Court Opinion

ID: 9602616
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 01:57:32.9456+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:02:05.120312
License: Public Domain

Justice KIRSHBAUM
specially concurring in the result.
I concur in the majority’s conclusion that the court of appeals properly conducted an *811abbreviated proportionality review of the sentence of life imprisonment with no possibility of parole for forty years imposed upon the petitioner, Robby Valenzuela, for the offense of first degree murder. I also concur in the majority’s conclusion that the court of appeals properly determined, on the basis of such abbreviated proportionality review, that the sentence did not violate the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishments contained in the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution. I write separately, however, to again record my strong disagreement with the principle adopted for the first time by a majority of this court in the combined cases of People v. Cisneros and People v. Ates, 855 P.2d 822 (Colo.1993), that a defendant’s age is constitutionally irrelevant for purposes of cruel and unusual punishments analysis.
In my special concurrence and dissent to those opinions, see People v. Cisneros and People v. Ates (Kirshbaum, J., concurring and dissenting), I indicated, with the historical and jurisprudential bases for my conclusions, that age is a relevant factor in Eighth Amendment proportionality analysis under the rationale of Solem v. Helm, 463 U.S. 277, 103 S.Ct. 3001, 77 L.Ed.2d 637 (1983), as interpreted by this court in People v. Gaskins, 825 P.2d 30 (Colo.1992); that the United States Supreme Court’s conclusion in part V of Harmelin v. Michigan, — U.S. -, -, 111 S.Ct. 2680, 2701-02, 115 L.Ed.2d 836 (1991), that the individualized sentencing doctrine developed in capital cases is not applicable in non-capital cases does not answer the question of whether a defendant's age may be considered by a court conducting a proportionality review; and that this court’s prior decisions, including our recent decision in People v. Smith, 848 P.2d 365 (Colo.1993), do not require a contrary result. I adhere to those views, but see no useful purpose in reiterating the bases for those conclusions here.
What may be useful here is to reemphasize my view that in addition to representing a departure from principles enunciated by this court, the United States Supreme Court, and other state courts, the majority’s narrow view of the scope of the Eighth Amendment’s proportionality principle in all probability forecloses meaningful proportionality review in circumstances wherein it may be most essential. As the majority accurately but inconsistently observes, Valenzuela was a seventeen-year-old juvenile at the time he committed first degree murder. Had he been thirteen or twelve, the majority concludes that such fact may not be considered by any Colorado court conducting a constitutionally required Eighth Amendment proportionality review unless he were sentenced to death. I find no support in history or precedent for so severe a conclusion. See Naovarath v. State, 105 Nev. 525, 779 P.2d 944 (1989).
I conclude that the court of appeals did not abuse its discretion in determining that an abbreviated proportionality review was sufficient in this case, that it did not err in considering Valenzuela’s age in comparing the harshness of the sentence to the gravity of the offense, and that it correctly concluded that the sentence does not violate the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution. For those reasons, I specially concur in the result reached by the majority.
I am authorized to state that Justice LOHR and Justice MULLARKEY join in this special concurrence.