IN THE 

SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF ARIZONA

STATE OF ARIZONA,

Respondent, 

v.

GREGORY NIDEZ VALENCIA JR., 

Petitioner. 

STATE OF ARIZONA,

Respondent, 

v.

JOEY LEE HEALER, 

Petitioner. 

No. CR-16-0156-PR

Filed December 23, 2016 

Appeal from the Superior Court in Pima County 

The Honorable James E. Marner, Judge 

The Honorable Catherine M. Woods, Judge 

Nos. CR048232 and CR051447 

REVERSED AND REMANDED 

Opinion of the Court of Appeals, Division Two 

239 Ariz. 255, 370 P.3d 124 (App. 2016) 

VACATED 

COUNSEL:

Barbara LaWall, Pima County Attorney, Jacob R. Lines (argued), Deputy 

County Attorney, Tucson, Attorneys for State of Arizona 

Dean Brault, Pima County Legal Defender, Alex Heveri (argued), Assistant 

Legal Defender, Tucson, Attorneys for Gregory Nidez Valencia Jr. 

Steven R. Sonenberg, Pima County Public Defender, David J. Euchner 

(argued), Deputy Public Defender, Tucson, Attorneys for Joey Lee Healer 
STATE V. VALENCIA/HEALER 

Opinion of the Court 

2

Mark Brnovich, Arizona Attorney General, John R. Lopez IV, Solicitor 

General, Joseph T. Maziarz, Chief Counsel, Criminal Appeals Section, 

David A. Simpson, Assistant Attorney General, Phoenix, Attorneys for 

Amicus Curiae Arizona Attorney General 

Mikel Steinfeld, Maricopa County Public Defender’s Office, Phoenix, and 

Katherine Puzauskas, The Arizona Justice Project, Tempe, Attorneys for 

Amicus Curiae Arizona Attorneys for Criminal Justice 

Keith Hilzendeger, Office of the Federal Public Defender, Phoenix, Thomas 

Phalen, Phoenix, Molly Brizgys, Tempe, Sarah Stone, Law Office of Sarah 

Stone, Phoenix, Attorneys for Amici Curiae Tonatihu Aguilar, Travis Wade 

Amaral, Jonathan Andrew Arias, Freddy Crespin, Scott Lee DeShaw, 

Eulandas J. Flowers, Michael Paul Jessup, Bobby Charles Purcell, Cedric 

Joseph Rue, Jr., Richard Rojas, and Bobby Jerry Tatum 

CHIEF JUSTICE BALES authored the opinion of the Court, in which VICE

CHIEF JUSTICE PELANDER and JUSTICES BRUTINEL, TIMMER, and 

BOLICK joined. JUSTICE BOLICK, joined by VICE CHIEF JUSTICE 

PELANDER, filed a concurring opinion. 

CHIEF JUSTICE BALES, opinion of the Court: 

¶1 We here consider whether the trial court erred by summarily 

denying petitions for post-conviction relief alleging that petitioners’ natural 

life sentences for homicides committed as juveniles are unconstitutional in 

light of Miller v. Alabama, 132 S. Ct. 2455 (2012). Because the United States 

Supreme Court held in Montgomery v. Louisiana, 136 S. Ct. 718 (2016), that 

Miller applies retroactively and “sentencing a child to life without parole is 

excessive for all but ‘the rare juvenile offender whose crime reflects 

irreparable corruption,’” id. at 734 (quoting Miller, 132 S. Ct. at 2469), we 

reverse the trial court’s rulings and remand for further proceedings to 

determine if petitioners are entitled to relief. 

I. 

¶2 Joey Lee Healer, when sixteen years old in 1994, borrowed a 

sawed-off rifle intending to use it to obtain money and a vehicle. He went 

to the home of seventy-four-year-old Chester Iserman, who had 
STATE V. VALENCIA/HEALER 

Opinion of the Court 

3

occasionally hired Healer to do odd jobs and trusted him with free access 

to his home. Healer fatally shot Iserman and took his truck. 

¶3 Gregory Nidez Valencia Jr., when seventeen years old in 1995, 

along with a sixteen-year-old accomplice, stole a bicycle from an enclosed 

patio in a condominium complex. When they attempted to enter the patio 

of another condominium, they were confronted by its owner, Fred George. 

After a brief exchange, Valencia fatally shot George. 

¶4 Healer and Valencia were each convicted of first degree 

murder. At sentencing, the trial court in each case considered various 

aggravating and mitigating factors, including the defendant’s age. In 1995, 

Healer was sentenced to natural life imprisonment under A.R.S. § 13-703

(Supp. 1995), meaning he is not eligible for release; Valencia received the 

same sentence in 1996. After the United States Supreme Court’s 2012

decision in Miller, they each petitioned for post-conviction relief under 

Arizona Rule of Criminal Procedure 32.1(g), contending that Miller was a 

“significant change in the law that if determined to apply . . . would 

probably overturn” their sentences. They also argued that, in light of Miller, 

the Arizona sentencing scheme in place when they were sentenced was 

unconstitutional. 

¶5 The trial court summarily denied relief in each case. With 

regard to Healer, the trial court concluded that the sentencing court had 

complied with Miller because it had considered Healer’s age as a mitigating 

factor before imposing a natural life sentence. The trial court also observed 

that any constitutional infirmity in Arizona’s sentencing scheme had been 

resolved by 2014 statutory amendments that reinstated parole for juvenile 

offenders who received life sentences with the opportunity of release. See

A.R.S. §§ 13-716, 41-1604.09; 2014 Ariz. Sess. Laws, ch. 156, §§ 2, 3; see also 

State v. Vera, 235 Ariz. 571, 576 ¶ 18, 334 P.3d 754, 759 (App. 2014). 

¶6 In Valencia’s case, the trial court concluded that the natural 

life sentence did not violate Miller because that sentence was not 

mandatory, but instead was imposed after the sentencing court had 

considered Valencia’s age and other mitigating factors. The trial court, as 

in Healer’s case, also ruled that the 2014 amendments remedied any 

constitutional infirmity in the previous sentencing scheme. 
STATE V. VALENCIA/HEALER 

Opinion of the Court 

4

¶7 Healer and Valencia filed petitions for review with the court 

of appeals, which consolidated the cases, accepted review, and granted 

relief. State v. Valencia, 239 Ariz. 255, 256 ¶ 1, 257 ¶ 7, 370 P.3d 124, 125, 126

(App. 2016). The court of appeals ruled that Miller, as broadened by 

Montgomery, is a significant change in the law for purposes of Rule 32.1(g) 

that entitles Healer and Valencia to be resentenced. Id. at 258 ¶¶ 12, 15–16, 

370 P.3d at 127. In light of this ruling, the court of appeals declined to 

address their arguments that the sentencing scheme in place when they 

were sentenced was unconstitutional. Id. at 259 ¶ 17 n.3, 370 P.3d at 128. 

¶8 We granted review to consider whether Miller is a significant 

change in the law that may require the resentencing of persons serving 

natural life sentences for crimes committed as juveniles, a legal issue of 

statewide importance. We have jurisdiction under article 6, section 5(3) of 

the Arizona Constitution and A.R.S. § 12-120.24. 

II.

¶9 A defendant is entitled to post-conviction relief when “[t]here 

has been a significant change in the law that if determined to apply to 

defendant’s case would probably overturn the defendant’s conviction or 

sentence[.]” Ariz. R. Crim. P. 32.1(g). A “significant change in the law” is 

“a clear break from the past.” State v. Shrum, 220 Ariz. 115, 118 ¶ 15, 203 

P.3d 1175, 1178 (2009). Thus, to determine if Miller constitutes such a 

change, we must consider both that decision and the law that existed when 

Healer and Valencia were sentenced more than a decade earlier. 

¶10 When Healer and Valencia were sentenced, A.R.S. § 13-703 

provided two sentencing options for juveniles convicted of first-degree 

murder: (1) natural life; and (2) life without eligibility for release “until the 

completion of the service of twenty-five calendar years if the victim was 

fifteen or more years of age and thirty-five if the victim was under fifteen 

years of age.” § 13-703(A) (Supp. 1995). The statute also required a hearing 

to determine the existence of any aggravating and mitigating 

circumstances. § 13-703(A)–(H). Among the five mitigating circumstances 

the sentencing court had to consider was “the defendant’s age.” § 13-

703(G)(5). Here, the sentencing court considered the ages of Healer and 

Valencia before imposing natural life sentences. 
STATE V. VALENCIA/HEALER 

Opinion of the Court 

5

¶11 The natural life sentences at issue thus were not mandatory 

but did amount to sentences of life without the possibility of parole. This 

is because in 1993 Arizona eliminated parole for all offenders, including 

juveniles, who committed offenses after January 1, 1994, and replaced it 

with a system of “earned release credits,” which can reduce the time that 

must be served in prison. See 1993 Ariz. Sess. Laws, ch. 255, § 86; see also

A.R.S. § 41-1604.09(I). The system of earned release credits, however, did 

not by its terms apply to natural life sentences. See Vera, 235 Ariz. at 575–

76 ¶ 17, 334 P.3d at 758–59. 

¶12 In Miller, the Supreme Court ruled that the Eighth 

Amendment prohibits the imposition of mandatory life-without-parole 

sentences for juveniles. 132 S. Ct. at 2469. The Court observed that “youth 

matters in determining the appropriateness of a lifetime of incarceration 

without the possibility of parole,” id. at 2465, and that mandatory lifewithout-parole sentences impermissibly “preclude a sentencer from taking 

account of an offender’s age and the wealth of characteristics and 

circumstances attendant to it.” Id. at 2467. The Court further noted that 

“appropriate occasions for sentencing juveniles to this harshest possible 

penalty will be uncommon,” id. at 2469, suggesting that such sentences can 

only be imposed on the “rare juvenile offender whose crime reflects 

irreparable corruption” as distinct from “transient immaturity.” Id.

(quoting Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551, 573 (2005)).

¶13 Miller did not expressly resolve whether its holding was 

procedural - that is, whether it barred only mandatory sentences of lifewithout-parole for juveniles - or instead substantive in restricting the class 

of juveniles eligible for “this harshest possible penalty.” Id. The decision 

also did not resolve whether it was retroactive. In the aftermath of Miller, 

courts reached conflicting decisions on these issues. Compare, e.g., People v. 

Davis, 6 N.E.3d 709, 722 (Ill. 2014) (holding that Miller announced a new 

substantive rule that applies retroactively), with, e.g., State v. Tate, 130 So. 3d 

829, 841 (La. 2013) (holding that Miller announced a new procedural rule 

that does not apply retroactively). 

¶14 Montgomery resolved this conflict by clarifying that Miller is a 

new substantive rule of constitutional law that must be given retroactive 

effect by state courts. 136 S. Ct. at 729, 732. Miller, as interpreted by the 

majority in Montgomery, did not adopt merely a procedural rule requiring 

individualized sentencing (as distinct from mandatory sentences of life 
STATE V. VALENCIA/HEALER 

Opinion of the Court 

6

without parole), but instead recognized that “sentencing a child to life 

without parole is excessive for all but ‘the rare juvenile offender whose 

crime reflects irreparable corruption.’” Id. at 734 (quoting Miller, 132 S. Ct. 

at 2469). Miller reflects a “substantive holding that life without parole is an 

excessive sentence for children whose crimes reflect transient immaturity.” 

Id. at 735. This conclusion prompted a vigorous dissent, which argued that 

the majority had effectively rewritten Miller to require states to eliminate 

life-without-parole sentences for juveniles. Id. at 737, 743–44 (Scalia, J., 

joined by Thomas & Alito, JJ., dissenting). 

¶15 Miller, as clarified by Montgomery, represents a “clear break 

from the past” for purposes of Rule 32.1(g). Arizona law, when Healer and 

Valencia were sentenced, allowed a trial court to impose a natural life 

sentence on a juvenile convicted of first degree murder without 

distinguishing crimes that reflected “irreparable corruption” rather than 

the “transient immaturity of youth.” Because Miller reflects a new 

substantive rule of constitutional law, we are required by Montgomery to 

give this rule retroactive effect. 

¶16 Notwithstanding Montgomery, the State argues that Miller 

does not constitute a significant change in the law for purposes of Rule 

32.1(g). The State contends that Miller bars mandatory sentences of life 

without parole and thus requires only that the sentencing court consider 

the juvenile’s age as a mitigating factor before imposing a natural life 

sentence - as occurred in each case here. Montgomery refutes these 

arguments by expressly holding that Miller reflects a substantive rule and 

noting “[e]ven if a court considers a child’s age before sentencing him or 

her to a lifetime in prison, that sentence still violates the Eighth Amendment 

for a child whose crime reflects unfortunate yet transient immaturity.” Id. 

at 734 (internal quotation marks omitted); see also Tatum v. Arizona, 137 S. 

Ct. 11, 12 (2016) (summarily granting review, vacating, and remanding for 

reconsideration, in light of Montgomery, several decisions by the Arizona 

Court of Appeals rejecting claims for post-conviction relief under Miller 

where sentencing court had considered the petitioner’s youth). 

¶17 In order to be entitled to resentencing, Healer and Valencia 

must also establish that Miller “if determined to apply . . . would probably 

overturn” their sentences. Ariz. R. Crim. P. 32.1(g). But the retroactivity of 

Miller and the failure of the sentencing courts to expressly determine 

whether the juvenile defendants’ crimes reflected “irreparable corruption” 
STATE V. VALENCIA/HEALER 

Opinion of the Court 

7

do not in themselves entitle Valencia and Healer to post-conviction relief. 

Montgomery noted that “Miller did not require trial courts to make a finding 

of fact regarding a child’s incorrigibility,” but instead held that imposing a 

sentence of life without parole on “a child whose crime reflects transient 

immaturity” violates the Eighth Amendment. 136 S. Ct. at 136. 

¶18 Healer and Valencia are entitled to evidentiary hearings on 

their Rule 32.1(g) petitions because they have made colorable claims for 

relief based on Miller. See Ariz. R. Crim. P. 32.8(a) (“The defendant shall be 

entitled to a hearing to determine issues of material fact[.]”); State v. Amaral, 

239 Ariz. 217, 220 ¶¶ 11–12, 368 P.3d 925, 928 (2016) (discussing when an 

evidentiary hearing is required). At these hearings, they will have an 

opportunity to establish, by a preponderance of the evidence, that their 

crimes did not reflect irreparable corruption but instead transient 

immaturity. See Ariz. R. Crim. P. 32.8(c). Only if they meet this burden will 

they establish that their natural life sentences are unconstitutional, thus 

entitling them to resentencing. Cf. Montgomery, 136 S. Ct. at 736–37 (noting 

“prisoners like Montgomery must be given the opportunity to show their 

crime did not reflect irreparable corruption; and, if it did not, their hope for 

some years of life outside prison walls must be restored”). If the State does 

not contest that the crime reflected transient immaturity, it should stipulate 

to the defendant’s resentencing in light of Montgomery and Miller. 

¶19 The need for such evidentiary and resentencing hearings 

could be obviated, as Montgomery recognized, “by permitting juvenile 

homicide offenders to be considered for parole, rather than by resentencing 

them.” Id. at 736. While this result could be achieved by the legislature 

amending A.R.S. § 13-716 to apply to inmates serving natural life sentences 

for murders committed as juveniles, it is not a change that can be mandated 

by judicial decision. 

III.

¶20 We vacate the opinion of the court of appeals, reverse the trial 

court’s rulings dismissing the petitions for post-conviction relief, and 

remand the cases to the trial court for further proceedings to determine if 

petitioners are entitled to relief. 
STATE v. VALENCIA/HEALER 

JUSTICE BOLICK and VICE CHIEF JUSTICE PELANDER, Concurring 

JUSTICE BOLICK, with whom VICE CHIEF JUSTICE PELANDER joins, 

concurring. 

¶21 I join fully the Court’s opinion, which is compelled by the 

United States Supreme Court’s decisions in Miller and Montgomery. I write 

to further explain the context in which we address these issues and to 

express serious concerns over the direction in which the Supreme Court 

appears to be headed. 

¶22 The murders in these cases were brutal. In 1994, sixteen-yearold Joey Lee Healer borrowed a sawed-off rifle and entered the home of 

Chester Iserman, an elderly man who had given Healer odd jobs so he could 

earn money. Healer shot Iserman through the eye, killing him, and then 

stole his truck. In 1995, seventeen-year-old Gregory Valencia and a 

younger accomplice entered a condominium complex, took a bicycle from 

an enclosed patio, and tried to enter another unit’s patio. When the 

homeowner, Fred George, heard his patio gate rattling, he came out to 

confront the thieves. Valencia’s accomplice threw the stolen bicycle at 

George and Valencia shot him in the head, killing him. Healer and Valencia 

were both convicted of first-degree murder. Even after considering 

mitigating evidence including the juveniles’ ages, the court sentenced each 

defendant to natural life in prison. 

¶23 Though Miller implied that our state’s laws mandate life 

without possibility of parole in circumstances like those presented here, 132 

S. Ct. at 2473 n.13, Arizona currently requires (and did so when these 

sentences were issued) trial courts to consider age as a mitigating factor in 

determining punishment for first-degree murder. See A.R.S. § 13-701(E)(1). 

Indeed, courts must consider not only a juvenile’s age but also the “level of 

maturity, judgment and involvement in the crime.” State v. Greenway, 170 

Ariz. 155, 170, 823 P.2d 22, 37 (1991). The state does not mandate life 

sentences without parole for such offenses. See A.R.S. § 13-752(A). 

However, because Arizona abolished parole for all crimes committed after 

January 1, 1994, see 1993 Ariz. Sess. Laws, ch. 255, § 86; see also A.R.S. § 41-

1604.09(I), an individual sentenced to life in prison for a minimum number 

of years is unlikely to be released.1 And, of course, convicted juvenile 

 

1 Following Miller, the legislature provided that juveniles sentenced to life 

for a minimum number of years will be eligible for parole once the 

minimum sentence is served. A.R.S. § 13-716.
STATE v. VALENCIA/HEALER 

JUSTICE BOLICK and VICE CHIEF JUSTICE PELANDER, Concurring 

9

murderers like Healer and Valencia who received natural life sentences 

have no possibility for parole. 

¶24 In Roper, 543 U.S. at 568, the Court held that imposition of the 

death penalty on persons who committed murder when under age eighteen 

violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual 

punishment. The Court differentiated between juvenile and adult 

offenders on three grounds: (1) underdeveloped maturity and sense of 

responsibility among young people may lead to reckless behavior; (2) 

juveniles are more susceptible to outside pressures and negative influences; 

and (3) youth character is less firmly developed. Id. at 569–70. Those 

considerations led the Court to conclude that “the death penalty is 

disproportionate punishment for offenders under 18.” Id. at 575. 

¶25 Seven years later in Miller, the Court extended that reasoning 

to mandatory life sentences without possibility of parole, stating 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.” 132 S. Ct. at 2469. Rather than categorically 

prohibiting such sentences, however, the Court held that sentencers must 

“take into account how children are different, and how those differences 

counsel against irrevocably sentencing them to a lifetime in prison.” Id.

¶26 In Montgomery, the Court was posed with a single question: 

did Miller announce a new substantive rule, which has retroactive effect, or 

a procedural one, which generally does not? 136 S. Ct. at 726; see also Teague 

v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288, 311 (1989) (applying retroactively “watershed rules of 

criminal procedure”). Searching in vain to find such a substantive rule in 

Miller, the Court instead created one in Montgomery, reasoning that the 

unannounced rule that courts must make a finding of “irreparable 

corruption” before sentencing a juvenile offender to life imprisonment 

without parole, id. at 735, was implicit in the earlier case. “That Miller did 

not impose a formal factfinding requirement does not leave the States free 

to sentence a child whose crime reflects transient immaturity to life without 

parole.” Id. By retroactively grafting a substantive rule upon its prior 

ruling, the Court in turn rendered Miller, as modified, retroactive as well. 

As a result, Arizona, like many other states, must now reconsider sentences 

imposed in some instances many decades ago, in a largely unguided effort 

to determine today whether people long behind bars were “irreparabl[y] 

corrupt[ed]” when they committed the murders underlying their 
STATE v. VALENCIA/HEALER 

JUSTICE BOLICK and VICE CHIEF JUSTICE PELANDER, Concurring 

10

convictions. See Roper, 543 U.S. at 573 (noting the difficulty of 

differentiating between transient immaturity and irreparable corruption). 

¶27 I agree with concerns expressed by the Miller and Montgomery

dissenters. First, the Court has effectively amended the Eighth Amendment 

to prohibit cruel or unusual punishment, rather than cruel and unusual 

punishment, which is how the text reads. See Miller, 132 S. Ct. at 2487–90 

(Alito, J., dissenting) (stating that the “Court long ago abandoned the 

original meaning of the Eighth Amendment”). Second, the Montgomery

Court’s suggestion that states can avoid re-litigating old sentences “by 

permitting juvenile homicide offenders to be considered for parole, rather 

than by resentencing them,” 136 S. Ct. at 736, amounts to none-too-subtle 

coercion. See id. at 744 (Scalia, J., dissenting) (“And then, in Godfather 

fashion, the majority makes state legislatures an offer they can’t refuse: 

Avoid all the utterly impossible nonsense we have prescribed by simply 

‘permitting juvenile homicide offenders to be considered for parole.’”).

¶28 But even more troubling from a practical standpoint is the 

Court’s sweeping pronouncement that the “vast majority” of juvenile 

offenders must be shielded from lifetime confinement. Id. at 734. By 

announcing in advance that most murders committed by juveniles “reflect 

the transient immaturity of youth,” the Court trivializes the killers’ actions 

and culpability. “Transient immaturity” is when my adolescent daughter 

slugs her big brother. It may even describe peer pressures that influence 

reckless behavior. But it is not an apt rationalization for cold-blooded 

murder. 

¶29 In Miller, the Court remarked that “we think appropriate 

occasions for sentencing juveniles to this harshest possible penalty will be 

uncommon.” 132 S. Ct. at 2469. This “gratuitous prediction,” Chief Justice 

Roberts responded, “appears to be . . . an invitation to overturn life without 

parole sentences,” without explicitly “declaring that the Eighth 

Amendment prohibits them.” Id. at 2481 (Roberts, C.J., dissenting). By 

Montgomery, “uncommon” evolved into “vast majority,” with the Court 

attributing to Miller a “conclusion” it never reached: “that the sentence of 

life without parole is disproportionate for the vast majority of juvenile 

offenders.” Montgomery, 136 S. Ct. at 736. 

¶30 We should treat the Court’s forecast that irreparable 

corruption will not be found in the “vast majority” of cases as speculative 
STATE v. VALENCIA/HEALER 

JUSTICE BOLICK and VICE CHIEF JUSTICE PELANDER, Concurring 

11

and dictum. By being convicted of first-degree murder, juvenile offenders 

already have been proven “uncommon” and outside of the “vast majority” 

of young people who manage to avoid committing such heinous crimes. 

Certainly the victims’ plight is no different whether the murderer is 

seventeen or seventy. Of course, a life sentence is far more consequential 

for the former than the latter. Appropriately, Arizona’s laws for decades 

have required the mitigating considerations of age, maturity, and 

responsibility—and now, the possibility of parole for those juveniles who 

were convicted of first-degree murder but not sentenced to natural life. See

A.R.S. § 13-716; Vera, 235 Ariz. at 576 ¶ 18, 334 P.3d at 759. We are assured 

that the Court does “not foreclose” life sentences without parole, Miller, 132 

S. Ct. at 2469, as long as the court determines the crime does not reflect 

transient immaturity. Montgomery, 136 S. Ct. at 734. Within this nebulous 

construct, sentencers should apply their best judgment, assessing all 

relevant factors. Our system’s integrity and constitutionality depend not 

on whether the overall number of sentences of life without parole meted 

out to youthful murderers are many or few. They depend primarily on 

whether justice is rendered in individual cases. Cf. McClesky v. Kemp, 481 

U.S. 279, 294–95 (1987) (rejecting statistics-based challenge to the death 

penalty). 

¶31 The United States Supreme Court observes that a switch to 

parole eligibility for juvenile murderers in all instances—a result it 

advocates and portends but does not yet expressly mandate—will make the 

possibility of release available for those “who demonstrate the truth of 

Miller’s central intuition—that children who commit even heinous crimes 

are capable of change.” Montgomery, 136 S. Ct. at 736. Such intuition is 

laudable, but it is no substitute for the rule of law, or for the justice it seeks 

to secure not only for wrongdoers but for those impacted by the most 

grievous of crimes.