man 
who will continue to be violent, if allowed to do so.”  Evidence at trial 
indicated that, after the offense, Tate eluded and lied to the police, and 
boasted about how he would not be captured for his role in the shooting.[57] 
Like Boykin, Tate argues that the sentencing court’s comments demonstrate that it 
failed to consider his youth as a mitigating factor.  Although the sentencing court did not 
expressly incorporate the Miller factors into its sentencing decision like the sentencing 
court in Boykin, the court’s comments demonstrate that it explicitly considered Tate’s 
youth and its attendant characteristics as mitigating evidence but that it nonetheless found 
that the aggravating circumstances of the crime, the active role Tate played in committing 
that crime, and Tate’s postoffense conduct warranted a 40- to 60-year sentence.  As in 
Boykin, this was not an abuse of discretion.  
                                              
56 Although the sentencing court briefly stated that Tate was “no different than” two of his 
other codefendants—including Stanton-Lipscomb, who was 18 years old at the time of the 
shooting—that statement was not clearly erroneous.  Taken in context, the court’s 
statement is a reflection of its conclusion that Tate, despite being a juvenile, should be held 
equally accountable for his intentional acts.  Indeed, Tate was convicted of first-degree 
premediated murder under an aiding-and-abetting theory, and our Legislature has chosen 
to treat offenders who aid and abet the commission of an offense in exactly the same 
manner as those who directly commit the offense.  See MCL 767.39.   
57 People v Tate, unpublished per curiam opinion of the Court of Appeals, issued 
September 20, 2018 (Docket No. 338360), pp 7-8 (brackets omitted). 
 
22 
 
Ultimately, just as the Court in Jones rejected the defendant’s argument “rest[ing] 
on the assumption that meaningful daylight exists between (i) a sentencer’s discretion to 
consider youth, and (ii) the sentencer’s actual consideration of youth,”58 the majority 
opinion’s holding suffers the same flaw: requiring sentencing courts to actually (and to a 
certain level of satisfaction) consider youth as a mitigating factor even when the sentencing 
scheme provides courts with the discretion to do just that.  How youth militates for or 
against a certain sentence represents a moral judgment left to the discretion of the 
sentencing court.59  Although “one sentencer may weigh the defendant’s youth differently 
than another sentencer or an appellate court would, . . . the key point remains that, in a case 
involving a murderer under [the age of] 18, a sentencer cannot avoid considering the 
defendant’s youth if the sentencer has discretion to consider that mitigating factor.”60  MCL 
769.25 and MCL 769.25a, as well as traditional sentencing principles, provide that 
discretion.  And the record in each of these cases demonstrates that the sentencing judges—
who presided over defendants’ trials and thus were quite aware of their ages—
appropriately exercised that discretion and considered defendants’ youth in fashioning 
sentences proportionate to defendants and their offenses.  Because neither court abused its 
                                              
58 Jones, 593 US at ___; 141 S Ct at 1319. 
59 See Skinner, 502 Mich at 115 n 11, citing Kansas v Carr, 577 US 108, 119; 136 S Ct 
633; 193 L Ed 2d 535 (2016) (“Whether mitigation exists . . . is largely a judgment call (or 
perhaps a value call) . . . .  And of course the ultimate question whether mitigating 
circumstances outweigh aggravating circumstances is mostly a question of mercy—the 
quality of which, as we know, is not strained.”). 
60 Jones, 593 US at ___; 141 S Ct at 1319-1320.   
 
23 
 
discretion in sentencing defendants to 40 to 60 years’ imprisonment, I would affirm those 
sentences.  
IV.  CONCLUSION 
“Whether read broadly or narrowly, Miller creates a legal rule about life-without-
parole sentences.  And, whether one looks at [defendants’] sentence[s] formally or 
functionally, [they] did not receive a life-without-parole sentence.”61  “Miller’s holding 
simply does not cover a lengthy term of imprisonment that falls short of life without 
parole,”62 and absent a constitutional, statutory, or judicial directive, I would not extend 
Miller’s reasoning to term-of-years sentences under MCL 769.25 and MCL 769.25a.  
Although the majority opinion purports to limit its holding to juvenile homicide offenders 
sentenced under those statutes, the implication of today’s decision is far greater.  Indeed, 
the majority opinion repeatedly suggests its ruling applies to all young offenders—
regardless of the severity of their crimes, the sentence imposed, or their juvenile status.63  
I disagree with this Court’s continued extension of Miller beyond the life-without-parole 
context for juvenile homicide offenders.64  For the reasons stated, I would not extend Miller 
                                              
61 Atkins v Crowell, 945 F3d 476, 478 (CA 6, 2019). 
62 Id. 
63 See ante at 12 (“Without considering the mitigating factors of youth, then, a sentence 
cannot adequately address the reformation of the offender.”); ante at 13 (“Given that youth 
is a mitigating factor, it will inevitably factor into Snow’s four considerations.”). 
64 See People v Stovall, ___ Mich ___; ___ NW2d ___ (2022) (Docket No. 162425) 
(ZAHRA, J., dissenting, joined by VIVIANO and CLEMENT, JJ.) (disagreeing with the 
extension of Miller’s reasoning to parolable life sentences for juvenile homicide offenders); 
People v Parks, ___ Mich ___; ___ NW2d ___ (2022) (Docket No. 162086) (CLEMENT, 
J., dissenting, joined by ZAHRA and VIVIANO, JJ.) (disagreeing with the extension of 
 
24 
 
to this whole new class of sentences.  Instead, traditional sentencing considerations should 
apply when the sentence to be imposed on the juvenile homicide offender is less than life 
without parole.  I would also affirm the 40- to 60-year sentences of these two youths.  
Because the majority concludes otherwise, I dissent.   
 
 
Brian K. Zahra 
 
David F. Viviano 
                                              
Miller’s reasoning to mandatory life-without-parole sentences for 18-year-old homicide 
offenders).