Opinion ID: 3207057
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Florida’s Existing Parole System

Text: In order to determine whether the eligibility for parole removes a sentence from the purview of Graham and Miller, it is necessary to first understand how parole operates in Florida. Parole is the release of an inmate, prior to the expiration of the inmate’s court-imposed sentence, with a period of supervision to be successfully completed by compliance with conditions and terms of the release agreement ordered by the Florida Commission on Offender Review. See William H. Burgess, Fla. Sentencing § 12:18 (2015-16 ed.). See also Florida Parole Comm’n v. Spaziano, 48 So. 3d 714, 721-22 (Fla. 2010). The judiciary has no input as to the operation of the parole system. An inmate who is eligible for parole has an initial interview with a hearing examiner. That examiner uses a salient factor score—a numerical score based on the offender’s present and prior criminal behavior and related factors found to be predictive in regard to parole outcome—as well as the statutory severity of the inmate’s offense to determine a corresponding range of months on a matrix that automatically indicates a range of presumptive parole release dates. See Spaziano, 48 So. 3d at 722 n.7. The presumptive parole release dates are the earliest dates an - 16 - offender may be released from prison as determined by objective parole guidelines. Id. Under Florida statutory law, the objective parole criteria applied by the Commission must “give primary weight to the seriousness of the offender’s present criminal offense and the offender’s past criminal record.” § 947.002, Fla. Stat. (2015). The hearing examiner may consider the aggravating and mitigating circumstances—none of which provide for the level of consideration of the diminished culpability of youth at the time of the offense as sentencing judges now consider post-Miller—that warrant a decision outside the given matrix time range, but must provide written justification for altering the presumptive parole release date. See § 947.172(3), Fla. Stat. (2015); see also Spaziano, 48 So. 3d at 723. The hearing examiner then makes a written recommendation to the Commission of a presumptive parole release date, which is reviewed by a panel of no fewer than two commissioners appointed by the chair. § 947.172(2), Fla. Stat. (2015). Subsequent parole interviews are conducted to determine whether information has been gathered that could affect the presumptive parole release date. § 947.174, Fla. Stat. (2015). When the inmate’s presumptive parole release date nears and if the inmate’s institutional conduct and parole release plan are satisfactory, the presumptive parole release date becomes the effective parole release date. § 947.1745, Fla. Stat. (2015). The Commission then engages in a - 17 - final review process to determine if release is still appropriate and will authorize or modify the effective parole release date accordingly. Id. III. Atwell’s Sentence Under Florida’s Existing Parole System In most respects, a sentence of life with the possibility of parole for firstdegree murder, based on the way Florida’s parole process operates under the existing statutory scheme, actually resembles a mandatorily imposed life sentence without parole that is not “proportionate to the offense and the offender.” Horsley, 160 So. 3d at 406. Based on Florida’s objective parole guidelines, an individual who was convicted of a capital offense under section 775.082, Florida Statutes (1990), as Atwell was, will have a presumptive parole release date of anywhere from 300 to 9,998 months in the future. Fla. Admin. Code R. 23-21.009 (2014). Importantly, the statute requires “primary weight” in the consideration of parole to be given “to the seriousness of the offender’s present offense”—here, the most serious offense of first-degree murder—“and the offender’s past criminal record.” § 947.002, Fla. Stat. If an offender convicted of first-degree murder has a high salient score, that offender’s range of months for the presumptive parole release date could span from hundreds of months to nearly ten thousand months. Fla. Admin. Code R. 2321.009 (2014). This range of months, which encompasses hundreds of years, could be lawfully imposed without the Commission on Offender Review even - 18 - considering mitigating circumstances. The Commission is only required to consider mitigating and aggravating circumstances if it wishes to impose a presumptive parole release date that falls outside the given range of months. Fla. Admin. Code R. 23-21.010 (2010). Further, the enumerated mitigating and aggravating circumstances in rule 23-21.010 of the Florida Administrative Code, even if utilized, do not have specific factors tailored to juveniles. In other words, they completely fail to account for Miller. Using Florida’s objective parole guidelines, then, a sentence for first-degree murder under the pre-1994 statute is virtually guaranteed to be just as lengthy as, or the “practical equivalent” of, a life sentence without the possibility of parole. Indeed, that is the case here, with Atwell’s presumptive parole release date having recently been set to 140 years in the future. A presumptive parole release date set decades beyond a natural lifespan is at odds with the Supreme Court’s recent pronouncement in Montgomery. Although a State’s remedy to Miller could include a system for paroling certain juvenile offenders “whose crimes reflected only transient immaturity—and who have since matured,” the parole system would nevertheless still have to afford juvenile offenders individualized consideration and an opportunity for release. Montgomery, 136 S. Ct. 718, 736 (2016). Most importantly, “their hope for some years of life outside prison walls must be restored.” Id. at 737. - 19 - The United States Supreme Court concluded its Miller opinion by emphasizing that “Graham, Roper, and [the Supreme Court’s] individualized sentencing decisions make clear that a judge or jury must have the opportunity to consider mitigating circumstances before imposing the harshest possible penalty for juveniles.” Miller, 132 S. Ct. at 2475. Even a cursory examination of the statutes and administrative rules governing Florida’s parole system demonstrates that a juvenile who committed a capital offense could be subject to one of the law’s harshest penalties without the sentencer, or the Commission, ever considering mitigating circumstances. Although some states, such as California5 and West Virginia,6 have chosen the parole process as a way to satisfy Graham and Miller,7 the requirements of the parole process vary significantly from state to state. For example, California adopted legislation that provides a mechanism for resentencing juveniles who initially had life without parole sentences, allowing for parole eligibility and review hearings, but this legislation also established that the parole board must use 5. See Cal. Penal Code § 4801(c) (2013). 6. See W. Va. Code § 62-12-13b(b) (2015). 7. Numerous other states, including Delaware and North Carolina, have modified their criminal sentencing guidelines to allow for more judicial discretion when sentencing juveniles. See Sarah French Russell, Review for Release: Juvenile Offenders, State Parole Practices and the Eighth Amendment, 89 Ind. L.J. 388, 391 (2014). - 20 - specific criteria when evaluating juveniles and must “give great weight to the diminished culpability of juveniles as compared to adults, the hallmark features of youth, and any subsequent growth and increased maturity of the prisoner in accordance with relevant case law.” Cal. Penal Code § 4801(c) (2013). These are the features identified by the Supreme Court in Miller. See 132 S. Ct. at 2468-69. Similarly, West Virginia now requires its parole board to take into consideration the “diminished culpability of juveniles” during its parole hearings for juvenile offenders. W. Va. Code § 62-12-13b(b) (2015). In Florida, however, the decision to parole an inmate “is an act of grace of the state and shall not be considered a right.” § 947.002(5), Fla. Stat. By statute, the objective parole criteria must “give primary weight to the seriousness of the offender’s present criminal offense and the offender’s past criminal record.” § 947.002(2), Fla. Stat. Importantly, unlike other states, there are no special protections expressly afforded to juvenile offenders and no consideration of the diminished culpability of the youth at the time of the offense. The Miller factors are simply not part of the equation. Moreover, as we observed in Horsley, the Florida Legislature did not choose a parole-based approach to remedy sentences that are unconstitutional under Graham and Miller. 160 So. 3d at 407. Instead, the Legislature chose to enact chapter 2014-220, Laws of Florida, and to use substantively different criteria for - 21 - evaluation, specifically tailored to juveniles and based on the Miller factors. Id. Also, at the judicial sentence review hearing under chapter 2014-220, Laws of Florida, the trial court is required to consider the enumerated Miller factors of section 921.1402(6), Florida Statutes, along with any other factor it deems appropriate to review the juvenile’s sentence. See § 921.1402(6), Fla. Stat. (2015). Parole is, simply put, “patently inconsistent with the legislative intent” as to how to comply with Graham and Miller. Horsley, 160 So. 3d at 395.