Title: Pedroza v. State

State: florida

Issuer: Florida Supreme Court

Document:

Supreme Court of Florida 
____________ 
No. SC18-964 
____________ 
LINDA PEDROZA, 
Petitioner, 
vs. 
STATE OF FLORIDA, 
Respondent. 
March 12, 2020 
LAWSON, J. 
This case is before the Court for review of the decision of the Fourth District 
Court of Appeal in Pedroza v. State, 244 So. 3d 1128 (Fla. 4th DCA 2018), which 
certified conflict with the decisions of the Second and Fifth District Courts of 
Appeal in Cuevas v. State, 241 So. 3d 947 (Fla. 2d DCA 2018); Blount v. State, 
238 So. 3d 913 (Fla. 2d DCA 2018); Mosier v. State, 235 So. 3d 957 (Fla. 2d DCA 
2017); Alfaro v. State, 233 So. 3d 515 (Fla. 2d DCA 2017); Burrows v. State, 219 
So. 3d 910 (Fla. 5th DCA 2017); Katwaroo v. State, 237 So. 3d 446 (Fla. 5th DCA 
2018); and Tarrand v. State, 199 So. 3d 507 (Fla. 5th DCA 2016).  We have 
jurisdiction.  See art. V, § 3(b)(4), Fla. Const. 
 
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The issue presented by this case is whether Pedroza’s forty-year sentence for 
second-degree murder is unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment to the 
United States Constitution as interpreted and applied in Miller v. Alabama, 567 
U.S. 460 (2012).1  We hold that Pedroza has not established a Miller violation and, 
accordingly, is not entitled to relief.  In so holding, we conclude that, to the extent 
this Court has previously instructed that resentencing is required for all juvenile 
offenders serving sentences longer than twenty years without the opportunity for 
early release based on judicial review, it did so in error. 
BACKGROUND 
 
At the age of seventeen, Linda Pedroza, along with her twenty-three-year-
old boyfriend, planned and carried out the murder of her mother by strangulation.  
Pedroza was charged with first-degree murder but pled guilty to second-degree 
murder in exchange for a forty-year sentence.  Years later, Pedroza challenged that 
sentence as cruel and unusual punishment under Miller. 
Miller was the progeny of Graham v. Florida, 560 U.S. 48, 74 (2010), in 
which the Supreme Court had held that a sentence of life imprisonment without the 
possibility of parole is cruel and unusual punishment and therefore a violation of 
 
 
1.  Pedroza does not make a claim based on the Florida Constitution.  
Regardless, the Florida Constitution’s “cruel and unusual punishment” provision 
does not provide any greater protection than the United States Constitution as 
interpreted by the United States Supreme Court.  Art. I, § 17, Fla. Const. 
 
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the Eighth Amendment when imposed on a juvenile for a nonhomicide offense.  
The Graham Court explained that, although states are “not required to guarantee 
eventual freedom” to juvenile nonhomicide offenders, they may not sentence these 
offenders to life imprisonment without affording them “some meaningful 
opportunity to obtain release based on demonstrated maturity and rehabilitation.”  
560 U.S. at 75.  The Graham holding was extended in Miller to invalidate 
sentencing schemes that mandated life without parole for juveniles convicted of 
homicide offenses.  567 U.S. at 465. 
Unlike the Graham decision with respect to juvenile nonhomicide offenders, 
the Miller decision did not “foreclose a sentencer’s ability” to sentence a juvenile 
homicide offender to life without parole.  Id. at 479-80.  However, it instructed that 
before doing so the sentencer must “take into account how children are different, 
and how those differences counsel against irrevocably sentencing them to a 
lifetime in prison.”  Id. at 480.  Although the sentencing scheme at issue in Miller 
was one that mandated life without parole for the first-degree murder at issue, the 
Supreme Court later explained that Miller did more than invalidate such mandatory 
schemes: it “rendered life without parole an unconstitutional penalty for ‘a class of 
offenders because of their status’—that is, juvenile offenders whose crimes reflect 
the transient immaturity of youth,” as distinguished from “the rare juvenile 
offender whose crime reflects irreparable corruption.”  Montgomery v. Louisiana, 
 
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136 S. Ct. 718, 734 (2016) (quoting Penry v. Lynaugh, 492 U.S. 302, 330 (1989), 
and then Miller, 567 U.S. at 479-80).  The Supreme Court instructed that, for 
juvenile homicide offenders not found irreparably corrupt, sentencing must leave 
them with “hope for some years of life outside prison walls.”  Id. at 737. 
After the Supreme Court decided Miller and this Court determined that the 
related holding of Graham is not limited to sentences denominated “life” but also 
extends to term-of-years sentences that ensure imprisonment throughout a juvenile 
offender’s natural life, Henry v. State, 175 So. 3d 675, 679-80 (Fla. 2015), Pedroza 
filed a motion to correct an illegal sentence.  Pedroza argued that her sentence 
violates the Eighth Amendment under Miller because it is a lengthy term of years 
imposed without individualized consideration of her youth.  The State defended 
Pedroza’s sentence on the ground that it is not a life sentence or a de facto life 
sentence, pointing out that Pedroza will be fifty-five years old on the date she is 
scheduled to be released from prison.  The trial court agreed with the State and 
denied Pedroza’s motion.  Pedroza appealed to the Fourth District, which affirmed 
under its own precedent in Hart v. State, 246 So. 3d 417 (Fla. 4th DCA 2018) (en 
banc), and concluded that there was no “clear, binding Florida Supreme Court 
decision that requires resentencing.”  Pedroza, 244 So. 3d at 1129. 
In addition to upholding Pedroza’s sentence, the Fourth District certified 
conflict with several decisions of other district courts.  Id.  Most of these decisions 
 
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required resentencing from term-of-years sentences equal to or lesser than 
Pedroza’s sentence and were driven by language in our decisions in Kelsey v. State, 
206 So. 3d 5, 10-11 (Fla. 2016), and Johnson v. State, 215 So. 3d at 1237, 1243 
(Fla. 2017), which some lower courts have interpreted as mandating resentencing 
for all juvenile offenders serving sentences longer than twenty years without the 
opportunity for early release based on demonstrated maturity and rehabilitation.  
Cuevas, 241 So. 3d at 948-49 (reversing concurrent sentences of twenty-six years 
for nonhomicide offenses); Blount, 238 So. 3d at 913-14 (reversing concurrent 
forty-year sentences for nonhomicide offenses); Katwaroo, 237 So. 3d at 447 
(reversing a thirty-year sentence for a homicide offense); Alfaro, 233 So. 3d at 516 
(reversing concurrent thirty-year sentences for nonhomicide offenses); Mosier, 235 
So. 3d at 957-58 (reversing concurrent thirty-year sentences where the juvenile 
offender would have been “released at age forty-six at the latest”); Burrows, 219 
So. 3d at 911 (reversing concurrent twenty-five-year sentences for nonhomicide 
offenses).  In addition, one of the certified conflict decisions, Tarrand, 199 So. 3d 
at 509, cited Henry and required resentencing from a fifty-one-year sentence, even 
while concluding that the sentence “was not prohibited under the Eighth 
Amendment.” 
We granted review of the instant case to resolve the certified conflict, which 
centers on whether there is a per se rule in Florida requiring resentencing of all 
 
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juvenile offenders serving sentences longer than twenty years without a provision 
for early release based on a demonstration of maturity and rehabilitation, and 
ultimately to resolve the issue of whether a forty-year sentence, as a categorical 
matter, violates the Eighth Amendment under Miller when imposed on a juvenile 
homicide offender without individualized consideration of the offender’s “youth 
and its attendant characteristics,” 567 U.S. at 465. 
ANALYSIS 
A. Pedroza’s Sentence 
 
Our review in this case is based on construction of the federal constitution 
and interpretation of case law.  Therefore, it is de novo.  See Henry, 175 So. 3d at 
676; Pantoja v. State, 59 So. 3d 1092, 1095 (Fla. 2011) (quoting McCray v. State, 
919 So. 2d 647, 649 (Fla. 1st DCA 2006)). 
 
Under Miller, a juvenile homicide offender cannot be sentenced to life 
imprisonment without the possibility of parole unless the sentencing court has 
considered the offender’s “youth and its attendant characteristics,” 567 U.S. at 465, 
and properly found the offender to be irreparably corrupt, Montgomery, 136 S. Ct. 
at 734.  See also Landrum v. State, 192 So. 3d 459, 459 (Fla. 2016) (holding that 
even a discretionary sentence of life without parole violates Miller if the 
sentencing court did not take the juvenile offender’s youth into account).  Although 
the trial court in this case did not give individualized consideration to Pedroza’s 
 
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youth and its attendant characteristics when deciding to sentence her in accordance 
with the parties’ agreement, her sentence is not unconstitutional under Miller 
because it is not a sentence of life imprisonment. 
 
Additionally, although we recognized in Henry that there is no Eighth 
Amendment distinction between a term-of-years sentence and a sentence 
denominated “life” when the term-of-years sentence is the functional equivalent of 
life without the possibility of parole, Henry, 175 So. 3d at 679-80, that holding 
does not afford Pedroza relief in this proceeding.  The sentence at issue in Henry 
was ninety years long, and Henry had demonstrated that his sentence did not offer 
an opportunity for release before the end of his natural life.  Id. at 676.  Unlike 
Henry, Pedroza has not shown that her sentence is so long as to be the functional 
equivalent of life.  Therefore, she has not established that her case implicates the 
Supreme Court’s Eighth Amendment jurisprudence concerning juvenile sentencing 
to the extent that she is entitled to a remedy under Henry. 
B. Confusing and Erroneous Language in Henry, Kelsey, and Johnson 
 
While the foregoing conclusions resolve the narrow issue presented in this 
case, we recognize that there has understandably been “considerable confusion” in 
the district courts of this state—caused largely by confusing language and dicta in 
our prior decisions—as to when a juvenile offender’s term-of-years sentence 
requires resentencing under Miller or Graham.  Hart, 246 So. 3d at 419 
 
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(addressing Graham).  This confusion stems from statements made in Henry, 
Kelsey, and Johnson regarding juvenile term-of-years sentences without a review 
mechanism that invoke the protections of Graham and Miller.  We address the 
problematic statements in each of these cases—Henry, Kelsey, and Johnson—in 
turn. 
 
With respect to Henry, the following declaration has proven to be confusing 
when considered out of context: 
[W]e hold that the constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual 
punishment under Graham is implicated when a juvenile nonhomicide 
offender’s sentence does not afford any “meaningful opportunity to 
obtain release based on demonstrated maturity and rehabilitation.” 
 
Henry, 175 So. 3d at 679 (quoting Graham, 560 U.S. at 75); see also id. at 680 
(clarifying that the “meaningful opportunity to obtain release” discussed in the 
Court’s holding means “a meaningful opportunity for early release based on a 
demonstration of maturity and rehabilitation”).  Taken wholly out of context, this 
and other language from Henry has been read to mean that all juvenile sentences, 
no matter the length, must include an opportunity for early release to comply with 
the Eighth Amendment.  See, e.g., Tyson v. State, 199 So. 3d 1087, 1088 (Fla. 5th 
DCA 2016).  If this were the holding, an adult sanction of four years in prison 
would require some type of review and release mechanism.  That is an incorrect 
reading of the holding.  In context, Henry makes clear that the Court was 
addressing “lengthy” term-of-years sentences that approach or envelop the entirety 
 
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of a defendant’s “natural life.”  175 So. 3d at 679.  Additionally, in Guzman v. 
State, 183 So. 3d 1025, 1026 (Fla. 2016), we expressly addressed the question of 
whether Graham applies “to lengthy term-of-years sentences that amount to de 
facto life sentences” by summarily concluding that Henry had “previously 
answered . . . [that] question in the affirmative.” 
With respect to Kelsey, the statement that Henry “requires that all juvenile 
offenders whose sentences meet the standard defined by the Legislature in chapter 
2014-220, [Laws of Florida,] a sentence longer than twenty years, are entitled to 
judicial review,” 206 So. 3d at 8, could be understood as holding that any juvenile 
sentence longer than twenty years violates the Eighth Amendment.  This reading of 
Kelsey was bolstered by the nonprecedential opinions of Lee v. State, 234 So. 3d 
562 (Fla. 2018) (plurality opinion), and Morris v. State, 246 So. 3d 244 (Fla. 2018) 
(plurality opinion).2  We now clarify that this statement in Kelsey was not a 
 
 
2.  Pedroza relies on additional cases from this Court as supporting this 
reading of Kelsey.  With one exception, these cases were resolved with 
unpublished orders lacking factual detail.  Although we need not discuss those 
cases further, as unpublished orders lack precedential value, see Gawker Media, 
LLC v. Bollea, 170 So. 3d 125, 133 (Fla. 2d DCA 2015) (noting that the court’s 
“unpublished dispositions,” though discoverable online, have “no precedential 
value”), we do note one unpublished order in particular, Thomas v. State, 177 So. 
3d 1275 (Fla. 2015), because it has received attention in several cases.  See, e.g., 
McCrae v. State, 267 So. 3d 470, 471-72 (Fla. 1st DCA 2019); Peterson v. State, 
193 So. 3d 1034, 1038 (Fla. 5th DCA 2016).  To the extent it is proper to analyze 
the history of that case to discern this Court’s rationale in requiring resentencing, 
we agree with the First District that this unpublished decision is “best read as 
rejecting the remedy [the First District] approved for the earlier Miller violation” in 
 
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holding, as determined by the Fourth District below, and that the holding in Kelsey 
was limited to the express holding stated in the opinion: 
We therefore hold that all juveniles who have sentences that violate 
Graham are entitled to resentencing pursuant to chapter 2014-220, 
Laws of Florida, codified in sections 775.082, 921.1401 and 
921.1402, Florida Statutes (2014). 
 
Kelsey, 206 So. 3d at 8 (emphasis added). 
 
Any statement of law in a judicial opinion that is not a holding is dictum.  
State v. Yule, 905 So. 2d 251, 259 n.10 (Fla. 2d DCA 2005) (Canady, J., specially 
concurring) (quoting Michael Abramowicz & Maxwell Stearns, Defining Dicta, 57 
Stan. L. Rev. 953, 1065 (2005)).  “A holding consists of those propositions along 
the chosen decisional path or paths of reasoning that (1) are actually decided, (2) 
are based upon the facts of the case, and (3) lead to the judgment.”  Id.  We now 
further discuss Kelsey with these principles in mind.   
In Kelsey, we were presented with a certified question, which we rephrased 
to focus on deciding whether a juvenile nonhomicide offender was entitled to a 
second resentencing for a Graham violation where his first resentencing did not 
 
that case.  McCrae, 267 So. 3d at 471-72.  The remaining case on which Pedroza 
relies to establish the validity of the dicta in Kelsey is Williams v. State, 261 So. 3d 
1248 (Fla. 2019).  Although Williams was published and yielded a majority vote on 
the sentencing issue, that issue was expressly and exclusively resolved by the 
State’s concession of error, and without relevant factual detail or citation to the 
propositions that we reject in this case.  261 So. 3d at 1254. 
 
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provide the remedy this Court subsequently decided should be applied to Graham 
violations—that is, resentencing under chapter 2014-220.  Kelsey, 206 So. 3d at 6-
7, 10; see Kelsey v. State, 183 So. 3d 439, 442 (Fla. 1st DCA 2015) (asking 
“[w]hether a defendant whose initial sentence for a nonhomicide crime violates 
Graham . . . , and who is resentenced to concurrent forty-five year terms, is entitled 
to a new resentencing under the framework established in chapter 2014-220”).  It 
was not necessary for this Court to address whether the length of Kelsey’s sentence 
implicated Graham, as the narrow issue we framed when we rephrased the 
certified question—whether “a defendant whose original sentence violated 
Graham . . . and who was subsequently resentenced prior to July 1, 2014, [is] 
entitled to be resentenced pursuant to the provisions of chapter 2014-220”—was 
dispositive.  Kelsey, 206 So. 3d at 6.  Indeed, we made clear that the issue raised by 
the case was not whether the length of sentence Kelsey received on resentencing, 
forty-five years, was itself a Graham violation when we said the following: 
Kelsey represents a narrow class of juvenile offenders, those 
resentenced from life to term-of-years sentences after Graham, for 
crimes committed before chapter 2014-220’s July 1, 2014, effective 
date.  Kelsey argues that his sentence does not currently provide the 
relief specified in our previous decisions and seeks the judicial review 
granted to other defendants who, like him, were sentenced to terms 
that will not provide them a meaningful opportunity for relief in their 
respective lifetimes.  We agree. 
 
Id. at 10. 
 
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Given that the Court in Kelsey expressly and repeatedly stated that it was 
narrowly deciding only the issue framed by the rephrased certified question, and 
that the “decisional path” or “path of reasoning” in Kelsey is less than clear, it 
makes more sense to read the questionable language as a statement of the necessity 
of including judicial review and an opportunity for early release in the remedy for 
any Graham violation and not as a means of defining when an Eighth Amendment 
violation occurs.  This reading is also consistent with language in Johnson, which 
described Kelsey as applying “the reasoning in Henry to juveniles whose life 
sentences had been vacated pursuant to Graham, but who had not been resentenced 
under the new juvenile sentencing guidelines.”  Johnson, 215 So. 3d at 1239. 
 
Johnson, however, does not appear to be capable of the same limited 
reading.  Johnson also involved a juvenile offender originally sentenced to life for 
nonhomicide offenses.  Id.  After Graham was decided, Johnson had been 
resentenced to 100 years in prison, a prison sentence that, “even with gain time,” 
exceeded the juvenile offender’s life expectancy “by at least five years and 
possibly 20 years.”  Id. at 1243-44.  The Fifth District had held Johnson’s new 
sentence to be constitutional on grounds that term-of-years sentences did not 
violate Graham.  Id. at 1238.  Because Johnson involved both a Graham 
resentencing and a de facto life sentence, the case could have been disposed of by 
straightforward application of Henry or Kelsey.  Instead, the Court included an 
 
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extensive discussion of our prior precedent in which it declared that Graham, 
Henry, and Kelsey should be read together as providing that “juvenile nonhomicide 
offenders are entitled to sentences that provide a meaningful opportunity for early 
release based upon a demonstrated maturity and rehabilitation during their natural 
lifetimes.”  Id. at 1239.  
 
 Unlike Kelsey, which limits the holding to the narrowest issue presented by 
the facts of the case, Johnson clearly stands for a rule of law much broader than the 
facts required, going as far as announcing and then applying the following test: 
Post–Henry, we must ensure that a juvenile nonhomicide offender 
does not receive a sentence that provides for release only at the end of 
a sentence (e.g. a 45–year sentence with no provision for obtaining 
early release based on a demonstration of maturity and rehabilitation 
before the expiration of the imposed term, such as in Kelsey).  
Secondly, we must ensure that a juvenile nonhomicide offender who 
is sentenced post-Henry does not receive a sentence which includes 
early release that is not based on a demonstration of rehabilitation and 
maturity (i.e. gain time or other programs designed to relieve prison 
overpopulation).  Last, we must ensure that a juvenile nonhomicide 
offender who is sentenced post-Henry does not receive a sentence that 
provides for early release at a time beyond his or her natural life (e.g. 
a 1,000–year sentence that provides parole-eligibility after the 
offender serves 100 years).  To qualify as a “meaningful opportunity 
for early release,” a juvenile nonhomicide offender’s sentence must 
meet each of the three parameters described in Henry. 
Johnson, 215 So. 3d at 1243.  We now recede from this test and hold that a 
juvenile offender’s sentence does not implicate Graham, and therefore Miller, 
unless it meets the threshold requirement of being a life sentence or the functional 
 
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equivalent of a life sentence.  See Morris, 246 So. 3d at 245-46 (Lawson, J., 
dissenting). 
 
Although the test announced in Johnson by its express terms applies to “a 
juvenile nonhomicide offender,” 215 So. 3d at 1243, and Pedroza committed a 
homicide, we address the erroneous Johnson test now because the reasoning 
underlying the erroneous rule could be seen to apply equally to juvenile homicide 
offenders (like Pedroza).  If we were to stand by the test announced in Johnson, 
which is a misapplication and undue expansion of Graham, that test would lead us 
to vacate a lawfully imposed sentence when not required to do so by the 
Constitution and not authorized by a statute, i.e., when there is no legal basis to do 
so.  We uphold Pedroza’s sentence because she has not established that it is a life 
sentence or the functional equivalent of a life sentence.  By failing to make this 
threshold showing, Pedroza has failed to establish that her sentence violates the 
Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against the imposition of a life sentence without 
the possibility of parole, Miller, 567 U.S. at 479-80, or its equivalent, see Henry, 
175 So. 3d at 678-80, on a juvenile homicide offender whose youth has not been 
taken into account at sentencing. 
CONCLUSION 
For the reasons explained above, we approve the Fourth District’s decision 
to uphold Pedroza’s sentence.  We disapprove of Cuevas, Blount, Mosier, Alfaro, 
 
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Burrows, Katwaroo, and Tarrand to the extent they hold that resentencing is 
required for all juvenile offenders serving a sentence longer than twenty years 
without the opportunity for early release based on demonstrated maturity and 
rehabilitation. 
It is so ordered. 
CANADY, C.J., and POLSTON and MUÑIZ, JJ., concur. 
LABARGA, J., dissents with an opinion. 
 
NOT FINAL UNTIL TIME EXPIRES TO FILE REHEARING MOTION AND, 
IF FILED, DETERMINED. 
 
LABARGA, J., dissenting. 
 
I dissent because of the disproportionate result in this case.  Linda Pedroza, 
originally charged with first-degree murder, pleaded guilty to the lesser included 
offense of second-degree murder and was sentenced to forty years imprisonment 
for that offense. 
 
Ironically, if Pedroza had pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and received 
a mandatory life sentence, she would actually be in a better position because she 
would have been entitled to resentencing pursuant to Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 
460, 479 (2012) (holding that “a sentencing scheme that mandates life in prison 
without possibility of parole for juvenile offenders” violates the Eighth 
Amendment), and she would have been eligible for judicial review of her sentence 
after twenty-five years.  See Horsley v. State, 160 So. 3d 393, 395 (Fla. 2015) 
 
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(unanimously holding that “the proper remedy is to apply chapter 2014-220, Laws 
of Florida, to all juvenile offenders whose sentences are unconstitutional in light of 
Miller”).  Instead, Pedroza, who was sentenced in 2002, is not entitled to judicial 
review of her sentence prior to her projected release in 2037. 
 
Given this disproportionate result, I respectfully dissent. 
Application for Review of the Decision of the District Court of Appeal – Direct 
Conflict of Decisions/Certified Direct Conflict of Decisions 
 
 
Fourth District - Case No. 4D17-2151 
 
 
(Palm Beach County) 
 
Carey Haughwout, Public Defender, and Benjamin Eisenberg, Assistant Public 
Defender, Fifteenth Judicial Circuit, West Palm Beach, Florida, 
 
 
for Petitioner 
 
Ashley Moody, Attorney General, Tallahassee, Florida, Celia Terenzio, Bureau 
Chief, and Matthew Steven Ocksrider, Assistant Attorney General, West Palm 
Beach, Florida, 
 
 
for Respondent 
 
Bryan S. Gowdy and Daniel Mahfood of Creed & Gowdy, P.A., Jacksonville, 
Florida, 
 
for Amici Curiae Taylor Hill, Anthony Wagner, Terrence Graham, and Ellis 
Curry 
 
Carey Haughwout, President, Maria E. Lauredo, Chief Assistant Public Defender, 
and Jonathan Greenberg, Assistant Public Defender, Florida Public Defender 
Association, Inc., West Palm Beach, Florida, 
 
 
for Amicus Curiae Florida Public Defender Association, Inc.