United States Court of Appeals

For the Eighth Circuit

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No. 14-1821

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Stafon Edward Thompson

lllllllllllllllllllllPetitioner - Appellant

v.

Tom Roy, Commissioner of Corrections

lllllllllllllllllllllRespondent - Appellee

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Appeal from United States District Court 

for the District of Minnesota - Minneapolis

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 Submitted: February 10, 2015

 Filed: July 14, 2015 

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Before GRUENDER, SHEPHERD, and KELLY, Circuit Judges.

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GRUENDER, Circuit Judge.

Stafon Thompson appeals from the district court’s1 judgment denying his

petition for relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. The district court denied relief because it

1

The Honorable Patrick J. Schiltz, United States District Judge for the District

of Minnesota, adopting the report and recommendation of the Honorable Jeffrey J.

Keyes, United States Magistrate Judge for the District of Minnesota.
concluded that the rule announced in Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. ---, 132 S. Ct. 2455

(2012), does not apply retroactively. We affirm.

In 2009, a jury found Thompson guilty of two counts of first-degree

premeditated murder and two counts of first-degree murder while committing

aggravated robbery. Thompson was seventeen when he committed these crimes. 

Pursuant to Minnesota law, he received two consecutive mandatory sentences of life

imprisonment without the possibility of release. Minn. Stat. §§ 609.185(a)(1),

609.106, subd. 2(1). The Minnesota Supreme Court affirmed Thompson’s convictions

and sentences on direct appeal. Minnesota v. Thompson, 788 N.W.2d 485, 496 (Minn.

2010).

In 2012, the United States Supreme Court held in Miller v. Alabama, 132 S. Ct.

2455, that the Eighth Amendment forbids a sentencing scheme that mandates a

sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole for juvenile offenders. Id.

at 2469. Miller thus announced a new obligation for state and federal courts to

conduct an individualized sentencing analysis before imposing such a sentence on

defendants who were under the age of eighteen at the time of their offense. Id.

Because Thompson was seventeen when he committed the murders, he petitioned for

relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2254, arguing that he received a sentence that is now

unconstitutional under Miller. The magistrate judge recommended dismissing

Thompson’s § 2254 petition with prejudice because he concluded that Miller’s rule

was not retroactively applicable. The district court adopted the magistrate judge’s

report and recommendation in full.

On appeal, Thompson argues that the district court erred by concluding that

Miller does not apply retroactively. We review the district court’s determination on

this legal question de novo. Danforth v. Crist, 624 F.3d 915, 918 (8th Cir. 2010).

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We recently considered this question in Martin v. Symmes, 782 F.3d 939 (8th

Cir. 2015).2 In Martin, a juvenile offender had been sentenced under the same

Minnesota statute to life in prison without the possibility of release. Id. at 941. Like

Thompson, the Martin petitioner requested § 2254 relief, arguing that Miller applied

retroactively to his sentence. Miller, he argued, announced a new rule of criminal

procedure that qualifies under either of the two exceptionsto the general presumption

against retroactivity: (1) the new rule issubstantive, or (2) the new rule is a watershed

rule of criminal procedure “implicating the fundamental fairness and accuracy of the

criminal proceeding.” Id. at 942 (quoting Whorton v. Bockting, 549 U.S. 406, 416

(2007)). A unanimous panel of our court rejected both arguments. Id. at 943-44.

As we explained in Martin, Miller did not announce a new substantive rule

because it neither categorically barred a punishment nor placed a group of persons

beyond the state’s power to punish. Id. at 942. Indeed, the Supreme Court made clear

in Miller that the decision did not foreclose the imposition on juvenile offenders of a

discretionary sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. 132 S. Ct. at

2469. After Miller, as before, a court retains the power to impose such a penalty. 

That the sentence now must be discretionary does not alter its substance. Like

Thompson, a juvenile defendant sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of

parole under Miller will spend the rest of his life in prison. “No one would say that

one defendant received greater or lesser punishment than the other.” Thompson v.

Roy, No. 13-CV-1524, 2014 WL 1234498, at *2 (D. Minn. March 25, 2014). 

Accordingly, as we held in Martin, Miller did not create a new substantive rule. 

Martin, 782 F.3d at 942.

2

As we explained in Martin, the SupremeCourt granted certiorari to review this

question next term. See Montgomery v. Louisiana, 575 U.S. ---, 135 S. Ct. 1546

(2015). We note that the Supreme Court may not reach the issue, however, because

the Court also invited the partiesto argue a threshold question: whether the Court has

jurisdiction to review the Supreme Court of Louisiana’s refusal to give Miller

retroactive effect. Id.

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Thompson nevertheless argues that Miller is substantive because Miller,

according to Thompson, makes age an element of an offense, and “[a] decision that

modifies the elements of an offense is normally substantive rather than procedural.” 

Schriro v. Summerlin, 542 U.S. 348, 354 (2004). This argument stems from Alleyne

v. United States, 570 U.S. ---, 133 S. Ct. 2151 (2013), which defines an element, for

Sixth Amendment purposes, as “any fact that increases the mandatory minimum”

sentence. Id. at 2155. Even if we assume that Miller somehow made age a necessary

element for imposing a sentence of life in prison without parole on juvenile offenders,

Thompson’s argument fails. The Supreme Court decided Alleyne after it decided

Miller. For Alleyne’s rule to apply here, Alleyne itself would have to apply

retroactively. See Michigan v. Carp, 852 N.W.2d 801, 829-30 (Mich. 2014). Our

court has not held that Alleyne applies retroactively, and Thompson fails to argue this

point before us now. We thus necessarily reject Thompson’s attempt to “bootstrap[]

[Alleyne] onto the rule in Miller to transform the latter from a nonretroactive

procedural rule into a retroactive substantive rule.” See id. at 830.

Likewise, we find no merit in Thompson’s argument that Miller applies

retroactively because courts “universally” apply retroactively the rules from cases

cited in Miller, such as Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551 (2005), Graham v. Florida,

560 U.S. 48 (2010), and Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304 (2002). Though our court

has recognized that Atkins applies retroactively,3 Davis v. Norris, 423 F.3d 868, 879

(8th Cir. 2005), Atkins is easily distinguishable from Miller. Atkins categorically

“prohibit[ed] the execution of mentally retarded defendants,” id. at 879; Miller merely

announced a change in process. Martin, 782 F.3d at 942-43. In sum, “Miller shifted

decision-making authority for imposing a sentence of life without parole on a juvenile

homicide offender from the legislature to the judiciary, by way of its individualized

3

We have not ruled on the retroactivity of either Roper, 543 U.S. 551, or

Graham, 560 U.S. 48. See Martin, 782 F.3d at 942 n.4.

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sentencing requirements.” Carp, 852 N.W.2d at 826; cf. Schriro, 542 U.S. at 353

(holding that the new rule announced in Ring v. Arizona, 536 U.S. 584 (2002), did not

apply retroactively because it was a procedural rule that merely shifted decisionmaking authority from the judge to the jury). As we held in Martin, this change is

procedural. 782 F.3d at 942-43.

Martin also forecloses Thompson’s alternative contention that Miller

announced a new watershed rule of criminal procedure. Miller’s rule is not a

“bedrock” procedural element because it is not “essential to the fairness of a

proceeding,” Martin, 782 F.3d at 943 (quoting Bockting, 549 U.S. at 421), nor is it

part of the “small core of rules . . . implicit in the concept of ordered liberty.” Id.

(quoting Beard v. Banks, 542 U.S. 406, 417 (2004)). The Supreme Court has

emphasized the difficulty of attaining this threshold, stating that the guarantee of the

right to counsel announced in Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335 (1963), “might fall

within this exception,” Martin, 782 F.3d at 943 (quoting Beard, 542 U.S. at 417). 

And unlike Gideon, Miller’s new rule does nothing to diminish the likelihood of an

accurate conviction. See Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288, 313 (1989) (noting that a

watershed rule must be one “without which the likelihood of an accurate conviction

is seriously diminished”).

Finally, Martin precludes Thompson’s argument that principles of fairness and

“evenhanded justice” require Miller’s retroactive application because the Supreme

Court applied Miller to Jackson v. Hobbs, the collateral-appeal case that was

consolidated with Miller. See Teague, 489 U.S. at 300 (noting that “evenhanded

justice” requires retroactive application to all similarly situated defendants). As we

explained in Martin, the Supreme Court remanded Jackson for reconsideration in light

of Miller; it did not did not state explicitly that Miller applies retroactively. Martin,

782 F.3d at 943-44. And the Court has “implied that its application of a new rule on

collateral review does not necessitate that rule’s application to other cases on

collateral review.” Id. (citing Chaidez v. United States, 568 U.S. ---, 133 S. Ct. 1103,

1105 (2013)). Moreover, several courts have noted that the State in Jackson failed to

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raise the non-retroactivity argument. See, e.g., Carp, 852 N.W.2d at 830. Thus, in

Jackson, “the question whether Miller should be applied retroactively was never

presented to the United States Supreme Court.” Id.; see Schiro v. Farley, 510 U.S.

222, 229 (1994) (refusing to consider the non-retroactivity defense because “a State

can waive [this] . . . bar by not raising it”).

For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the district court’s judgment dismissing

Thompson’s petition.

KELLY, Circuit Judge, concurring in the judgment.

A panel of this court in Martin v. Symmes, 782 F.3d 939, 943–44 (8th Cir.

2015), concluded that the rule announced in Miller v. Alabama, 132 S. Ct. 2455

(2012), does not apply retroactively. Based on that decision, I concur in the judgment. 

See United States v. Bearden, 780 F.3d 887, 896 (8th Cir. 2015) (noting the

“well-established” rule that one panel of this court cannot overrule the decision of

another panel). Had the issue been presented to this panel as a matter of first

impression, however, I would follow the holdings of those courts that have considered

the issue and concluded the rule announced in Miller applies retroactively to § 2254

petitioners on collateral review.4

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4

See, e.g., State v. Mantich, 842 N.W.2d 716 (Neb. 2014); State v. Ragland, 836

N.W.2d 107 (Iowa 2013); accord Songster v. Beard, 35 F. Supp. 3d 657 (E.D. Pa.

2014); United States v. Orsinger, No. CR-01-01072-05-PCT, 2014 WL 3427573

(D. Ariz. July 15, 2014); Alejandro v. United States, No. 13 CIV. 4364 CM, 2013 WL

4574066 (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 22, 2013); Hill v. Snyder, No. 10-14568, 2013 WL 364198

(E.D. Mich. Jan. 30, 2013); Casiano v. Comm’r of Corr., --- A.3d ----, 317 Conn. 52

(Conn. May 26, 2015); Falcon v. State, --- So.3d ----, 2015 WL 1239365 (Fla. Mar.

19, 2015); Aiken v. Byars, 765 S.E.2d 572 (S.C. 2014); State v. Mares, 335 P.3d 487

(Wyo. 2014); Petition of State, 103 A.3d 227 (N.H. 2014); People v. Davis, 6 N.E.3d

709 (Ill. 2014); Diatchenko v. Dist. Attorney for Suffolk Dist., 1 N.E.3d 270 (Mass.

2013); Jones v. State, 122 So.3d 698 (Miss. 2013).

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