Opinion ID: 1611733
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: consideration and weight given to bell's age of seventeen at the time of the crime

Text: In its sentencing order, the trial court found Bell's age at the time of the crime to be a mitigating factor and gave the mitigator little weight. On appeal, Bell now contends that the trial court was laboring under an erroneous legal standard when finding and weighing Bell's age as a mitigator. At the sentencing hearing, the court also discussed the nonstatutory mitigator of the disparate treatment of codefendant, Renee Lincks. In particular, the court stated: This Court determines that the Office of the State Attorney could not have legally sought the death penalty against co-defendant Renee Lincks as she was fifteen years of age at the time the crimes were committed, and therefore, it is constitutionally impermissible to apply the death penalty to a fifteen year old. Further, the Office of the State Attorney did not seek the death penalty in the trial of co-defendant Kristal Maestas, and therefore, her sentence of life in prison was the only sentence open to this Court. After the trial court completed the sentencing, the State advised the court as follows: STATE: Judge, your order, I think, contains a misstatement of the law, in that after the arrest of these individuals, the Court found that it was unconstitutional to execute a minor under the age of seventeen. You stated under the age of sixteen. COURT: Fifteen. STATE: Under the age of seventeen. In other words anyone that hasn't reached their seventeenth birthday cannot receive the death penalty. The Supreme Court changed the law after Maestas was arrested, and we were legally precluded from seeking the death penalty for Maestas. COURT: Okay, I thought it was just Lincks you were precluded from. STATE: I didn't want to upstage you or anything here, but I wanted to state for the record that that's the law and give you an opportunity to amend your order. COURT: All right, I'll make a written amendment. Is that agreeable with counsel? DEFENSE: Fine. The trial court thereafter made that handwritten change in the sentencing order to the section marked non-statutory mitigating factors: The disparate treatment of co-defendant Renee Lincks and the Court announced the change orally to Bell. This Court has determined that the death penalty is cruel or unusual if imposed on a defendant under the age of seventeen. See Brennan v. State, 754 So.2d 1, 7 (Fla.1999). Although the trial court initially was incorrect with regard to the constitutionally permissible age of execution, that error was corrected when the State brought the error to the trial court's attention. Thus, the trial court's statement about the legal age of execution did not improperly affect the weight it accorded to Bell's age. This Court has determined that [t]he relative weight given each mitigating factor is within the discretion of the sentencing court. Trease v. State, 768 So.2d 1050, 1055 (Fla.2000). However, in Urbin v. State, 714 So.2d 411, 418 (Fla.1998), we stated that the closer the defendant is to the age where the death penalty is constitutionally barred, the weightier [the age] statutory mitigator becomes. Further, in Ellis v. State, 622 So.2d 991, 1001 (Fla. 1993), the Court stated: 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. (Emphasis supplied.) Although the Court in Ellis acknowledged that the assignment of weight falls within the trial court's discretion, when the statutory mitigator is age and the defendant is a minor that discretion is limited. Indeed, the Ellis Court also stated that there must be some evidence tending to support the finding of unusual maturity. Otherwise, the mitigating factor of age must be accorded full weight as a statutory mitigating factor. Id. at 1001 n. 7 (emphasis supplied). The Court noted that if the trial court were to have unbridled discretion in the application of the age mitigator, then in effect the trial court would have the ability to exclude everyone from the category. See id. at 1001. According to Ellis, nothing in the statute reflects any intention that a court should have discretion to render the statute applicable to no one at all. Id. Thus, the trial court must afford the mitigating factor of age full weight, unless the trial court makes a finding of unusual maturity. See id. It is only after a trial court makes a finding of unusual maturity that the trial court can exercise discretion in assigning diminished weight to the mitigator. In this case the trial court did not find that Bell was unusually mature. Rather, the trial court stated that there was not evidence of record that [Bell] was abused, neglected or not provided with a normal, healthy environment and supported by loving parents. Thus, although there was no evidence of abuse or neglect, there was likewise no finding by the trial court of unusual maturity. The only finding the trial court made on this mitigator was that Bell's childhood was normal. Moreover, to the extent that Bell displayed positive characteristics in that he was active in church, did well in school, and maintained steady jobs, we note that these characteristics tend to reflect the lifestyle of a normal, healthy seventeen-year-old, rather than the unusual lifestyle of a teenager old in the ways of the world. Shellito v. State, 701 So.2d 837, 843 (Fla.1997) (assigning little weight to the statutory age mitigator and relying on evidence of the eighteen-year-old defendant's extensive crime record, which started at age thirteen, involved twenty-two arrests, thirty separate crimes, and eight felony convictions, to find that the defendant was, [a]lthough young in years ... old in the ways of the world). Accordingly, we conclude that the trial court abused its discretion in assigning little weight to this mitigator.