IN THE SUPREME COURT OF NORTH CAROLINA

2022-NCSC-79

No. 64A21

Filed 17 June 2022

STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA

v.

RILEY DAWSON CONNER

Appeal pursuant to N.C.G.S. § 7A-30(2) from a divided decision of the Court of 

Appeals, 275 N.C. App. 758 (2020), affirming in part, and vacating and remanding in 

part, judgments entered on 21 February 2019 by Judge Michael A. Stone in Superior 

Court, Columbus County. Heard in the Supreme Court on 10 November 2021.

Joshua H. Stein, Attorney General, by Kimberly N. Callahan, Special Deputy 

Attorney General, for the State.

Glenn Gerding, Appellate Defender, by David W. Andrews, Assistant Appellate 

Defender, for defendant-appellant.

Disability Rights North Carolina, by Lisa Grafstein, Susan H. Pollitt, and 

Luke Woollard, for Center for Child and Family Health, National Association 

of Social Workers, including its North Carolina affiliate, and Disability 

Rights North Carolina, amici curiae.

Christopher J. Heaney, Emily A. Gibson, and Margaret P. Teich for North 

Carolina Advocates for Justice, amicus curiae.

MORGAN, Justice.

¶ 1 The Supreme Court of the United States has determined that it is 

unconstitutional to sentence a juvenile defendant to a term of life without parole 
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without consideration of the juvenile’s age and attendant circumstances, and that 

such a sentence is constitutionally impermissible for the majority of juvenile 

offenders—specifically those who, upon consideration of their age, the unique 

circumstances of their respective lives, and the nature of their charged crimes, have 

been excluded from the narrow category of juveniles who at the time of sentencing 

can be deemed to be permanently incorrigible or irredeemable. See Montgomery v. 

Louisiana, 577 U.S. 190, 195 (2016) (stating that “a lifetime in prison is a 

disproportionate sentence for all but the rarest of children, those whose crimes reflect 

‘irreparable corruption.’ ” (quoting Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460, 479–80 (2012) 

(quoting Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551, 573 (2005))). In the present case, this Court 

ponders a potential extension of this cited precedent as we consider whether a fifteenyear-old juvenile defendant’s sentences of (1) 240 to 348 months of imprisonment for 

a conviction of rape and (2) life imprisonment with the possibility of parole for a 

conviction of murder, ordered by a trial court to run consecutively which will keep 

defendant incarcerated until the age of sixty years before having the opportunity to 

demonstrate that he should be allowed to be released on parole, combine to constitute 

a de facto sentence of life without parole in violation of the Eighth Amendment to the 

United States Constitution and article I, section 27 of the North Carolina 

Constitution. This is a question of first impression for this Court, and the Supreme 

Court of the United States likewise has not yet explicitly addressed this specific 
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circumstance.

1

¶ 2 A careful review of the pertinent case law, along with the relevant provisions 

of both the United States Constitution and the North Carolina Constitution, 

mandates our conclusion that juvenile offenders who have received sentences of life 

imprisonment with the possibility for parole, while not guaranteed parole at any point 

during their respective terms of incarceration, nonetheless must have the opportunity 

to seek an early release afforded by the prospect of parole after serving no more than 

forty years of incarceration.

I. Factual background and procedural history2

A. Defendant’s childhood

¶ 3 From the time of his birth on 23 August 2000 through the date of 11 March 

2016 when, at the age of fifteen years, defendant committed the crimes which led to 

the convictions underlying this appeal, the juvenile defendant’s life was challenging,

chaotic, and marked by tremendous instability. At the time that defendant was born,

 

1 However, “after Miller, the Supreme Court in several cases involving aggregate 

crimes granted certiorari, vacated the sentence, and remanded for consideration in light of 

Miller.” State v. Null, 836 N.W.2d 41, 73 (Iowa 2013) (collecting cases).

2 The factual background which is provided here is based upon the record before this 

Court, drawn primarily from the transcripts generated by the entry of defendant’s plea and 

the subsequent sentencing hearing. While the testimony in the record is occasionally 

inconsistent regarding certain dates and details about defendant’s life and experiences, 

nonetheless efforts have been expended to organize the information in order to create a 

comprehensible narrative.
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his father was twenty years of age, his mother was eighteen years of age,

3 and both 

parents were addicted to cocaine. Defendant’s mother testified at defendant’s trial 

that he began to experience severe sleep disruptions at one or two years of age which 

she later realized may have been signs of the epilepsy with which defendant was 

diagnosed as a teenager. Defendant initially lived with his parents on Miller Road in 

or near Tabor City in Columbus County. When defendant was around five years old, 

he moved into the home of his maternal grandparents on Savannah Road4 along with 

his mother and his younger sister. Defendant’s mother testified that during this time, 

because she was “strung out” on crack cocaine and “running the roads,” her parents 

provided much of the care for her children. Defendant’s father was incarcerated 

during this time period. Numerous members of defendant’s extended family lived on 

Savannah Road and in the neighboring area, including defendant’s grandparents, his

great-grandmother, and several aunts and uncles. Despite the strong presence of his 

family members, the area in which defendant was raised was described by 

defendant’s maternal aunt, Kimberly Gore, as “the pits of hell,” and by defendant’s 

mother as “nowhere for a child to be” because it was the location of illegal drug use

and prostitution. 

 

3 At the time of defendant’s sentencing hearing, his mother was divorced from his 

father, had remarried, and was known as Amanda McPaul.

4 The record on appeal includes various references to this thoroughfare as Savannah 

Road, Savannah Extension Road, and Savannah Road Extension. In this opinion, the 

roadway will be referred to as Savannah Road for purposes of consistency. 
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¶ 4 Gore testified at defendant’s trial about defendant’s ongoing experience of

being passed from home to home as he moved between and among a myriad of family 

members who served as formal and informal caretakers. In the words of Gore, 

defendant’s “mother and father [were] constantly in and out of his life. They were not 

by [any] means anywhere close to being stable parents. They rejected [defendant] 

time and time again.” At the age of four years, defendant witnessed the armed arrest

of his father and uncle due to the men’s possession of a truckload of marijuana, that

constituted an event which a mitigation specialist later described as “one of the first 

really traumatic things that happened in [defendant’s] life.” According to defendant’s 

mother, defendant eventually saw his father arrested “[m]ultiple times.” 

¶ 5 When defendant was five years old, both of his parents were arrested for 

larceny and other charges. Defendant’s mother testified that defendant was “picked 

on” at school because defendant’s peers knew that his parents were drug addicts. 

When defendant was six years old, his father was sentenced to a prison term of five 

years, and, although defendant’s mother received a sentence of probation, her drug 

use prevented her from successfully completing her probation and she went to prison 

when defendant was seven years old. Gore noted that defendant’s parents missed 

most of defendant’s early birthday celebrations, and she recalled an incident in which 

defendant, at the age of seven years, ran “down the side of the highway screaming ‘I 

hate you, I hate you’ ” as his mother drove away, leaving defendant behind.
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¶ 6 At some point around 2005 or 2006, the Columbus County Department of 

Social Services (DSS) took custody of defendant and his infant sister after defendant 

reported to Gore that the two children had been taken to a strange structure, which 

turned out to be a crack house. Defendant’s maternal grandparents formally received

custody of defendant and his sister when defendant was about six years old. However,

the maternal grandmother struggled to care for the children, and defendant 

frequently stayed with Gore on weekends. Gore testified that, during this time period, 

defendant experienced severe night terrors during which he would “not wake up.” 

These episodes were accompanied by “outbursts, the flailing of his arms, the slinging, 

the beating, walking to one end of the house to the other,” which was a behavioral 

pattern that defendant’s mother testified had begun when defendant was one or two

years old. A doctor who examined defendant when the juvenile was eight years old 

expressed concern that defendant might be experiencing effects of post-traumatic 

stress disorder, but defendant did not receive counseling or other treatment. 

¶ 7 Also during the time that defendant was eight years of age, his maternal 

grandmother suffered a stroke. Defendant was then shuttled between the homes of 

his paternal grandmother and his mother on Savannah Road. Defendant apparently 

was often removed from the classroom while in elementary school, at times because 

he was being “picked on” and other times because he reacted violently to being teased 

in this way. Defendant consistently failed his end-of-grade tests in the third grade 
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and was held back in his school advancement in order to repeat the grade. At the age 

of nine years, defendant began to use marijuana. At age ten, defendant lived with his 

mother and stepfather away from Savannah Road for some period of time, but when 

defendant’s father was released from prison during the following year, defendant 

returned to Savannah Road to live with his father and stepmother. Also residing on 

Savannah Road at the house belonging to defendant’s great-grandmother was 

defendant’s paternal aunt and the paternal aunt’s son—consequently, defendant’s

cousin—Brad Adams, who was about ten to twelve years older than defendant. 

Adams both used and sold illegal drugs, sometimes supplying them to defendant. 

Occasionally, the paternal aunt took defendant to motels in the area while she worked 

there as a prostitute.

¶ 8 Defendant began drinking alcohol at the age of eleven years old, consuming 

multiple beers on an almost daily basis and sometimes to the point of

unconsciousness. Also when he was eleven years old, defendant began using the 

controlled substance Xanax, ingesting up to eight pills at a time to get high. 

Defendant moved to Brunswick County at age twelve and started to become sexually 

active. Defendant failed his fifth-grade end-of-grade tests and potentially would have 

been required to repeat the grade, but he transferred to Nakina Middle School, where 

he was placed in the sixth grade. Defendant went to live with his father for a short 

period of time and transferred to a different school in another municipality, but 
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following his father’s arrest for robbing a bank, defendant returned to live with his 

mother and stepfather on Savannah Road and transferred back to Nakina Middle 

School. But the institution would not assign defendant to a classroom because of his 

confrontations with other students, and defendant was eventually expelled from the 

school for disruptive behavior and bullying. Defendant then briefly attended an 

alternative school in Columbus County, followed by another alternative school in 

South Carolina. While enrolled in the South Carolina school, defendant was charged 

with the offense of assault for hitting a student in the head with a textbook. As a 

result, defendant was expelled from the school. When the charge was later dismissed, 

defendant was readmitted to the school as a sixth grader; however, defendant was 

soon expelled again from the institution after being adjudicated delinquent in 

juvenile court for simple possession of marijuana. Defendant’s last official education 

records are from his sixth-grade year.

¶ 9 From this point forward with regard to defendant’s education, defendant was 

supposed to be home schooled by his grandmother, but in actuality, defendant was a 

“free agent.” He spent his days at an abandoned trailer on Savannah Road “to hang 

out and do drugs” with his older cousin Brad Adams. Family members testified at 

trial that defendant looked up to and “worship[p]ed” Adams, but they emphasized 

that the cousin was a very negative role model. Adams illegally sold heroin, 

methamphetamine, and “pills,” all controlled substances, and regularly and illegally 
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provided drugs to defendant. At the age of thirteen years, defendant was diagnosed 

with frontal lobe epilepsy and received a secondary diagnosis of behavior problems, 

resulting in prescriptions for Klonopin and other seizure-related medications. 

Defendant expanded his illegal drug use as well; he began to use opiates at age

thirteen and heroin at age fourteen. The next year, defendant received additional 

diagnoses of conduct disorder, cannabis use disorder, alcohol use disorder, sedative 

or hypnotic use disorder, and disruption of family.

¶ 10 In June 2015, when he was fourteen years old, defendant had a disagreement 

with Adams and Adams’s mother, so defendant again left Savannah Road to reside 

with his mother and stepfather in South Carolina. Defendant subsequently drifted 

among his father, his father’s ex-wife, and his stepsister and her boyfriend in his 

places of residence. Defendant’s seizures increased in frequency at this juncture, 

numbering as many as six to ten per night, which led to a change in his medications.

Around February 2016, defendant briefly moved to Florida to live with his father, and 

then returned to his mother’s home for a short stint, but he ultimately returned to 

Savannah Road so that he could spend time with Adams and be largely unsupervised. 

On 22 February 2016, defendant’s mother and stepfather took defendant to a doctor 

because defendant was continuing to withstand up to a dozen seizures on a nightly 

basis. By 25 February 2016, defendant’s nocturnal epilepsy was getting progressively 

worse, so he went to another doctor who thought the seizures might be due to PTSD. 
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This physician changed defendant’s medications yet again.

¶ 11 Five days later, in the early morning hours of 2 March 2016, defendant broke 

into and entered a local supermarket, stealing a large quantity of cigarettes. The 

business was equipped with an alarm system which alerted law enforcement to the 

break-in. At about 4:00 a.m., while officers were at the scene completing a report, one 

of the officers received word from Adams’s mother that defendant had taken a van 

belonging to her. Security camera footage from the store into which defendant had 

broken and entered allowed officers to quickly identify defendant as the perpetrator. 

By the time officers arrived at Savannah Road to locate defendant, he and the van 

were unable to be found. At about 8:00 a.m., Adams’s mother notified law enforcement 

that defendant had returned her vehicle. Shortly thereafter, officers stopped the van 

as it was being operated and discovered that Adams’s mother was driving the vehicle, 

with defendant riding in the passenger seat. The officers also recovered the stolen 

cigarettes from the van.

¶ 12 Upon this development, law enforcement officers prepared a juvenile petition 

alleging that defendant was delinquent based on (1) breaking or entering, larceny 

after breaking or entering, and felony possession of stolen property after breaking 

into a store and stealing cigarettes in connection with the supermarket theft, and (2)

larceny of a motor vehicle and possession of a stolen vehicle. The officers made 

arrangements for defendant to meet with a juvenile court counselor at 1:00 p.m. on 
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11 March 2016 and then departed in order to file the petition. 

B. Defendant’s underlying offenses, statements to law enforcement officers 

and arrest

¶ 13 Later on the day of 2 March 2016, defendant’s aunt Felicia Porter called the 

emergency number 911 to report that defendant was involved in a scuffle inside the 

Savannah Road home of defendant’s great-grandmother. Porter informed the 911 

operator of defendant’s juvenile petitions and expressed her belief that defendant 

“needs to get locked up.” The audio recording of the 911 call captures an argument 

which occurred between defendant and Porter during that time. 

¶ 14 According to the transcript of defendant’s pleas of guilty which the trial court 

accepted in the underlying case, on the morning of 11 March 2016—the same date on 

which defendant had a scheduled 1:00 p.m. appointment with a juvenile court 

counselor in connection with his pending juvenile petition—defendant’s aunt Felicia 

Porter awakened at about 6:00 a.m. and drove her husband to a nearby location where 

he was to be provided transportation to a construction job. Porter’s social media posts 

on Facebook show that she was back at her home on Savannah Road and was active 

online by approximately 9:00 a.m. At about 9:30 a.m., defendant was observed by 

John Cunningham, his step-grandfather, walking toward the end of the road where 

Porter’s home was located.

¶ 15 Defendant knocked on Porter’s door and convinced her to exit the residence. 

Subsequently, defendant raped Porter and then killed her with blows from a shovel. 
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Defendant placed Porter’s body in a wooded area about one hundred yards from her 

home and then burned a piece of Porter’s clothing in her yard. Around 10:30 a.m. to 

10:45 a.m., defendant left Porter’s residence and walked by the side of the road, 

stopping to speak to Cunningham along the way. Cunningham noted that defendant 

was sweating profusely. Defendant attended his scheduled meeting with the juvenile 

court counselor later that day.

¶ 16 Meanwhile, defendant’s great-grandmother, with whom defendant was

dwelling at the time, became concerned when Porter did not answer repeated 

telephone calls. At approximately 12:00 p.m., Cunningham and Adams went to

Porter’s home to check on her and found the door to the residence ajar, Porter’s dog 

secured inside the house, and Porter absent. After Cunningham contacted Porter’s 

husband, a missing person’s report was filed with authorities that afternoon. Porter’s 

badly beaten body was found the next day about one hundred yards from her trailer. 

An autopsy revealed that Porter died as a result of blunt force trauma to the head

which was later determined to have been caused by being repeatedly struck with a 

shovel. 

¶ 17 Defendant was interviewed by law enforcement officers a total of four times in 

connection with Porter’s death. In his first statement, given on 12 March 2016, 

defendant denied that he walked toward Porter’s residence on the previous day of 11 

March 2016, insisting that he had walked in the other direction and reporting that 
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he had seen a suspicious vehicle. After the interview, defendant went to stay with his 

mother and stepfather. On 16 March 2016, defendant’s mother took him to a local

hospital emergency room because defendant had begun to have as many as fifteen 

seizures per night, with some of them being “so severe that he [was] developing 

bruises along his elbows and shins.” On 21 March 2016, defendant experienced his 

worst seizure ever, losing bowel and bladder control and foaming at the mouth. 

Defendant was transported to UNC Memorial Hospital where he had up to thirty 

seizures per night. An MRI of defendant’s brain was positive for “mesial temporal 

sclerosis, which is like damage to the frontal lobe.” He was diagnosed with 

“intractable frontal lobe epilepsy that is poorly controlled.” A medical doctor at UNC 

reported, “This case is complicated by non-compliance of medication, lack of insight 

of his condition and severe oppositional behavior problem and agitation that often is 

due to the frequent partial epilepsy.” Another doctor also found that the “partial 

seizures are associated with psychiatric agitation” and that significant behavioral 

changes “could well be due to uncontrolled frontal seizures.” Yet another doctor 

commented that “frontal lobe epilepsy may affect a patient’s ability to regulate his 

emotions and prevents a patient from getting adequate sleep.” While defendant was 

at UNC Hospital, his mother physically assaulted him, which resulted in a complaint 

being filed with DSS. By the time that defendant was discharged from UNC Hospital 

after five days, the number of defendant’s seizures had been reduced to seven a night.
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DSS exercised its placement authority over defendant to house him with his 

stepsister and her boyfriend upon defendant’s release from the hospital. 

¶ 18 A few days later, on 29 March 2016, defendant gave three statements to law 

enforcement officers who were investigating Porter’s murder. In his first statement

on that date, defendant admitted walking in the direction of Porter’s house on 11 

March 2016—contrary to defendant’s 12 March 2016 statement that he did not walk 

in the direction of Porter’s residence but instead walked in the other direction—but 

claimed that he did so in order to check on a marijuana plant that defendant was 

growing in the woods. In a second interview which was requested by defendant 

himself on the same day of 29 March 2016, defendant represented that Adams had 

“been fronted a kilo of heroin” that was in the possession of Porter’s husband Herb

and that defendant had accompanied Adams to the Porter home in order to confront

Herb. Defendant further claimed that when Adams discovered that only Porter was 

at the residence, Adams struck Porter with a brick, raped her, and then killed her. In 

his third interview of 29 March 2016, defendant admitted that his previous claim that 

his uncle “Herb” had been supplied heroin by Adams was false. Defendant still 

maintained, however, that Adams had raped and killed Porter, but at this stage 

introduced that he had also raped Porter and had helped Adams to carry Porter’s 
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body to the woods where she was discovered.

5 Just after midnight on the early 

morning of 30 March 2016, defendant was arrested and charged with the rape and 

murder of his aunt Felicia Porter. Defendant experienced a violent seizure in the 

detention center and was taken to a hospital where he tested positive for the presence 

of marijuana and PCP in his system.

C. Defendant’s plea, sentencing, and appeal

¶ 19 On 18 February 2019, as part of an agreement with the State, defendant

entered pleas of guilty to one charge of first-degree murder with premeditation and 

deliberation and one charge of first-degree rape in connection with the offenses which 

he committed as to the victim, his aunt Felicia Porter. In exchange for defendant’s 

pleas, the State dismissed other charges against him, including felony breaking or

entering, felony larceny after breaking or entering, two counts of felony possession of 

stolen goods, and felony larceny of a motor vehicle, all of which charges arose from 

defendant’s theft of a van from Adams’s mother and theft of cigarettes from a local 

supermarket nine days before the rape and murder. Defendant filed a motion seeking 

to have the trial court to declare that both the imposition of a sentence of life without 

parole and the sentencing directive found in N.C.G.S. § 15A-1340.19A would be 

 

5 Forensic analyses of the rape kit conducted on Porter revealed that defendant was 

the major contributor of DNA and excluded Adams as a perpetrator of rape. No other evidence 

linked Adams to the rape and murder of Porter. It is unclear from the record on appeal at 

what point defendant admitted, for the factual basis of his guilty plea, that he alone had 

raped and killed Porter.
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unconstitutional as applied to him. At the conclusion of the State’s recitation of the 

factual basis for defendant’s pleas, the trial court denied defendant’s motion and 

moved to the sentencing phase of the proceedings which took place over a period of 

four days. In addition to documentary evidence and testimony received from 

defendant’s mother, one of defendant’s aunts, the husband of defendant’s stepsister, 

and a mitigation specialist—who all testified to the circumstances of defendant’s life 

before his arrest for Porter’s rape and murder as described above, defendant also 

offered testimony from a forensic psychologist who described, inter alia, defendant’s

low intelligence quotient score, defendant’s acceptance of responsibility for his crimes, 

and improvements in defendant’s behavior during his incarceration. This expert 

witness also opined that defendant’s development and rehabilitation would likely be

negatively affected by the imposition of a sentence upon defendant which would deny 

the juvenile any opportunity for eventual release. 

¶ 20 Following the completion of defendant’s sentencing hearing on 21 February 

2019, the trial court found the existence of nineteen statutory and non-statutory 

mitigating factors in defendant’s case. Specifically, the trial court found that at the 

time of the offenses:

• defendant was fifteen years and six months old; 

• defendant “exhibited numerous signs of developmental 

immaturity. . . . exacerbated by low levels of structure, 

supervision, and discipline”; 
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• defendant’s father was incarcerated for most of 

defendant’s life and his mother struggled with substance 

abuse and incarceration and “has not been present for the 

vast majority of defendant’s life”; 

• defendant “has been passed to one family member to 

another for basic living and custodial purposes and never 

received any parental leadership, guidance, or structure”; 

• defendant “suffers from chronic frontal lobe epilepsy 

which went untreated for years causing daily seizures”

which then caused “brain injury” and “chronic sleep 

deprivation”; 

• defendant was subjected “in his transient living 

conditions to criminal activity, violence, and rampant 

substance abuse,” with his own substance abuse starting 

“at approximately age nine”; 

• defendant’s “only role model was a negative role model, 

Brad Adams, an individual with a horrible criminal history 

and habitual felon. . . . defendant looked up to Brad Adams, 

who was ten years senior to [ ] defendant in age”; 

• defendant “had a limited ability to fully appreciate the 

risks and consequences of his conduct based upon the 

totality of his poor upbringing”; 

• defendant’s “I.Q. and educational levels appear at the low 

range of average to below average”; 

• defendant “is a record level I for sentencing purposes”; 

• defendant “was subjected to an overall environment of 

drugs and other criminal activity”; 

• defendant, “[b]ased upon testing and other professional 

evaluations, . . . would benefit from education, counseling, 

and substance abuse treatment while in confinement and 

incarceration”; 
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• defendant at age four years “witnessed a drug raid at his 

home resulting in the arrest of his father and his uncle,”

after which he “started to experience night terrors”; 

• defendant at age six years “was removed from his 

parents’ home due to the drug abuse in the home”; 

• defendant’s grandmother reported he “had always been 

affected by such nightmares and night terrors and that he 

would awaken three or four times a night with what is now 

purported to be seizures”; and 

• defendant “has recently demonstrated some increased 

maturity while being incarcerated, and [ ] he did agree to 

enter this plea [on 18 February 2019].” 

¶ 21 The trial court concluded that “the evidence supports the statutory criteria 

[stated in N.C.G.S. § 15A-1340.19B(c)] and those contained in Miller vs. Alabama.”6

(Italics added.) The trial court then sentenced defendant to life imprisonment with 

the possibility of parole after twenty-five years for the murder.7 Defendant also 

received a sentence of 240 to 348 months for first-degree rape, which is the maximum 

sentence in the presumptive range for the commission of the offense of first-degree 

rape in light of defendant’s prior record level of I pursuant to N.C.G.S. § 15A-

 

6 In Miller the Supreme Court of the United States held that the imposition of a 

mandatory life sentence without the possibility of parole for a juvenile defendant is 

unconstitutional. 567 U.S. at 479. N.C.G.S. § 15A-1340.19B is part of a statutory framework 

enacted in response to Miller which sets forth procedures for determining whether a juvenile 

offender “should be sentenced to life imprisonment without parole, as set forth in G.S. 14-17, 

or a lesser sentence of life imprisonment with parole.” N.C.G.S. § 15A-1340.19B(a)(2) (2019).

7 Under the North Carolina General Statutes, eligibility for parole for defendants 

convicted of murder who were juveniles at the time of the offense begins after twenty-five 

years of imprisonment. Id. § 15A-1340.19A.
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1340.17(c) (2019). The trial court ordered that defendant’s first-degree murder

sentence of life imprisonment with the possibility of parole and sentence for firstdegree rape of 240 to 348 months run consecutively, giving an aggregate minimum 

sentence of forty-five years before defendant could seek parole. Defendant would be 

sixty years of age at the time that he first became eligible to be considered for parole.

The trial court overruled defense counsel’s objection in which counsel argued that the 

imposition of the two consecutive sentences constituted a de facto life without parole 

sentence in violation of the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of 

North Carolina.

¶ 22 Defendant appealed to the North Carolina Court of Appeals, bringing forward 

three arguments: that (1) N.C.G.S. §§ 15A-1340.19A to -1340.19D (commonly known 

as North Carolina’s “Miller-fix statutes”8) prohibit the consecutive sentences imposed 

by the trial court here; (2) the two consecutive sentences imposed on defendant are 

the functional equivalent of a sentence of life without parole and are therefore

unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution and 

article I, section 27 of the North Carolina Constitution when imposed on a juvenile

who is not determined by the trial court to be incorrigible or irredeemable; and (3) 

 

8 The so-called “Miller-fix statutes” are laws which were expeditiously enacted by the 

General Assembly in the wake of the decision issued by the Supreme Court of the United 

States in Miller v. Alabama. These enactments constituted North Carolina’s effort to conform 

this state’s juvenile sentencing laws to the mandates of Miller.
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the trial court’s imposition of lifetime satellite-based monitoring without a hearing

was error. State v. Conner, 275 N.C. App. 758, 759 (2020). All three judges comprising 

the appellate court panel agreed that the trial court’s order imposing lifetime

satellite-based monitoring on defendant must be vacated and remanded “for a 

hearing on the matter that complies with the statutory procedure in N.C.[G.S.] § 14-

208.40A.” Id. at 760. 

¶ 23 In reviewing the consecutive sentences which the trial court ordered defendant

to serve, the entire panel also agreed that the Miller-fix statutes do not flatly prohibit 

consecutive sentences, while unanimously recognizing as well that other sentencing 

provisions which are generally applicable give trial courts the discretionary authority 

to decide whether multiple sentences should run concurrently or consecutively. Id. at 

759 (majority opinion) (citing N.C.G.S. § 15A-1340.19A (2019) (stating that “a 

defendant who is convicted of first[-]degree murder, and who was under the age of 18 

at the time of the offense, shall be sentenced in accordance with this Part”) and 

N.C.G.S. § 15A-1354(a) (2019) (stating that “[w]hen multiple sentences of 

imprisonment are imposed on a person at the same time . . . the sentences may run 

either concurrently or consecutively, as determined by the [trial] court”)); id. at 760 

(McGee, C.J., concurring in part and dissenting in part).

¶ 24 In contrast, on the question of whether defendant’s consecutive sentences here 

constitute the functional equivalent of a life sentence without the possibility of parole
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and are therefore unconstitutional, the Court of Appeals panel divided. The majority 

correctly observed that “Miller has never held as being unconstitutional a life with

parole sentence imposed on a defendant who commits a murder when he was a minor”

and assumed “that a de facto [life without parole] sentence (where a defendant is 

sentenced to consecutive terms for multiple felonies) is unconstitutional,” but went 

on to conclude that

[d]efendant will be eligible for parole when he is 60 years 

old. . . . [and held] that based on the evidence before the 

trial court a 45-year sentence imposed on this 15-year old

does not equate to a de facto life sentence. Our General 

Statutes recognize that the life expectancy for a 15-year old 

is 61.7 years. N.C.[G.S.] § 8-46 (2019).

Id. at 760 (majority opinion). In reaching this result, the majority acknowledged that 

another panel of the Court of Appeals had “recently held an identical sentence 

unconstitutional on these grounds in State v. Kelliher, [273 N.C. App. 616] (2020).” 

The majority noted that this Court has stayed the operative effect of, and granted 

discretionary review in, the Kelliher decision. See 376 N.C. 900 (2021). The majority 

thus observed that Kelliher is not binding on the panels of the Court of Appeals.

Conner, 275 N.C. App. at 760.

¶ 25 The author of the Court of Appeals majority decision in Kelliher served as the 

dissenting judge in the lower appellate court’s decision in the present case regarding 

the issue of whether defendant’s consecutive sentences constituted an 

unconstitutional de facto life sentence in violation of the Eighth Amendment to the 
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Constitution of the United States and article I, section 27 of the Constitution of North 

Carolina, citing, inter alia, Kelliher. Id. at 760 (McGee, C.J., dissenting in part). First, 

the dissent in this case acknowledged the obvious interplay between N.C.G.S. § 15A1354 and the Miller-fix statutes in the sentencing of juvenile offenders, id. at 771–73.

The dissent then cited our canon of statutory construction that “if ‘there is one statute 

dealing with a subject in general and comprehensive terms, and another dealing with 

a part of the same subject in a more minute and definite way, the two should be read 

together and harmonized.’ ” Id. at 771–72 (quoting LexisNexis Risk Data Mgmt., Inc. 

v. N.C. Admin. Off. of the Cts., 368 N.C. 180, 186 (2015) (emphasis added)). In 

undertaking the dictate to harmonize the two relevant statutes, the dissent employed 

the same starting point as the majority in rejecting defendant’s appellate argument 

that the relevant statutory language “compels sentences with [parole] eligibility at 

25 years,” id. at 771, because “the holding requested by [d]efendant—that the

definition of ‘life imprisonment with parole’ compels sentences allowing for parole 

eligibility at 25 years—would impermissibly deviate from the unambiguous statutory 

language [of N.C.G.S. § 15A-1354 which permits sentences to be set to run either 

consecutively or concurrently],” id. at 772 (citing State v. Jackson, 353 N.C. 495, 501 

(2001) (“When the language of a statute is clear and unambiguous, there is no room 

for judicial construction and the courts must give the statute its plain and definite 

meaning, and are without power to interpolate, or superimpose, provisions and 
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limitations not contained therein.”) (quoting In re Banks, 295 N.C. 236, 239 (1978)). 

¶ 26 In applying its statutory analysis and reconciliation of the laws at issue, the 

dissent would have granted relief to defendant based upon his constitutional 

argument that the consecutive sentences imposed in his particular case constituted 

an unconstitutional de facto sentence of life in prison without parole. In addition to 

reviewing the content and intent of the line of United States Supreme Court cases

preceding, including, and following Miller, in conjunction with a rejection of the 

majority’s application of “the statutory mortality table found in N.C.[G.S.] § 8-46,” id. 

at 780, the dissent would hold that defendant’s sentence of “a minimum of 45 years 

[with an] earliest possible release at age 60 still presents a de facto LWOP sentence”

in violation of both the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution and 

article I, section 27 of the North Carolina Constitution, id. at 775.

¶ 27 With more specific regard to the dissenting view’s disagreement with the 

majority’s usage of the statutory mortality table found in N.C.G.S. § 8-46 to sanction 

the forty-five-year period of incarceration which defendant would be required to 

complete before having the opportunity to seek parole, the dissent stated that the 

statute by its very terms provides that it “shall be received 

. . . with other evidence as to the health, constitution and 

habits of the person[.]” (emphasis added). Thus, the life 

expectancy “table . . . is not conclusive, but only 

evidentiary,” Young v. E. A. Wood & Co., 196 N.C. 435, 437

. . . (1929) (construing a predecessor statute), and “life 

expectancy is determined from evidence of the plaintiff’s 

health, constitution, habits, and the like, as well as from 
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[the statutory] mortuary tables.” Wooten v. Warren by 

Gilmer, 117 N.C. App. 350, 259 [sic] . . . (emphasis added) 

(citation omitted). The 61.7 year life expectancy for 15-

year-old minors found in the statute certainly [is] not 

conclusive in light of [d]efendant’s “health, constitution, 

habits, and the like.” Id. For example—and setting aside 

any impact that a minimum of 45 years of imprisonment 

will have on [d]efendant—it is uncontroverted that 

[d]efendant suffers from mesial temporal sclerosis, 

epilepsy, PTSD, has a history of head injuries dating back 

to infancy, and years-long history of heavy, and varied drug 

abuse dating back to age eleven. The statutory life 

expectancy and mortality table requires consideration of 

this evidence alongside the tables themselves, N.C.[G.S.] § 

8-46, and the majority’s reliance on the lone 61.7 number 

provided by the statute does not change the “reality” of 

[d]efendant’s punishment. Cf. Graham, 560 U.S. at 70-71. 

. . .

Id. at 780. Though offering this perspective, the dissent did not endeavor to propose 

any specific example or determination of a constitutionally permissible sentence for 

defendant in this matter.

¶ 28 On 4 February 2021, defendant filed a notice of appeal based upon the 

dissenting opinion. The standard of review employed by this Court as to 

constitutional arguments presented here is a de novo standard, without deference to 

the lower court decisions. See, e.g., State v. Williams, 362 N.C. 628, 632–33 (2008).

II. Analysis

A. Precedent and principles regarding sentences for juvenile defendants

¶ 29 Upon defendant’s appeal, the question before this Court can be parsed into two 

subsidiary issues: (1) whether consecutive sentences which arguably act as a de facto 
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life sentence violate the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution and 

article I, section 27 of the North Carolina Constitution when imposed upon a juvenile 

defendant when the sentencing court has not determined that the juvenile defendant 

is incorrigible and irredeemable, and (2) if so, whether the specific sentences as 

imposed in this case constitute an unconstitutional de facto life without parole 

sentence for this individual juvenile defendant.

1. The evolution of juvenile sentencing under the Eighth Amendment to the 

Constitution of the United States

¶ 30 Eighth Amendment jurisprudence regarding sentencing for juvenile 

defendants has been a fertile ground for change over the past several decades as the 

Supreme Court of the United States, lower federal courts, and the appellate courts of 

North Carolina have been consistently beckoned to consider and address the 

continually evolving societal view of juveniles in the criminal justice system as well 

as the ongoing discoveries via scientific research regarding the special vulnerabilities 

and developmental malleability of youthful offenders. The Eighth Amendment to the 

United States Constitution prohibits the infliction of “cruel and unusual 

punishments” for any person. U.S. Const. amend. VIII (“Excessive bail shall not be 

required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.”). 

Because “cruel and unusual punishments” are not precisely defined in the Eighth 

Amendment, courts have long been called upon to furnish guideposts for determining 

the punitive limits imposed by this constitutional provision. 
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¶ 31 One central guideline characterizing general Eighth Amendment analysis has 

been consideration of the proportionality of a sentence to the circumstances that the 

sentence addresses; that is, whether a particular sentence is so excessive, either with

regard to the offense or the perpetrator, that it offends the Constitution. A 

punishment can be found to be disproportionate based upon a comparison between 

an individual defendant’s crime and his sentence. See, e.g., Harmelin v. Michigan, 

501 U.S. 957 (1991) (considering and then affirming a mandatory life-without-parole 

term for cocaine possession). Moreover, the unconstitutionality of a sentence may be 

determined based upon the “nature of [the] offense” or upon specific characteristics 

of an entire class of offenders in connection with their sentences. See, e.g., Atkins v.

Virginia, 536 U.S. 304 (2002) (holding that the execution of offenders who were 

developmentally disabled constituted cruel and unusual punishments in violation of 

the Eighth Amendment). In Atkins the Court stated that it had reached this 

conclusion as a result of its focus upon the “precept of justice that punishment for 

crime should be graduated and proportioned to [the] offense.” Id. at 311 (alteration 

in original) (quoting Weems v. United States, 217 U.S. 349, 367 (1910)). Three years 

later in Roper, the Court further noted that

[t]he prohibition against “cruel and unusual punishments,”

like other expansive language in the Constitution, must be 

interpreted according to its text, by considering history, 

tradition, and precedent, and with due regard for its 

purpose and function in the constitutional design. To 

implement this framework we have established the 
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propriety and affirmed the necessity of referring to “the 

evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a 

maturing society” to determine which punishments are so 

disproportionate as to be cruel and unusual. 

Roper, 543 N.C. at 560–61 (citing Trop v. Dulles, 356 U.S. 86, 100–101 (1958) 

(plurality opinion)).

¶ 32 Having identified this framework for purposes of Eighth Amendment analysis 

in the instant case, we recognize that a distinct proportionality analysis has been 

applied to another class of defendants: offenders who were juveniles at the time that 

they committed their respective crimes. When examining the sentencing of juvenile 

defendants in the crucible of the Eighth Amendment, we begin with a brief review of 

the pertinent precedent existing at the time of defendant’s sentencing hearing, 

including—in sequential order of their issuance—the opinions in Roper, Graham v. 

Florida, Miller, and Montgomery.

¶ 33 In Roper v. Simmons, the Supreme Court of the United States considered

whether the Eighth Amendment “bars capital punishment for juvenile offenders,”

specifically those defendants who were “older than 15 but younger than 18 years” of

age at the time that they committed the underlying offenses. 543 U.S. at 555–56. The 

high Court considered a number of relevant factors, including the lack of a “national 

consensus in favor of capital punishment for juveniles,” id. at 567, and observed that 

“the death penalty is reserved for a narrow category of crimes and offenders,” the 

worst and most culpable offenders, id. at 569. The Supreme Court then described 
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three general differences between juveniles and adults:

First, as any parent knows and as the scientific and 

sociological studies . . . tend to confirm, a lack of maturity 

and an underdeveloped sense of responsibility are found in 

youth more often than in adults and are more 

understandable among the young. . . .

The second area of difference is that juveniles are 

more vulnerable or susceptible to negative influences and 

outside pressures, including peer pressure. . . .

The third broad difference is that the character of a 

juvenile is not as well formed as that of an adult. The 

personality traits of juveniles are more transitory, less 

fixed.

Id. at 569–70 (extraneity omitted). Consequently, the highest legal forum opined that 

“[f]rom a moral standpoint it would be misguided to equate the failings of a minor 

with those of an adult, for a greater possibility exists that a minor’s character 

deficiencies will be reformed.” Id. at 570. Accordingly, the Supreme Court held that 

the imposition of a death sentence for an offender who was under the age of eighteen 

years at the time that the juvenile perpetrated the crime is unconstitutional. Id. at 

578.

¶ 34 Subsequently, in Graham v. Florida, the United States Supreme Court 

considered “whether the Constitution permits a juvenile offender to be sentenced to 

life in prison without parole for a nonhomicide crime.” 560 U.S. 48, 52–53 (2010). In 

an analysis similar to the scrutiny utilized in Roper, the eminent Court remarked 

that the practice of sentencing a juvenile who did not commit a homicide offense to a 
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term of life in prison without the possibility of parole was exceedingly rare, that a 

national community consensus had developed against such sentences, and that none 

of the generally recognized goals of sentencing, such as retribution, deterrence, 

incapacitation, and rehabilitation, could justify imposition of a sentence of life 

without the possibility of parole for a juvenile offender. Id. at 62–67. Beyond these 

considerations, the Court also observed that 

[l]ife without parole is an especially harsh 

punishment for a juvenile. Under this sentence a juvenile 

offender will on average serve more years and a greater 

percentage of his life in prison than an adult offender. A 

16-year-old and a 75-year-old each sentenced to life 

without parole receive the same punishment in name only.

Id. at 70 (citations omitted). Because a juvenile defendant’s potential future danger 

to society and the youngster’s ability to be rehabilitated for the rest of his life cannot 

be meaningfully evaluated at sentencing, a judgment of life without parole denies a

juvenile offender the chance to demonstrate his growth, maturity, and rehabilitation.

Id. at 75. Thus, the Supreme Court held that “[t]he Constitution prohibits the 

imposition of a life without parole sentence on a juvenile offender who did not commit 

homicide. . . . [and] if [a trial court] imposes a sentence of life it must provide him or 

her with some realistic opportunity to obtain release before the end of that term.” Id. 

at 82.

¶ 35 Two years after its issuance of Graham, the Supreme Court of the United 

States reviewed in Miller v. Alabama the constitutionality of mandatory life without 
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the possibility of parole sentences for juveniles who committed murder. Miller, 567 

U.S. at 465. The defendants in Miller were two fourteen-year-old juveniles who were 

“sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. . . . [where] the 

sentencing authority [did not] have any discretion to impose a different punishment.” 

Id. The defendant Miller 

was 14 years old at the time of his crime [and] had by then 

been in and out of foster care because his mother suffered 

from alcoholism and drug addiction and his stepfather 

abused him. Miller . . . regularly used drugs and alcohol; 

and he had attempted suicide four times, the first when he 

was six years old.

Id. at 467. In deciding Miller, the eminent tribunal first revisited the analysis and 

reasoning which it had applied in Roper and Graham, viewing the “[t]reat[ment] [of] 

juvenile life sentences as analogous to capital punishment.” Id. at 475 (alterations in 

original) (quoting Graham, 560 U.S. at 89 (Roberts, C.J., concurring in judgment)).

The Court then, in turn, harmonized this chain of juvenile law precedent with the 

series of case law decisions which emphasize that death sentences must be imposed 

only after consideration of the facts and circumstances of each individual case, see, 

e.g., Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U.S. 280, 304 (1976) (plurality opinion),

including the requirement that “a sentencer in a capital case must be allowed to 

consider the ‘mitigating qualities of youth.” Johnson v. Texas, 509 U.S. 350, 367 

(1993). The Court ultimately held in Miller that the Eighth Amendment bars the 

automatic, mandatory imposition of a sentence of life without the possibility of parole 
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for juvenile offenders, forecasting while simultaneously instructing that “appropriate 

occasions for sentencing juveniles to this harshest possible penalty will be 

uncommon,” even when a juvenile has committed a homicide offense. Miller, 567 U.S. 

at 479–80.

9

¶ 36 In response to the decision in Miller, the General Assembly enacted statutes 

that were intended to adapt North Carolina’s juvenile sentencing guidelines to the 

United States Supreme Court’s directives in Miller. See State v. James, 371 N.C. 77,

78 (2018); see, e.g., N.C.G.S. § 15A-1340.19A (“Notwithstanding the provisions of G.S. 

14-17, a defendant who is convicted of first[-]degree murder, and who was under the 

age of 18 at the time of the offense, shall be sentenced in accordance with this Part.”). 

These so-called Miller-fix statutes provide, inter alia, that juvenile defendants who 

are convicted of first-degree murder solely by virtue of the felony murder rule10 can 

 

9 Four years after Miller, the Supreme Court in Montgomery confirmed that its holding 

in Miller “announced a substantive rule of constitutional law” which applied retroactively 

and therefore could be raised by juvenile defendants in a post-conviction posture. 577 U.S. at 

212. In so deciding, the Court in Montgomery reiterated that its decision in “Miller required 

that sentencing courts consider a child’s ‘diminished culpability and heightened capacity for 

change’ before condemning him or her to die in prison,” because “a lifetime in prison is a 

disproportionate sentence for all but the rarest of children, those whose crimes reflect 

‘irreparable corruption.’ ” Id. at 195. Because defendant here is challenging his initial 

sentence on direct appeal rather than bringing forward an argument arising from a postconviction proceeding, making Montgomery not directly relevant to this defendant’s appeal, 

nonetheless the language and reasoning of Montgomery informs our understanding of the 

Roper, Graham, and Miller line of cases as they may assist our resolution of the present case. 

10 The felony murder rule affords the opportunity for the prosecuting government to 

charge a criminal defendant with murder in the event that the unlawful killing of an 

individual with whose murder the defendant is charged happened to occur during the 

defendant’s commission of another felony offense.
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only be sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole, N.C.G.S. § 15A1340.19B(a)(1) (2019), and that in other circumstances where a sentence of life in 

prison without the possibility of parole would be available under the general 

sentencing provisions found in N.C.G.S. § 14-17, the trial court must conduct a

sentencing hearing, id. § 15A-1340.19B(a)(2), (b) (2019). At the hearing, the juvenile 

defendant can present mitigation evidence on a number of factors:

(1) Age at the time of the offense.

(2) Immaturity.

(3) Ability to appreciate the risks and consequences of the 

conduct.

(4) Intellectual capacity.

(5) Prior record.

(6) Mental health.

(7) Familial or peer pressure exerted upon the defendant.

(8) Likelihood that the defendant would benefit from 

rehabilitation in confinement.

(9) Any other mitigating factor or circumstance.

Id. § 15A-1340.19B(c) (2019). The sentencing court must then

consider any mitigating factors in determining whether, 

based upon all the circumstances of the offense and the 

particular circumstances of the defendant, the defendant 

should be sentenced to life imprisonment with parole 

instead of life imprisonment without parole. The order 

adjudging the sentence shall include findings on the 
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absence or presence of any mitigating factors and such 

other findings as the court deems appropriate to include in 

the order.

Id. § 15A-1340.19C(a) (2019). 

¶ 37 The juvenile defendant’s sentencing hearing in the current case occurred under 

the provisions of the Miller-fix statutes between the dates of 18 and 21 February 

2019.11 At his sentencing hearing, defendant argued that he was neither an 

incorrigible nor an irredeemable juvenile, and thus a sentence for him of life 

imprisonment without the possibility of parole was constitutionally impermissible. 

As noted above, the sentencing court agreed with defendant. The trial court entered

findings of fact concerning the existence of numerous mitigating factors, and in its 

discretion, the trial court concluded that it would not sentence this juvenile defendant 

to a term of incarceration of life in prison without the possibility of parole. In this 

regard, the sentencing court acted in apparent conformity with Miller and all related 

appellate case law precedent. 

¶ 38 Defendant’s primary appellate argument concerns a question not yet directly 

addressed by the Supreme Court of the United States or by this Court: whether the 

effect of the imposition of active consecutive sentences of incarceration, each of which 

includes the possibility of parole, can be construed to operate to constitute a de facto 

 

11 Although defendant raised a challenge to the constitutionality of these provisions 

in his presentation to the Court of Appeals, the entire appellate court panel rejected his

argument; therefore, that issue is not before this Court on appeal.
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sentence of life imprisonment without any meaningful opportunity to seek parole. As 

viewed in this particular case, where a sentencing court (1) found that a juvenile 

offender was not incorrigible and irredeemable, and (2) thereby imposed multiple 

sentences, each of which offers defendant an opportunity for parole, but (3) the

sentences are decreed by the sentencing court to run consecutively so as to afford 

defendant the opportunity to seek parole only after defendant has served a minimum 

of forty-five years of incarceration, should the trial court be legally considered to have 

rendered a sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole to the 

juvenile defendant in violation of constitutional protections?

¶ 39 After the imposition of defendant’s consecutive sentences in this case and while 

his appeal was pending in this Court, the United States Supreme Court issued 

another opinion for addition to the Roper-Graham-Miller-Montgomery string of cases. 

In Jones v. Mississippi, the juvenile defendant contended that the sentencer must, in 

addition to acknowledging that a life without parole sentence cannot be mandatory 

but is instead discretionary for the sentencing authority when a sentence of life 

without the possibility of parole is imposed upon a juvenile offender, “make a separate

factual finding that the defendant is permanently incorrigible, or at least provide an 

on-the-record sentencing explanation with an implicit finding that the defendant is 

permanently incorrigible.” 141 S. Ct. 1307, 1311 (2021). The high court rejected this 

position on the basis that
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[i]n Miller, the Court mandated “only that a sentencer 

follow a certain process—considering an offender’s youth 

and attendant characteristics—before imposing” a lifewithout-parole sentence. And in Montgomery v. Louisiana, 

which held that Miller applies retroactively on collateral 

review, the Court flatly stated that “Miller did not impose 

a formal factfinding requirement” and added that “a 

finding of fact regarding a child’s incorrigibility . . . is not 

required.”

Id. (alteration in original) (citations omitted). In so stating, the Supreme Court 

attempted to provide direction that, under its precedent, sentencing courts are not 

required to make any specific finding regarding a juvenile’s incorrigibility before 

imposing a life without parole sentence upon the juvenile, nor do they need to 

otherwise explain or justify the imposition of this most extreme of all sentences. Id.

at 1313. Instead, the highest forum instructed that “[i]n a case involving an individual 

who was under 18 when he or she committed a homicide, a State’s discretionary 

sentencing system is both constitutionally necessary and constitutionally sufficient.” 

Id.

¶ 40 In addition to concluding that “[t]he resentencing in Jones’s case complied with 

[the Court’s] precedents because the sentence was not mandatory and the trial judge 

had discretion to impose a lesser punishment in light of Jones’s youth,” the United 

States Supreme Court explained that the appeal in Jones did “not properly present—

and thus [the Court did] not consider—any as-applied Eighth Amendment claim of 

disproportionality regarding Jones’s sentence.” Id. at 1322. Finally, the Supreme 
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Court recapitulated that

like Miller and Montgomery, our holding today does not 

preclude the States from imposing additional sentencing 

limits in cases involving defendants under 18 convicted of 

murder. States may categorically prohibit life without 

parole for all offenders under 18. Or States may require 

sentencers to make extra factual findings before 

sentencing an offender under 18 to life without parole. Or 

States may direct sentencers to formally explain on the 

record why a life-without-parole sentence is appropriate 

notwithstanding the defendant’s youth. States may also 

establish rigorous proportionality or other substantive 

appellate review of life-without-parole sentences. All of 

those options, and others, remain available to the States. 

Indeed, many States have recently adopted one or more of 

those reforms. But the U.S. Constitution, as this Court’s 

precedents have interpreted it, does not demand those 

particular policy approaches.

Id. at 1323 (citations omitted). 

¶ 41 Hence, in review, the current state of federal constitutional law regarding the 

imposition of the harshest sentences for juvenile offenders convicted of criminal 

offenses can be summarized as follows: (1) juvenile offenders may not be subject to 

the death penalty under any circumstances; (2) juvenile offenders may not be subject 

to mandatory life sentences without the possibility of parole; (3) state laws 

establishing juvenile sentencing parameters must, at a minimum, provide discretion 

to the sentencing authority to impose a lesser sentence than life without parole for 

juvenile offenders; (4) Supreme Court of the United States case precedent does not 

require a sentencing authority to make a specific finding that a juvenile offender is 
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incorrigible before the sentencer exercises its discretion to impose a sentence of life 

without parole; (5) individual states are free to create additional limits and 

requirements regarding the sentencing of juvenile offenders; and (6) North Carolina’s 

Miller-fix statutes, under which defendant here was sentenced, facially conform to 

the federal constitutional case law. While the federal constitutional law has 

continually been developed as the Supreme Court has robustly unfurled this 

burgeoning area of juvenile law through its opinions, nonetheless, the nation’s 

highest court has not expressly spoken on the particular question which we now 

address.

2. Claims under the North Carolina Constitution

¶ 42 In addition to defendant’s contentions that his consecutive sentences 

constitute a violation of the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution of the United 

States as interpreted in the opinions of the Supreme Court of North Carolina 

governing terms of life imprisonment for juvenile offenders, defendant also argues 

that his sentences contravene article I, section 27 of the Constitution of North 

Carolina.

12 This portion of the state’s constitution establishes: “Excessive bail shall 

not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel or unusual punishments 

inflicted.” N.C. Const. Art. I, § 27. Article I, section 27 is nearly identical to the Eighth 

 

12 We fully adopt here the state constitutional analysis employed in State v. Kelliher, 

2022-NCSC-77, the companion case which this Court contemporaneously decides with the 

present one.
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Amendment with one difference in phraseology that bears some measure of 

significance. The two constitutional provisions diverge in their employment of 

different conjunctions in their final respective passages, with the United States 

Constitution prohibiting “cruel and unusual punishments” while the North Carolina 

Constitution bars “cruel or unusual punishments.” 

¶ 43 Applying the canons of construction, this apparent minor distinction in the 

terminology used in the two constitutional provisions is deceptively important. The 

use of the disjunctive “or” in article I, section 27 of the North Carolina Constitution’s 

reference to “cruel or unusual punishments” plainly indicates that either of the two 

joined conditions is sufficient to invoke the stated prohibition. See Routten v. Routten, 

374 N.C. 571, 575–76 (opining that “the disjunctive term ‘or’ in N.C.G.S. § 50-13.5(i) 

establishes that either of the circumstances is sufficient to justify the trial judge’s 

decision to deny visitation” (citation omitted)), cert. denied, 141 S. Ct. 958 (2020); see 

also Carolina Power & Light Co. v. City of Asheville, 358 N.C. 512, 519 (2004) (noting 

“that the natural and ordinary meaning of the disjunctive ‘or’ permits compliance 

with either condition”). Thus, the language of article I, section 27 indicates that the 

state constitutional provision abrogates a range of sentences which is inherently more 

extensive in number by virtue of the provision’s disjunctive term “or” than the lesser 

amount of sentences prohibited by the federal constitutional amendment due to its 

conjunctive term “and.” On its face, the Constitution of North Carolina appears to 
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offer criminal defendants—such as juvenile offenders—more protection against 

extreme punishments than the Federal Constitution’s Eighth Amendment, because

the Federal Constitution requires two elements of the punishment to be present for 

the punishment to be declared unconstitutional (“cruel and unusual”), while the state 

constitution only requires one of the two elements (“cruel or unusual”).13

¶ 44 Upon further considering the construction of the constitutional phrases under 

examination, and with particular attention upon the individual term “cruel” and the 

individual term “unusual,” we have acknowledged that

this Court historically has analyzed cruel and/or unusual 

punishment claims by criminal defendants the same under 

both the federal and state Constitutions. As the [United 

States] Supreme Court stated in Trop v. Dulles, 356 U.S. 

86, 2 L. Ed. 2d 630 (1958):

Whether the word “unusual” has any 

qualitative meaning different from “cruel” is 

not clear. On the few occasions this Court has 

had to consider the meaning of the phrase, 

precise distinctions between cruelty and 

unusualness do not seem to have been drawn. 

These cases indicate that the Court simply 

examines the particular punishment involved 

in light of the basic prohibition against 

inhuman treatment, without regard to any 

subtleties of meaning that might be latent in 

the word “unusual.”

 

13 It is unsurprising that the literal terminology of the North Carolina Constitution 

offers greater protections than the United States Constitution does. See John V. Orth & Paul 

Martin Newby, The North Carolina State Constitution 37 (2d ed. 2013) (commenting that the 

provisions contained in Article I “empower the state courts to provide protections going even 

beyond those secured by the U.S. Constitution”).
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Id. at 100 n.32, 2 L. Ed. 2d at 642 n. 32 (citations omitted). 

Thus, we examine each of defendant’s contentions in light 

of the general principles enunciated by this Court and the 

Supreme Court guiding cruel and unusual punishment 

analysis.

State v. Green, 348 N.C. 588, 603 (1998) (citations omitted), cert. denied, 525 U.S. 

1111 (1999).

14

¶ 45 Given the absolute bar on mandatory life in prison without the possibility of 

parole sentences as presumptively disproportionate for juvenile offenders—which 

legitimately implicates concerns about such punishments being “cruel”—coupled with 

the emphasis which the Supreme Court of North Carolina has placed on the 

presumed rarity with which life without parole sentences may constitutionally be 

imposed upon juvenile offenders—which would reasonably invoke apprehension 

about such punishments being “unusual”—the blurred differentiations as discussed 

 

14 In Green this Court considered, inter alia, “whether the sentencing of a thirteenyear-old . . . to a mandatory term of life imprisonment for first-degree sexual offense 

constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.” 348 N.C. at 592. The defendant brought his 

challenge under applicable provisions of both the United States and North Carolina 

Constitutions. Id. at 602. In affirming the defendant’s mandatory life without parole 

sentence, this Court opined in Green that “defendant’s punishment in this case indicates it 

clearly comports with the ‘evolving standards of decency’ in society.” Id. at 605. However, our 

decision in Green preceded the United States Supreme Court decisions in Roper, Graham, 

Miller, and Montgomery; consequently, the view of juvenile offenders exemplified in Green is 

in direct conflict with subsequent research and with our nation’s evolution in its 

understanding of the culpability of juvenile offenders. Furthermore, the primary holding of 

Green does not comport with current precedent. While Green offers guidance on the meaning

of the terms “cruel” and “unusual” as this Court has examined them individually and 

collectively, the case itself is no longer substantively applicable to the issue of mandatory life 

without parole sentences for juvenile offenders.
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in Green between a cruel sentence and an unusual sentence for a juvenile offender 

remain relevant under the Miller progeny of cases. Consistent with this durable view,

we do not need to untangle the nuances of any distinctions between the protections 

against “cruel and unusual punishments” offered by the Eighth Amendment to the 

United States Constitution and the protections against “cruel or unusual 

punishments” offered by the North Carolina Constitution. The trial court here 

determined that defendant was not to be included in the “exceedingly rare” category 

of juvenile offenders who are incorrigible or irredeemable, and therefore, defendant

could not be sentenced constitutionally to a term of life in prison without the 

possibility of parole even under the arguably lesser protections of the Eighth 

Amendment. Upon this premise, the implementation of a sentence of life without 

parole for defendant is a violation under the even more protective provisions of article 

I, section 27 of the Constitution of North Carolina.

B. De facto life sentences for purposes of juvenile sentencing

¶ 46 As we have discussed above, a juvenile offender such as defendant who has 

been expressly excluded by the sentencer from the rare group of juvenile offenders 

who can be considered incorrigible and permanently irredeemable at the time of 

sentencing may not be sentenced to a term of life in prison without the possibility of 

parole. As we also discussed earlier, the imposition of a sentence of life with the 

possibility of parole upon a juvenile offender such as defendant who has been 
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convicted of first-degree murder on a legal principal other than the felony murder

rule is constitutionally permissible. We are challenged to preserve these established

sentencing parameters for juvenile offenders while adding the formidable complexity 

of the manner in which we should evaluate consecutive sentences that only allow the 

fruition of a defendant’s initial parole eligibility after a lengthy term of incarceration 

in prison and at a point when a defendant is at an advanced age. In defendant’s case, 

upon his receipt at the age of fifteen years of the two consecutive sentences imposed 

here, he will first become eligible to be considered for parole when he is sixty years 

old.

¶ 47 For juvenile offenders in North Carolina, a life sentence with the possibility of 

parole permits this category of young perpetrators to seek parole upon the completion 

of twenty-five years in prison. See N.C.G.S. § 15A-1340.19A (providing that a 

defendant must “serve a minimum of 25 years [of] imprisonment prior to becoming 

eligible for parole”). In considering the effect of the imposition of multiple terms of 

active consecutive sentences upon a juvenile offender, while all of them officially could 

afford a defendant the possibility of parole, there arrives a point at which the 

combination of the length of active terms of incarceration—albeit expressly affording 

the possibility of parole—becomes tantamount to a life sentence without parole for 

the juvenile offender. This would occur at the juncture when the juvenile offender has 

been incarcerated for such a protracted period of time that the possibility of parole is 
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no longer plausible, practical, or available. A juvenile offender’s opportunity for 

parole, in light of the sentencing authority’s determination that the defendant is 

neither incorrigible nor irredeemable but is instead worthy to have a chance for 

release to parole, must be an opportunity which is realistic, meaningful, and 

achievable. The opportunity must be implementable, instead of amounting to a mere 

formal announcement of a juvenile sentence allowing the possibility of parole, but 

which in reality is illusory and only elevates form over substance. See, e.g., M.E. v. 

T.J., 2022-NCSC-23 ¶ 1 (“For well over a century, North Carolina courts have abided 

by the foundational principle that administering equity and justice prohibits the 

elevation of form over substance.”) (first citing Currie v. Clark, 90 N.C. 355, 361 

(1884) (“This would be to subordinate substance to form and subserve no useful 

purpose.”); then citing Moring v. Privott, 146 N.C. 558, 567 (1908) (“Equity disregards 

mere forms and looks at the substance of things.”); and then citing Fid. & Cas. Co. of 

N.Y. v. Green, 200 N.C. 535, 538 (1931) (“To hold otherwise, we apprehend, would be 

to exalt the form over the substance.”)). We do not authorize an empty opportunity 

for parole which is more akin to a mirage in its attainability than a realistic occasion 

for a redeemable juvenile to be rehabilitated as contemplated by the Supreme Court 

of the United States in its series of opinions addressing juvenile punishments which 

we have cited and applied. Cf. Shore v. Edmisten, 290 N.C. 628, 633 (1976) (“In 

determining whether a given payment is a fine or restitution, the label given by the 
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judge (or the legislature) is not determinative.”).

¶ 48 The implementation of a clear directive establishing the maximum limit of 

carceral time that may be served by redeemable juvenile offenders before they may 

have an opportunity to seek parole is venturesome. Any categorical sentencing rule 

is open to criticism as perhaps too lenient on one hand, in light of the circumstances 

of the commission of crimes or the characteristics of the victims, or as perhaps too 

harsh on the other hand given the characteristics of the juvenile offender’s life and 

circumstances. Inherently, all determinations regarding sentencing include some

element of the arbitrary: length, type, degree, and the like. Requiring completion of 

twenty-five years of imprisonment before a redeemable juvenile offender can seek 

parole following imposition of a single sentence of life with the possibility of parole, 

which was implemented as a feature of North Carolina’s Miller-fix statutes, is a 

convenient and pertinent example of the selection of a period of incarceration which 

must be served and which was established with some modicum of arbitrariness. This 

state’s Structured Sentencing Act scheme is replete with further illustrations of 

arbitrarily determined, though reasonably reached, provisions designed to promote 

fairness in sentencing. See N.C.G.S. §§ 15A-1340.10 to -1340.23 (2021).

¶ 49 We recognize and appreciate the direction provided by the Supreme Court of 

the United States in Miller that individualized sentencing for juveniles is required. 

567 U.S. at 465. We also recognize and appreciate the existing criminal justice 
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processes in North Carolina for the sentencing of juveniles who have been convicted 

of first-degree murder which have been established by the General Assembly through 

statutory enactments and which have been interpreted by this Court through the 

application of governing state laws and constitutional provisions, as well as the 

application of the principles enunciated by the United States Supreme Court, to cases 

which have been decided by this Court. In this regard, our determination of a 

definitive guideline for the maximum length of incarceration which a juvenile 

offender can serve before the possibility of parole must be accorded to the young 

perpetrator sentenced to life with the possibility of parole must adhere to a trial 

court’s ability to determine whether a juvenile offender should be sentenced to life 

with the possibility of parole or life without the possibility of parole following hearings 

conducted under the Miller-fix statutes, coupled with a trial court’s discretion to 

decree that a juvenile offender’s multiple sentences will run concurrently or 

consecutively pursuant to N.C.G.S. § 15A-1354. Specifically, in a hearing held 

pursuant to the Miller-fix statutes, the State and the juvenile offender may introduce 

evidence regarding the defendant’s past and current circumstances as well as the 

nature of the crime or crimes for which the defendant is being sentenced, with the 

trial court being obligated to consider such evidence in determining whether potential 

parole is appropriate for the individual juvenile offender. All evidence of record, along 

with other relevant and insightful information, may further inform the trial court’s 
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decision regarding whether multiple sentences should run concurrently or 

consecutively for a particular defendant being addressed. See, e.g., State v. Arrington, 

371 N.C. 518, 526 (2018) (stating that trial courts are “presumed to know the law”) 

(quoting Sanders v. Ellington, 77 N.C. 255, 256 (1877)). This circumstance addresses 

the aspect of Miller which holds that juveniles cannot constitutionally be subject to 

mandatory life sentences without the possibility of parole. 567 U.S. at 479–80.

¶ 50 Another focus of the reasoning discussed in Miller and its lineage of cases is 

the heightened appropriateness for redeemable juvenile offenders to have the 

opportunity to demonstrate their readiness for the prospect of parole at a subsequent 

age of maturity and following some term of incarceration. The time period during 

which the traditional parole process is nearing for the juvenile offender to become 

eligible for parole and decide to seek release from incarceration represents a more 

meaningful and developed juncture for such a parole determination to be made for 

the juvenile offender by a parole body which is deemed to be suitably tailored, 

equipped, and empowered to reach an enlightened determination. This approach and 

eventuality conspicuously comport with the Supreme Court’s observations in Graham

which are cited above.

¶ 51 A proper balance of these considerations compels us to conclude that it is 

permissible and necessary to establish a specific maximum duration of time for the 

incarceration of a juvenile offender to serve who was not determined to be incorrigible
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or irredeemable, and who was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole, before 

the defendant is eligible to be considered for parole. While the unique circumstances 

of each juvenile offender must be individually considered for purposes of sentencing, 

nonetheless, there must be a commonality of fundamental requirements which 

uniformly recognizes all of the attendant legal mandates and influences in operation. 

As such, the establishment of a definitive point at which all redeemable juvenile 

offenders must be allowed to apply for parole is desirable.

¶ 52 In setting a clear directive for the beginning of parole eligibility for redeemable 

juveniles who have been convicted of at least one count of first-degree murder, we 

note that there are a variety of potential ages of defendants or completed terms of 

incarceration from which to choose. As we delve into this matter, we find it is essential 

to recognize that in any juvenile prosecution which results in an outcome of multiple 

convictions and a subsequent sentencing proceeding, the number, as well as the type, 

of offenses charged and for which a defendant is ultimately convicted impacts the 

eventual sentences imposed as well as the implementation of the service of those 

sentences as consecutive or concurrent. Such considerations typically include the 

additional harms caused to the immediate victims and their family members, in 

conjunction with the injury inflicted upon society by the commission of multiple 

offenses. We further acknowledge that some cases are susceptible to convenient 

inferences which may be drawn regarding a juvenile offender’s culpability when an 
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offender has committed multiple crimes and which may also influence the tenor of 

the sentences which are administered. 

¶ 53 We first address defendant’s position that “[t]his Court should set a bright-line 

rule that no redeemable juvenile may be sentenced to more than twenty-five years in 

prison before parole eligibility.” In support of this tenure of incarceration to be served 

by a juvenile offender prior to eligibility for parole, defendant cites the language of 

the Miller-fix statutes which provides that “[i]f the sole basis for conviction of a count 

or each count of first[-]degree murder was the felony murder rule, then the court shall 

sentence the defendant to life imprisonment with parole” and contends that this 

statutory decree “indicates that our General Assembly has determined parole 

eligibility at 25 years for multiple offenses sanctionable by life with parole is not so 

excessive as to run afoul of Miller.” State v. Kelliher, 273 N.C. App. 616, 643 (2020)

(quoting N.C.G.S. § 15A-1340.19B(a)(1) (emphasis added), disc. review allowed, 376 

N.C. 900 (2021)). Defendant asserts that

[p]arole eligibility after no more than twenty-five 

years would also be consistent with the lines drawn by 

other jurisdictions. “[I]n the flurry of legislative action that 

has taken place in the wake of Graham and Miller, many 

of the new statutes have allowed parole eligibility for 

juveniles sentenced to long prison terms for homicides to 

begin after fifteen or twenty-five years of incarceration.” 

Null, 836 N.W.2d at 72, 72 n.8 (collecting statutes). 

Moreover, the United States Supreme Court specifically 

pointed to Wyoming’s statute providing parole eligibility 

after twenty-five years as an appropriate means of 

complying with Miller. Montgomery, 193 L. Ed. 2d at 622
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(citing Wyo. Stat. Ann. §6-10-301(c) (2013)). Virginia just 

recently established parole eligibility after only twenty 

years for every offender under eighteen who is convicted of 

“a single felony offense or multiple felony offenses.” Va. 

Code Ann. §53.1-165.1. (2020).

Defendant also cites the Model Penal Code, which recommends that for offenders 

under age eighteen, “[n]o sentence of imprisonment longer than [25] years may be 

imposed for any offense or combination of offenses.” Model Penal Code: Sentencing §

6.11A(g) (Am. L. Inst., Proposed Final Draft Apr. 10, 2017) (emphasis added). For 

offenders who, like defendant, are under the age of sixteen when they committed their 

crimes, the Model Penal Code recommends “no sentence of imprisonment longer than 

[20] years.” Id.

¶ 54 In evaluating defendant’s argument based upon these instructive authorities, 

this Court must balance the tensions between the guidance from the decisions of the 

Supreme Court of the United States that parole eligibility should be set at a point 

sufficiently far in the future to provide a redeemable juvenile offender enough time 

to mature, rehabilitate, and develop a record which would enable the defendant to 

show a parole authority that he or she should be released, but yet sufficiently early 

enough in the defendant’s life to enable the juvenile offender to experience 

worthwhile undertakings outside of prison in the event that parole is granted. We 

must also give due weight to the General Assembly’s enactment of N.C.G.S. § 15A1354, which unequivocally gives trial courts the discretion to decide whether multiple 
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sentences should run concurrently or consecutively. See N.C.G.S. § 15A-1354(a) 

(“When multiple sentences of imprisonment are imposed on a person at the same time 

. . . the sentences may run either concurrently or consecutively, as determined by the 

court.”).

¶ 55 To set parole eligibility for all juvenile offenders at a maximum of twenty-five 

years would negate the full discretion delegated to trial courts by the General 

Assembly in N.C.G.S. § 15A-1354(a) to choose between the imposition of multiple 

sentences in a concurrent or consecutive manner, because it would require that all 

redeemable juvenile offenders would thus be eligible for parole after serving the 

statutory minimum term of incarceration before parole eligibility that applies upon a 

single conviction of first-degree murder standing alone, even where theoretically a 

redeemable juvenile offender has been convicted of multiple counts of first-degree 

murder or where, as in the actual case at bar, a redeemable juvenile offender has 

been convicted of one or more other offenses in addition to one count of first-degree 

murder. Therefore, we decline to adopt defendant’s view that twenty-five years 

should be the clear directive which this Court establishes as the maximum duration 

of penal time to be served by a redeemable juvenile offender prior to eligibility for 

parole. We also decline to hold that the Constitutions of the United States and North 

Carolina require that, where a redeemable juvenile is convicted of multiple counts of 

first-degree murder or a single count of first-degree murder plus one or more lesser 
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offenses, the trial court must order the resulting sentences to run concurrently. The 

implementation of any of these available options would have the effect of rendering 

N.C.G.S. § 15A-1354 meaningless for redeemable juvenile offenders who have been 

convicted of multiple counts of first-degree murder or convicted of a single count of 

first-degree murder along with other lesser offenses. 

¶ 56 We next consider the State’s proposal as to the moment in time to mark the 

establishment of a juvenile offender’s eligibility for parole, whether upon the 

completion of a specific amount of incarceration, the juvenile offender’s attainment of 

a certain age, or some other criteria.15 Much of the State’s argument focuses on the 

assertion that

Graham simply says the states must “give 

defendants like Graham . . . some meaningful opportunity 

to obtain release based on demonstrated maturity and 

rehabilitation.” Graham, 560 U.S. at 75. . . . [but also 

emphasizes] that the states are “not required to guarantee 

eventual freedom to a juvenile offender convicted of a 

nonhomicide crime.” Id. The Eighth Amendment simply 

prohibits states from making that determination at the 

outset. Id. As such, there is no guarantee in Graham that 

a juvenile offender will eventually be released, reenter 

society, and have a career, spouse, and/or family.

 

15 The State’s stance as discussed here is its submission of an alternative argument,

because the State’s primary position is that “[n]either Graham, Miller, nor [their] progeny 

have considered or addressed aggregate sentencing for multiple criminal offenses; rather, 

those decisions narrowly focused on a single sentence arising out of a single conviction and 

have no application here.” First and foremost, the State views as mere dicta the language 

from those cases upon which we have relied for our conclusion regarding the unconstitutional 

creation of de facto life without parole sentences for redeemable juveniles.
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We fully agree with the State’s interpretation of this segment of Graham that

redeemable juvenile offenders are not entitled to release during their life sentences. 

Nonetheless, as discussed above, such juvenile offenders are entitled to have the 

opportunity to seek parole by demonstrating that their crimes were the result of 

“transient immaturity,” that they have matured since the perpetration of their crimes 

and have redeemed themselves, and that they are worthy of release from prison and 

reentry into society. See Montgomery, 577 U.S. at 208.

¶ 57 Beyond its argument that defendant’s forty-five-year minimum term of 

imprisonment before becoming eligible for parole is not a de facto life without parole 

sentence, the State does not expressly endorse a specific maximum term of 

incarceration that a juvenile offender can serve before possessing an opportunity to 

seek parole. However, the State cites cases from other jurisdictions which have held 

that “to be released in his or her late sixties or early seventies satisf[ies] the 

‘meaningful opportunity’ requirement. . . . because in today’s society, it is not unusual 

for people to work well into their seventies and have a meaningful life well beyond 

age 62 or even at age 77.” State v. Smith, 892 N.W.2d 52, 65–66 (Neb. 2017) (opining 

that parole eligibility at age sixty-two cannot be considered “a ‘geriatric release’ ” and 

does not “equate[ ] to ‘no chance for fulfillment outside prison walls’ ”), cert. denied, 

138 S. Ct. 315 (2017). While we agree that some people thankfully are able to enjoy 

rewarding lives as they achieve chronological ages reaching into their sixties, 
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seventies, and beyond, we find this prospect to be loftily optimistic when applied to 

the category of individuals who have spent several decades in prison.

¶ 58 Noting that “[m]any courts have concluded that a sentence of a term of years 

that precludes parole consideration for a half century or more is equivalent to a 

sentence of life without parole,” Carter v. State, 192 A.3d 695, 728 (Md. 2018), we do 

not regard a custodial period of fifty years or more prior to a juvenile offender’s 

eligibility for parole to constitute a meaningful opportunity for a defendant to seek 

release, given that most juvenile offenders will not achieve such longevity. See, e.g., 

ACLU of Mich. Juv. Life Without Parole Initiative, Michigan Life Expectancy Data 

for Youth Serving Natural Life Sentences 2 (visited on 03/17/2017) (reporting that 

the average life expectancy for juvenile offenders who received natural life sentences

was 50.6 years), http://www.lb7.uscourts.gov/documents/17-12441.pdf; U.S. Sent’g 

Comm’n, Life Sentences in the Federal System 10, 23 n. 52 (Feb. 2015) (defining a de 

facto life sentence as beginning at 470 months—39 years and two months—because 

such a sentence is “consistent with the average life expectancy of federal criminal 

offenders”) https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research-and-publications/ 

research-projects-and-surveys/miscellaneous/20150226_Life_Sentences.pdf.

Considered in this framework, this Court’s establishment of a term of fifty years as 

the maximum amount of carceral time that a juvenile offender must serve before 

obtaining the opportunity to demonstrate to a parole authority the defendant’s 
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worthiness of release would, for the proven majority of these defendants, amount to 

the same illusion which spawns the determination that de facto life sentences for 

redeemable juvenile offenders constitute cruel or unusual punishment or both. Under 

a fifty-year threshold of incarceration before the arrival of parole eligibility, most 

juvenile offenders in North Carolina who were granted the possibility of parole at 

their sentencing hearings would die in prison before ever having the anticipated 

chance of one day showing that they are worthy of release. 

¶ 59 Instead, this Court draws from the above-referenced resource, the United 

States Sentencing Commission, and its instructive guidance regarding the 

determination of a de facto life sentence. Equipped with such a helpful tool of 

reference, this Court establishes the quantum of forty years of incarceration as the 

point in time at which a juvenile offender who has not been deemed to be incorrigible

or irredeemable by a trial court, and who is serving a sentence of life imprisonment 

with the possibility of parole, is eligible to seek release pursuant to parole provisions. 

This outcome respects both the discretion of trial courts to statutorily elect to order 

multiple sentences for a juvenile offender to run either concurrently or consecutively 

and the constitutional rights of those juvenile offenders who trial courts determine 

are eligible to be considered for parole despite the imposition of a life sentence to 

evade cruel and unusual punishment through the establishment of a reasonable 

maximum duration of incarceration prior to a juvenile offender’s eligibility for parole. 
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This conclusion does not require the allowance of parole for any particular juvenile 

offender after forty years, nor does this conclusion guarantee the release of any of 

these defendants at any age. This conclusion merely eliminates the creation of an 

unconstitutional de facto life without the possibility of parole sentence for a 

redeemable juvenile offender who was given a life with the possibility of parole 

sentence, and does so by instituting a uniform and ascertainable juncture which is 

reasonably calculated and which is reasonably achievable by redeemable juvenile

offenders. Conversely, this determination mandates that criminal offenders who 

perpetrate their offenses as juveniles and who receive sentences which permit parole

must, after forty years of incarceration, have the opportunity to demonstrate their 

worthiness of release.

¶ 60 The recognition of a forty-year term of incarceration as a reasonable maximum 

duration of imprisonment to be served by a juvenile offender who has not been 

deemed by a trial court to be incorrigible or irredeemable, and who is serving a 

sentence of life imprisonment with the possibility of parole, is an appropriate length 

of incarceration prior to parole eligibility which affords such a defendant with a 

realistic, meaningful, and achievable opportunity for release to parole, while 

simultaneously setting parole eligibility far enough in the juvenile offender’s future 

to allow the defendant adequate time to mature, rehabilitate, and develop a record 

upon which to show a potential readiness for parole. Such considerations are 
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consistent with the prohibition of the infliction of “cruel and unusual punishments” 

addressed in the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution and the 

prohibition of the infliction of “cruel or unusual punishments” mentioned in article I,

section 27 of the Constitution of North Carolina. The forty-year determination is also 

authorized and fortified by article I, section 1 of this state’s constitution which 

identifies “certain inalienable rights” of “all persons,” including “life, liberty, the 

enjoyment of the fruits of their own labor, and the pursuit of happiness.” Despite their 

violations of criminal law, juvenile offenders who are deemed by the trial courts of 

North Carolina to be eligible for parole after these defendants’ respective terms of 

incarceration are still regarded to be worthy of a chance to work themselves back into 

positions in the free society to potentially experience fulfilling undertakings outside 

of prison in the event that parole is granted.

¶ 61 In assessing defendant’s “meaningful opportunity to obtain release” in the 

present case—as the phrase was utilized by the Supreme Court of the United States 

in its decision in Graham v. Florida, 560 U.S. at 123—it is enlightening to view the 

operation of the identified forty-year term of incarceration to be served prior to his 

eligibility for parole. Defendant was fifteen years and six months of age at the time 

that he perpetrated the offenses for which he is incarcerated. He received an 

aggregate minimum sentence of forty-five years of imprisonment before he is 

positioned to be considered for parole. Consequently, defendant would be sixty years 
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of age at the time that he initially becomes eligible to seek parole. According to the 

mortality tables which are embodied in North Carolina General Statutes Section 8-

46, a person who has completed the age of fifteen years is expected to live for an

additional 61.7 years. Since this juvenile offender in the instant case had completed 

the age of fifteen years at the time of the commission of his criminal offenses which 

has resulted in his ongoing imprisonment, he has a projected life expectancy pursuant 

to North Carolina law of 76.7 years. Adding the age of defendant at the time that his 

incarceration began—fifteen years, six months—to an active sentence of forty years 

to be served in custody prior to eligibility for parole—the earliest opportunity that the 

juvenile offender would be eligible for release from prison would be upon his 

attainment of the age of fifty-five years and six months. Furthermore, the expected 

amount of remaining life expectancy which defendant would possess after his earliest 

possible release from prison to parole would be 21.1 years of life, according to the 

mortality tables of this state.

¶ 62 Defendant’s sentencing circumstances in the instant case are remarkably 

similar to those which existed for the defendant in the Michigan case of Kitchen v. 

Whitman, 486 F. Supp. 3d 1114 (2020). The defendant Kitchen, who committed a 

series of criminal offenses at the age of seventeen years, was sentenced to a minimum 

of forty-two years of incarceration by a state trial court. Defendant challenged his 

sentence under the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution, the 
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corresponding provision of the Michigan Constitution, the Equal Protection Clause, 

and the Due Process Clause. In ultimately deciding to appoint new counsel to 

represent defendant in the proceedings, the federal district court consulted life 

expectancy tables in evaluating the defendant’s claims under Miller, Graham, and 

other cases and determined that the defendant Kitchen’s life expectancy was seventyseven years, virtually identical to defendant’s life expectancy here of 76.7 years 

pursuant to the North Carolina mortality tables; that the defendant “Kitchen’s first 

parole review is at age 59,” 486 F. Supp. 3d at 1128, akin to the present defendant’s 

age of fifty-five years and six months when parole eligibility arose; and that defendant 

Kitchen’s “opportunity for release would come 18 years before he is expected to die,” 

id., close to the current defendant’s 21.1 more projected years of life after his potential 

release from prison to parole. In light of these circumstances in the case of defendant 

Kitchen, the federal district court noted these milestones of time in stating: “That 

would be a ‘meaningful opportunity’ even under a reading of Graham that includes 

time to reintegrate into society.” Id. Since the salient circumstances of defendant in 

the present case are commensurate with the same circumstances of defendant 

Kitchen in the Michigan case regarding the evaluative measures of the two juvenile 

offenders’ relative ages when these defendants committed their respective crimes, 

their respective life expectancies, their relative ages at the times of their respective 

opportunities for parole eligibility, and their relative projected remaining life spans 
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in the event that these defendants would obtain parole in their first efforts, the 

defendant Kitchen’s forty-two-year term of incarceration prior to parole eligibility is 

sufficiently compatible with defendant's maximum forty-year term of incarceration 

prior to parole eligibility in order to further substantiate the identification of a fortyyear term of incarceration as a reasonable maximum duration of imprisonment to be 

served by a juvenile offender who has not been deemed by a trial court to be 

incorrigible or irredeemable, and who is serving a sentence of life imprisonment with 

the possibility of parole.

¶ 63 The dissent misguidedly conflates our installation of a juvenile offender’s 

realistic opportunity to obtain parole eligibility when given a life with the possibility 

of parole sentence as a component of consecutive sentences for the commission of 

multiple crimes with the dissent’s misapprehension that we have determined that a 

violent juvenile offender shall obtain mandatory parole eligibility. Regrettably, the 

dissent further obfuscates our decision by spouting that we have declared that 

mandatory parole eligibility is established by the United States Constitution and the 

North Carolina Constitution, when in reality we have cited and followed the opinions 

of the Supreme Court of the United States which itself has linked a juvenile offender’s 

“realistic opportunity to obtain release before the end of” a term of a life sentence to 

constitutional protections. This alarming confusion exhibited by the dissent 

regarding our adherence to the precedent of the Supreme Court is heightened by the 
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dissent’s failure to capably distinguish our obligation to follow the edicts of our 

nation’s highest court from the dissent’s own unsubstantiated pronouncement that 

somehow our decision is based on the dissent’s projection upon us of some desired 

policy, rather than on existing appellate case law precedent. Although the dissent 

boldly intones its incredulity that we have implemented the principles articulated by 

the Supreme Court of the United States concerning this area of juvenile sentencing, 

and while the dissent bluntly expresses its exasperation that we have preserved 

constitutional protections for juvenile offenders in a manner consistent with 

governing appellate case law, nonetheless we have striven to continue this Court’s 

respected and revered approach to attempt to achieve the best resolution of 

challenging cases of first impression in North Carolina without resort to collateral 

clatter.

III. Conclusion

¶ 64 By virtue of the trial court’s judgment in the juvenile’s case, defendant here 

was expressly determined to be included in the category of juvenile offenders who 

should retain the opportunity to seek parole, despite his convictions for the offenses 

of first-degree murder and first-degree rape. After serving forty years of incarceration 

for these crimes pursuant to the implementation of consecutive sentences, defendant 

possesses the opportunity to be considered for parole. To compel defendant to serve a 

term of incarceration in excess of forty years upon the trial court’s determination that 
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defendant, in light of his status as a juvenile, is neither incorrigible nor irredeemable, 

would unconstitutionally constitute a de facto life sentence. Accordingly, we reverse 

the decision of the Court of Appeals as to the appealable issue before us. The 

remaining issues addressed by the Court of Appeals are not properly before this Court 

and its decision as to these issues remains undisturbed. We remand this case to the 

Court of Appeals for further remand to the trial court for further proceedings not 

inconsistent with this opinion.

REVERSED AND REMANDED.
Justice BERGER dissenting. 

¶ 65 While the Supreme Court has determined that “sentencing an offender who 

was under 18 at the time of the crime raises special constitutional considerations,” 

Jones v. Mississippi, 141 S. Ct. 1307, 1314, 209 L. Ed. 2d 390, 399 (2021), it has never 

held that the Eighth Amendment prohibits consecutive sentences for multiple crimes 

or guarantees release of a juvenile offender convicted of violent felonies. See Graham 

v. Florida., 560 U.S. 48, 75, 130 S. Ct. 2011, 2030, 176 L. Ed. 2d 825, 845 (2010) (“A 

State is not required to guarantee eventual freedom to a juvenile offender convicted 

of a nonhomicide crime.”) The majority, however, inserts mandatory parole eligibility 

after forty years for violent juveniles convicted of multiple crimes into our State’s 

structured sentencing scheme. According to the majority, mandatory parole 

eligibility for juveniles convicted of multiple violent offenses can be found in the state 

and Federal Constitutions. I respectfully dissent.

I. Factual and Procedural Background

¶ 66 On March 11, 2016, defendant brutally raped Felicia Porter and beat her to 

death with a shovel. Defendant broke her arm and nearly every bone in her face. 

Her front teeth were knocked out. Defendant was questioned by law enforcement 

multiple times and provided a myriad of lies while attempting to conceal his 

involvement in Felicia’s murder.1 

 

1 Defendant identified one of his friends as the culprit. The factual recitation during 

defendant’s plea proceeding indicates that defendant at one point told officers that he went 

to Ms. Porter’s with Brad Adams. According to defendant, Mr. Adams hit Ms. Porter with a 
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¶ 67 Upon his plea of guilty, defendant was sentenced to consecutive terms of 

imprisonment of 240 to 348 months in prison for first degree forcible rape and “a 

minimum of 25 years” for murder. See N.C.G.S. §§ 15A-1340.19A and 15A-1354(a) 

(2021). Pursuant to the trial court’s judgment, defendant would be eligible for parole 

after forty-five years in prison, when he would be sixty years old.

¶ 68 Defendant appealed to the Court of Appeals, arguing that 

consecutive sentences are impermissible under the Miller-fix statutes, and that the 

sentences violated the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution and 

Article I, Section 27 of the North Carolina Constitution because the sentences 

operated as the functional equivalent of life without parole.

2

¶ 69 In a split decision, the Court of Appeals majority determined that trial courts 

may impose consecutive sentences under N.C.G.S. § 15A-1340.19A. In addition, the 

Court of Appeals majority concluded that defendant was eligible for parole when he 

is sixty years old, and, therefore, the forty-five-year sentence did not amount to de 

facto life in prison given his life expectancy. State v. Conner, 275 N.C. App. 758, 760, 

853 S.E.2d 824, 825 (2020).

 

brick and raped her. Because of defendant’s fabricated story, Mr. Adams had to provide a 

DNA sample and alibi to clear himself of defendant’s accusations. The DNA sample obtained 

by law enforcement and video surveillance images from a local business exonerated Mr. 

Adams. 

2 Defendant also argued that the trial court erred in imposing lifetime SBM. This issue 

is not before the Court.
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¶ 70 Although in agreement that consecutive sentences are not prohibited by 

N.C.G.S. §§ 15A-1340.19A to 15A-1340.19D, the dissenting judge nonetheless would 

have found that defendant’s forty-five-year sentence amounted to a de facto sentence 

of life without parole and is, therefore, unconstitutional. The dissent further 

reasoned that defendant’s possible “geriatric release . . . does not provide a 

‘meaningful opportunity’ to demonstrate the ‘maturity and rehabilitation’ required to 

obtain release and reenter society as required by Graham.” Id. at 777, 853 S.E.2d at 

835 (McGee, C.J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (alteration in original) 

(quoting State v. Null, 836 N.W. 2d 41, 71 (Iowa 2013)). Instead, the dissenting judge 

suggested that a defendant is owed “more than the mere act of release or a de minimis 

quantum of time outside of prison.” Id. at 777, 853 S.E.2d at 835 (cleaned up). 

¶ 71 On appeal to this Court, defendant contends that precluding parole eligibility 

until the age of sixty amounts to a sentence of life without parole and thus is violative 

of the state and Federal Constitutions. 

II. Discussion

¶ 72 “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel 

and unusual punishments inflicted.” U.S. Const., amend. VIII. Similarly, the North 

Carolina constitution prohibits “cruel or unusual punishments.” N.C. Const. art. I, § 

27. (Emphasis added). As noted by Chief Justice Newby in his dissent in State v. 

Kelliher, Article XI provides clarification as to the meaning of “cruel or unusual 
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Berger, J. dissenting

punishments” in Article I, § 27. State v. Kelliher, 2022-N.C.-77, ¶ 118 (2022) (Newby, 

C.J., dissenting). Specifically, permissible criminal punishments in North Carolina 

are restricted to those listed in Article XI, which include that of “death” and 

“imprisonment.” N.C. Const. art. XI, § 1. Given that these particular punishments 

are expressly authorized by our constitution, they cannot be “‘cruel or unusual’ within 

the prohibition of Article I, Section 27. John V. Orth & Paul Martin Newby, The 

North Carolina State Constitution 84 (2d ed. 2013). 

¶ 73 Providing further instruction, Article XI, Section 2 limits the use of the 

punishment of death to “murder, arson, burglary, and rape . . . if the General 

Assembly shall so enact.” N.C. Const. art. XI, § 2. Accordingly, the power to 

determine the appropriate punishment for crimes, even the most severe, is 

constitutionally, and solely, granted to the legislature. It is not a power this Court 

possesses. 

¶ 74 Nonetheless, “this Court historically has analyzed cruel and/or unusual 

punishment claims by criminal defendants the same under both the federal and state 

Constitutions,” despite the variation in the disjunctives. State v. Green, 348 N.C. 588, 

603, 502 S.E.2d 819, 828 (1998). Further, 

[w]hether the word “unusual” has any qualitative meaning 

different from “cruel” is not clear. On the few occasions this 

Court has had to consider the meaning of the phrase, 

precise distinctions between cruelty and unusualness do 

not seem to have been drawn. These cases indicate that the 

Court simply examines the particular punishment involved 
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Berger, J. dissenting

in light of the basic prohibition against inhuman 

treatment, without regard to any subtleties of meaning 

that might be latent in the word “unusual.”

Id. at 603, 502 S.E.2d at 828 (quoting Trop v. Dulles, 356 U.S. 86, 100 n.32, 78 S. Ct. 

590, 598 n.32, 2 L. Ed.2d 630, 642 n.32 (1958)). 

¶ 75 The Supreme Court has had many opportunities in recent years to examine 

juvenile sentencing in light of the Eighth Amendment. In Roper v. Simmons, the 

Supreme Court held that the Eighth Amendment prohibits the death penalty for 

murderers under the age of eighteen. 543 U.S. 551, 578, 125 S. Ct. 1183, 1200, 161 

L. Ed. 2d 1, 28 (2005). In Graham, the Supreme Court outlawed imposition of life 

without parole sentences for juveniles convicted of nonhomicide crime. 560 U.S. at

82, 130 S. Ct. at 2034, 176 L. Ed. 2d at 850. In Miller v. Alabama, mandatory life 

without parole was determined to be a permissible sentence under the Eighth 

Amendment for juveniles convicted of homicide provided that the trial court has 

discretion to impose a different punishment. 567 U.S. 460, 483, 132 S. Ct. 2453, 2471, 

183 L. Ed. 2d 407, 430 (2012). Miller was made retroactive through the Supreme 

Court’s opinion in Montgomery v. Louisiana, 577 U.S. 190, 136 S. Ct. 718, 193 L. Ed. 

2d. 599 (2016). Most recently, the Supreme Court expressly stated that a state court 

need not find “permanent incorrigibility” to sentence a defendant under the age of 

eighteen to life in prison without parole. See Jones, 141 S. Ct. at 1318, 209 L. Ed. 2d 

at 404 (2021) (determining that defendant’s “argument for requiring a finding of 
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Berger, J. dissenting

permanent incorrigibility is unavailing because Montgomery explicitly stated that 

‘Miller did not impose a formal factfinding requirement’ and that ‘a finding of fact 

regarding a child’s incorrigibility . . . is not required.’ ”) (alteration in original) 

(quoting Montgomery, 577 U,S, at 211, 136 S.Ct. at 735, 193 L.Ed. 2d. at 599). 

¶ 76 Because “[a] State is not required to guarantee eventual freedom to a juvenile 

offender convicted of a nonhomicide crime,” Graham, 560 U.S. at 75, 130 S. Ct. at

2030, 176 L. Ed. 2d at 845, defendant’s consecutive sentences resulting in parole 

eligibility do not run afoul of the Eighth Amendment or our traditional approach 

under Article I, Section 27 of the North Carolina Constitution. It seems unusual then 

that the majority would conclude that defendant’s possible sentence of forty-five years

with parole is constitutionally suspect, especially since defendant committed two 

separate violent crimes — homicide and rape. 

¶ 77 Even if, as the majority contends, defendant falls into the category of offenders 

addressed in Graham, i.e., defendants sentenced to life without parole for a 

nonhomicide crime, the sentence imposed by the trial court is permissible. In 

Graham, the defendant received a sentence of life without parole for armed burglary, 

and a concurrent sentence of fifteen years for attempted robbery. Id. at 57, 130 S. Ct. 

at 2020, 176 L. Ed. 2d at 834. The Supreme Court noted that the State need only

provide “defendants like Graham some meaningful opportunity to obtain release

based on demonstrated maturity and rehabilitation.” Id. at 75, 130 S. Ct. at 2030, 
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Berger, J. dissenting

176 L. Ed. 2d at 845-46 (emphasis added). Accordingly, there is no requirement in 

Graham that a juvenile convicted of multiple violent crimes, including homicide, be 

guaranteed release.

¶ 78 The majority, however, expands straightforward language from an 

“opportunity to obtain release” to an “opportunity to seek parole . . . early enough in 

the defendant’s life such that he can experience a meaningful life outside of prison.” 

This constitutional evolution is based solely on the majority’s desired policy 

preferences.

¶ 79 “The legislative, executive, and supreme judicial powers of the State 

government shall be forever separate and distinct from each other.” N.C. Const. art. 

I, § 6. This Court has repeatedly stated that it is solely for the legislature to 

determine the appropriate punishment for individuals convicted of crime. See State 

v. Gardner, 315 N.C. 444, 453, 340 S.E.2d 701, 708 (1986) (“[T]he substantive power 

to prescribe crimes and determine punishments is vested with the legislature . . . .”) 

(quoting Ohio v. Johnson, 467 U.S. 493, 499, 104 S. Ct. 2536, 2541, 81 L. Ed. 2d 425, 

433 (1984)); see also, Green, 348 N.C. at 605, 502 S.E.2d at 829 (“[I]t is the role of 

the legislature and not the courts to decide the proper punishment for individuals 

convicted of a crime.”); State v. Cradle, 281 N.C. 198, 209, 188 S.E.2d 296, 303 (1972) 

(“It is within the province of the General Assembly of North Carolina and not the 

judiciary to determine the extent of punishment which may be imposed on those 
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convicted of crime. If the sentence pronounced here seems harsh, the executive 

branch of government acting through the Board of Paroles may lawfully commute 

it.”). 

¶ 80 Nonetheless, the majority darts into the legislative lane, usurping legislative 

authority by enacting its new law simply because they find this result “desirable” for 

violent juveniles. The majority’s judicial sentencing scheme which introduces de facto 

life in prison and implements mandatory parole eligibility after forty years in prison 

is supposedly “mandate[d]” by the state and Federal constitutions. But one toils to 

locate this fiction in the text of either document or precedent. The majority even 

admits that they are “challenged” by their trespass into legislative drafting, 

lamenting the difficulty of the task they have chosen to undertake. But unlike the 

legislature, the majority creates their new law with no input from justice system 

stakeholders – save defendant’s attorney and a host of ideologically aligned amici.3 

¶ 81 Equally troubling is what the majority fails to address. There is no direction 

to the trial courts and prosecutors on how to properly handle violent juvenile 

offenders who commit multiple violent crimes on multiple days. If these violent 

 

3 As Justice Scalia famously noted, “The problem with a living Constitution in a word 

is that somebody has to decide how it grows and when it is that new rights are — you know 

— come forth. And that’s an enormous responsibility in a democracy to place upon nine 

lawyers, or even 30 lawyers.” Bruce Allen Murphy, Justice Antonin Scalia and the ‘Dead’ 

Constitution, N.Y. TIMES (Feb. 14, 2016), http://nytimes.com/2016/02/15/opinion/justiceantonin-scalia-and-the-dead-constituion.html.
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offenders are tried, convicted, and sentenced at separate sessions of superior court, 

does the de facto life sentence and mandatory forty-year parole eligibility rationale 

apply such that they receive a “volume discount”? State v. Soto-Fong, 250 Ariz. 1, 8, 

474 P.3d 34, 41 (2020) (citation omitted). “[G]enerally, courts do not permit 

defendants to ‘stack’ their crimes to generate an Eighth Amendment claim,” id. at 8, 

474 P.3d at 41, but violent juvenile crime sprees may yield a different result in North 

Carolina under the majority’s reasoning.

¶ 82 Here the trial court appropriately considered defendant’s individual 

circumstances in sentencing him to consecutive terms of imprisonment. The trial 

court, in its discretion, determined that imposition of consecutive sentences was 

appropriate for this defendant. The resulting sentences imposed are not in conflict 

with the U.S. Constitution, Supreme Court precedent, or the law of this State and 

should be upheld.

Chief Justice NEWBY and Justice BARRINGER join in this dissenting

opinion.