Opinion ID: 1151766
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Age as a Mitigating Factor

Text: Third, on the question of young age as a mitigating factor, we are gravely troubled by inconsistencies in Florida cases involving minors who commit murder. In such cases some courts find young age a mitigating factor and others reject the factor outright, as the court did here, based on the same or highly similar facts. On this issue, for example, the present case is indistinguishable from LeCroy v. State, 533 So.2d 750 (Fla. 1988), cert. denied, 492 U.S. 925, 109 S.Ct. 3262, 106 L.Ed.2d 607 (1989), where the trial court found the factor present as to the seventeen-year-old defendant in that case. However, based on the record before it, the LeCroy trial court then proceeded to note that the weight to be accorded to the factor was diminished by other evidence of LeCroy's unusual mental and emotional maturity. [7] We believe the proper approach in cases involving murders committed by minors is that used in LeCroy. Whenever a murder is committed by one who at the time was a minor, the mitigating factor of age must be found and weighed, but the weight can be diminished by other evidence showing unusual maturity. It is the assignment of weight that falls within the trial court's discretion in such cases. The reasons for this conclusion are self-evident. If any group was intended to be included within the statutory mitigating factor of age, it must be those who were minors at the time of the commission of their crimes. § 921.141(6)(g), Fla. Stat. (1989). If minors can be excluded, then a court effectively is given unbridled discretion to exclude everyone from the category. It is a fundamental rule of construction that statutory language cannot be construed so as to render it potentially meaningless, Snively Groves, Inc. v. Mayo, 135 Fla. 300, 184 So. 839 (1938), and nothing in the statute reflects any intention that a court should have discretion to render the statute applicable to no one at all. § 921.141(6)(g), Fla. Stat. (1989). Any other holding would make the obvious mandate of the legislature subservient to the discretion of a court, leading to the inconsistent results we see in the cases on this issue, and to a violation of the separation of powers. Art. II, § 3, Fla. Const. On remand, the trial court shall find the factor of age in mitigation, but may reduce the weight accorded that factor to the extent there is admissible evidence that Ellis possessed unusual maturity at the time of his alleged crimes, assuming he is again convicted as before. LeCroy.