JAVARRIS LANE,

Appellant,

v.

STATE OF FLORIDA,

Appellee.

IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL

FIRST DISTRICT, STATE OF FLORIDA

NOT FINAL UNTIL TIME EXPIRES TO 

FILE MOTION FOR REHEARING AND 

DISPOSITION THEREOF IF FILED

CASE NO. 1D13-1006

_____________________________/

Opinion filed October 13, 2014.

An appeal from the Circuit Court for Duval County.

Adrian G. Soud, Judge.

Nancy A. Daniels, Public Defender, and Glen P. Gifford, Assistant Public 

Defender, Tallahassee, for Appellant.

Pamela Jo Bondi, Attorney General, and Virginia Harris, Assistant Attorney 

General, Tallahassee, for Appellee.

BENTON, J.

On direct appeal, Javarris Lane challenges sentences imposed for offenses 

committed when he was sixteen. After granting a motion to correct sentencing 

error pursuant to Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.800(b)(2), the trial court 

resentenced Mr. Lane to life in prison without the possibility of parole for second-
degree murder, to a concurrent term of thirty years’ imprisonment for aggravated 

child abuse, and to a term of fifty years’ imprisonment for sexual battery

consecutive both to the thirty-year and the life terms. Although we affirm the life 

sentence, we reverse the sentences for the non-homicide offenses aggregating

eighty years, and remand for resentencing on the aggravated child abuse and sexual 

battery charges.

On the authority of Copeland v. State, 129 So. 3d 508 (Fla. 1st DCA 2014), 

we affirm the sentence of life with no possibility of parole imposed for seconddegree murder. “[A]lthough Miller [v. Alabama, 132 S.Ct. 2455 (2012),] prohibits 

the imposition of a mandatory life without parole sentence on a juvenile offender, 

the Supreme Court recognized that a sentencing court may still impose a life 

without parole sentence, after conducting an individualized mitigation inquiry.” 

Id. at 510. See also Washington v. State, 103 So. 3d 917, 919-20 (Fla. 1st DCA 

2012) (“[T]he Supreme Court in Miller ruled its decision ‘mandates only that a 

sentencer follow a certain process—considering an offender’s youth and attendant 

characteristics—before imposing a particular penalty.’” (citation omitted)). In the 

present case, as in Copeland, the “sentencing court conducted an individualized 

mitigation inquiry, considering several potential mitigating factors before finding 

that life without the possibility of parole was, nevertheless, appropriate.” 

Copeland, 129 So. 3d at 511.

2
We reverse the consecutive sentences aggregating eighty years’ 

imprisonment, imposed for aggravated child abuse and sexual battery. We have 

said that “a de facto life sentence is one that exceeds the defendant’s life 

expectancy,” Adams v. State, 37 Fla. L. Weekly D1865, D1866 (Fla. 1st DCA 

Aug. 8, 2012), and that such a sentence should be deemed a life sentence for 

purposes of Graham v. Florida, 560 U.S. 48 (2010).

1

 In Floyd v. State, 87 So. 3d 

45 (Fla. 1st DCA 2012), the defendant was sentenced to consecutive forty-year 

terms of imprisonment for two armed robbery convictions. We reversed the 

sentences for two non-homicide offenses aggregating eighty years, holding:

Appellant, if he serves the entirety of his sentence, will 

be ninety-seven when he is released. Even if Appellant 

received the maximum amount of gain time, the earliest 

he would be released is at age eighty-five. See § 

921.002(1)(e), Fla. Stat. (1998) (providing that parole is 

not applied to defendants sentenced under the Criminal 

Punishment Code, that sentences in Florida reflect the 

length of actual time to be served, shortened only by the 

application of incentive and meritorious gain time, and 

that defendants must serve no less than eighty-five 

percent of their term of imprisonment). This situation 

does not in any way provide Appellant with a meaningful 

or realistic opportunity to obtain release, as required by 

Graham. While the trial court was correct that the Eighth 

Amendment does not foreclose the possibility that 

1

 As recognized in Floyd v. State, 87 So. 3d 45, 47 (Fla. 1st DCA 2012), 

other courts have rejected the argument that Graham v. Florida, 560 U.S. 48

(2010), applies to “de facto” life sentences caused by lengthy term-of-years 

sentences. See Peters v. State, 128 So. 3d 832, 855-56 (Fla. 4th DCA 2013); Walle 

v. State, 99 So. 3d 967, 971 (Fla. 2d DCA 2012); Henry v. State, 82 So. 3d 1084, 

1089 (Fla. 5th DCA 2012).

3

 
juveniles who commit nonhomicide crimes will remain in 

prison for life, Graham also cautioned that states are 

foreclosed from making the judgment at the outset that 

those offenders will never be fit to reenter society. . . .

 . . . .

 In this case, common sense dictates[2] that Appellant’s 

eighty-year sentence, which, according to the statistics 

cited by Appellant, is longer than his life expectancy, is 

the functional equivalent of a life without parole sentence 

and will not provide him with a meaningful or realistic 

opportunity to obtain release.

Id. at 46-47. Here, as in Floyd, Mr. Lane’s sentences were imposed under the 

Criminal Punishment Code, which requires convicts to serve at least eighty-five 

percent of their sentences. See § 944.275(4)(b)3., Fla. Stat. (2011).3

 On the 

authority of Floyd, where the challenged sentences also aggregated eighty years,4

2 Compare Adams v. State, 37 Fla. L. Weekly D1865, D1866 (Fla. 1st DCA 

Aug. 8, 2012), where this court reversed a sentence totaling sixty years in prison 

with an aggregate minimum mandatory term of fifty years for three non-homicide 

offenses because the sentence exceeded Adams’ life expectancy “as reflected in the 

National Vital Statistics Reports from the federal Centers for Disease Control and 

Prevention cited by Appellant in his rule 3.800(b)(2) motion,” but noted that the 

state did not dispute any of the facts asserted in the motion, including the projected 

life expectancy. In the present case, the state objected to the argument in Mr. 

Lane’s second motion to correct sentencing error that the sentence exceeded his 

life expectancy because the referenced 2008 life-expectancy publication was not 

placed into evidence during the sentencing hearing.

3 The Florida Legislature amended the procedures regarding imposing and 

reviewing sentences for juvenile offenders, effective July 1, 2014. See §§ 775.082; 

921.1401; 921.1402, Fla. Stat. (2014).

4 As in Floyd, the terms of years appellant received are consecutive, not 

concurrent. No party suggests that the present case is distinguishable from prior 

decisions because the thirty-year sentence for aggravated child abuse is concurrent 

with the life sentence, while the fifty-year sentence for sexual battery is 

consecutive to the life sentence. 

4

 
we reverse and remand for resentencing as to the two non-homicide convictions. 

But see Gridine v. State, 89 So. 3d 909, 910-11 (Fla. 1st DCA 2011), review 

granted, 103 So. 3d 139 (Fla. 2012) (affirming a seventy-year sentence with a 

twenty-five-year minimum mandatory for a fourteen-year-old defendant).

The state acknowledges that, under our precedent, life imprisonment without 

the possibility of parole for murder does not render Graham inapplicable to the 

sentences imposed for these two non-homicide offenses. See Johnson v. State, 38 

Fla. L. Weekly D953, D953-54 (Fla. 1st DCA Apr. 30, 2013) (certifying conflict 

with Lawton v. State, 109 So. 3d 825, 829 (Fla. 3d DCA 2013), review granted, 

143 So. 3d 919 (Fla. 2014), in which the Third District Court of Appeal affirmed a 

sentence of life in prison for attempted first-degree murder with a firearm, ordered 

to run consecutively with a sentence of life in prison (without parole eligibility for 

twenty-five years) for first-degree murder); Akins v. State, 104 So. 3d 1173, 1175-

76 (Fla. 1st DCA 2012) (holding Graham precluded a life sentence without the 

possibility of parole for attempted murder because nothing in Graham “would 

permit imposing life sentences without parole for nonhomicide offenses, even if 

the juvenile has committed a homicide in some earlier episode or, as here, was 

earlier sentenced to a term of years for a homicide”). See also Jackson v. State, 38 

Fla. L. Weekly D1334, D1334-35 (Fla. 1st DCA June 18, 2013) (rejecting 

5

 
argument that Graham “recognized a limited exception when the offender has also 

been convicted and sentenced for a homicide in the same proceeding, as did in fact 

occur in the present case” and reversing multiple life sentences imposed for nonhomicide crimes pursuant to Graham); Weiand v. State, 129 So. 3d 434, 435 (Fla. 

5th DCA 2013) (reversing concurrent terms of life in prison for kidnapping and 

robbery convictions, to begin after a sentence of life in prison for a homicide 

conviction).5

 But see Orange v. State, 2014 WL 4328151, at *10 (Fla. 4th DCA 

Sept. 3, 2014) (holding Graham allows the imposition of a life sentence without 

parole on a juvenile for a non-homicide offense when a homicide offense also 

occurred in the same criminal episode); Starks v. State, 128 So. 3d 91, 92 (Fla. 2d 

DCA 2013) (same); Lawton, 109 So. 3d at 828-29 (same). Here, as in Johnson, we 

reverse for resentencing on the non-homicide offenses even though “he will serve 

the remainder of his life in prison for the homicide offense he committed” against 

the same victim. Johnson, 38 Fla. L. Weekly at D954 (reversing for Johnson to be 

resentenced on a conviction of burglary with an assault).

Affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded for resentencing.

LEWIS, C.J. and MARSTILLER, J., CONCUR.

5 The fact that the sentence of life in prison with the possibility of parole 

after twenty-five years imposed for the homicide conviction in Weiand v. State, 

129 So. 3d 434 (Fla. 5th DCA 2013), was less severe than the sentences of life in 

prison for kidnapping and robbery convictions does not alter the analysis. 

6