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-yearold 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.