DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF FLORIDA

FOURTH DISTRICT

LARRY ROGERS,

Appellant,

v.

STATE OF FLORIDA,

Appellee.

No. 4D16-3686

[July 5, 2017]

Appeal of order denying rule 3.800(a) motion from the Circuit Court 

for the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit, Broward County; Michael A. 

Robinson, Judge; L.T. Case No. 70023823CF10A.

Carey Haughwout, Public Defender, and J. Woodson Isom, Assistant 

Public Defender, West Palm Beach, for appellant.

Pamela Jo Bondi, Attorney General, Tallahassee, and Matthew Steven 

Ocksrider, Assistant Attorney General, West Palm Beach, for appellee.

PER CURIAM.

Larry Rogers timely appeals the trial court’s order denying his rule 

3.800(a) motion, where he alleged that his sentence is unconstitutional 

under Graham v. Florida, 560 U.S. 48 (2010). We affirm, because Rogers 

has not shown a violation of the Eighth Amendment under Graham.

In 1972, Rogers was convicted of robbery, an offense he committed at 

the age of seventeen. He was sentenced to life in prison with the 

possibility of parole. After spending seven years in prison, Rogers was 

released on parole. Rogers was reincarcerated in 1979 when he violated 

his parole by committing robbery with a deadly weapon at the age of 

twenty-eight. He was released on parole again in 1990, but was 

reincarcerated again after violating his parole by committing grand theft 

in 1999.

Rogers claims that he is serving a de facto life without parole sentence 

for a nonhomicide crime committed as a juvenile in violation of the 

Eighth Amendment as interpreted by Graham and Henry v. State, 175 
2

So. 3d 675 (Fla. 2015). He requests resentencing pursuant to chapter 

2014-220, Laws of Florida, which is the proper remedy for a Graham 

violation. Henry, 175 So. 3d at 680. 

Because Rogers was released on parole, he cannot show a violation of 

the Eighth Amendment under Graham, which held that:

A State is not required to guarantee eventual freedom to a 

juvenile offender convicted of a nonhomicide crime. What 

the State must do, however, is give defendants like Graham 

some meaningful opportunity to obtain release based on 

demonstrated maturity and rehabilitation. . . . It bears 

emphasis, however, that while the Eighth Amendment 

prohibits a State from imposing a life without parole 

sentence on a juvenile nonhomicide offender, it does not 

require the State to release that offender during his natural 

life.

Graham, 560 U.S. at 75. (emphasis added).

A juvenile offender who has actually been released from a prison 

sentence has received more than what Graham requires. Rogers had an 

opportunity for release and was in fact released from prison twice on 

parole. He has not shown that his sentence violates the Eighth 

Amendment under Graham, and he is not entitled to resentencing.1 See 

Currie v. State, No. 1D16-5578, 2017 WL 2350119, at *1 (Fla. 1st DCA 

May 31, 2017) (reaching a similar conclusion for different reasons).

Affirmed.

WARNER, GROSS and KLINGENSMITH, JJ., concur.

* * *

Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing.

1 We decline to reach Rogers’ argument that his discretionary sentence of life 

with the possibility of parole is unconstitutional under the holding of Landrum 

v. State, 192 So. 3d 459 (Fla. 2016). This issue was not raised in the motion 

filed below and is not properly raised for the first time in this appeal.