Court Opinion

ID: 9927087
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-01-26 06:05:01.145481+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:23:47.045326
License: Public Domain

If this opinion indicates that it is “FOR PUBLICATION,” it is subject to
                 revision until final publication in the Michigan Appeals Reports.

                          STATE OF MICHIGAN

                            COURT OF APPEALS

PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN,                                     UNPUBLISHED
                                                                     January 25, 2024
               Plaintiff-Appellee,

v                                                                    No. 364096
                                                                     Kalamazoo Circuit Court
DONNIE OMAR WOGOMAN,                                                 LC No. 1993-0888-FC

               Defendant-Appellant.

Before: GADOLA, C.J., and MURRAY and YATES, JJ.

PER CURIAM.

        In 1993, a jury convicted defendant, Donnie Omar Wogoman, of first-degree murder. The
trial court sentenced defendant to serve a prison term of life without parole for that crime. At the
time he committed that offense, defendant was 19 years old. Nearly three decades later, defendant
sought relief from judgment. On appeal on leave granted,1 defendant cites Miller v Alabama, 567
US 460; 132 S Ct 2455; 183 L Ed 2d 407 (2012), and People v Parks, 510 Mich 225; 987 NW2d
161 (2022), in asking this Court to rule that he was improperly sentenced to life without parole for
the crime he committed at the age of 19. Because binding precedent limits the application of those
decisions to crimes committed before the age of 19, we must affirm defendant’s sentence.

                                 I. FACTUAL BACKGROUND

        On June 10, 1993, defendant participated in an armed robbery that resulted in the shooting
death of Christopher Ricketts. William Edward Neilly fired the fatal shot after defendant prompted
him to steal Ricketts’s stereo system that was playing loud music. Before the shooting, defendant
asked James Matrice Brown: “Do you have bullets?” After Brown assured defendant that Brown
had bullets, defendant retrieved a gun and gave it to Brown. Neilly and Brown then agreed to take
the stereo system from Ricketts. Armed with the gun, Neilly and Brown walked up to Ricketts,
who was sitting in a vehicle, and told him to give them all of his possessions. Ricketts drove away

1
 People v Wogoman, unpublished order of the Court of Appeals, entered May 12, 2023 (Docket
No. 364096).

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at high speed, but Neilly fired two shots at the speeding vehicle. One of those shots killed Ricketts.
On November 8, 1993, a jury found Neilly and defendant guilty of first-degree felony murder and
other serious crimes.

        On December 20, 1993, the trial court sentenced defendant to serve life without parole for
the felony-murder charge. During the sentencing hearing, the trial court painstakingly explained
why the sentence of life without parole was appropriate for defendant, who was 19 years old when
Ricketts was shot and killed.2 Defendant sought first-tier appellate review by claim of right. This
Court rejected defendant’s arguments and affirmed his convictions and sentences. See People v
Wogoman, unpublished per curiam opinion of the Court of Appeals, issued July 5, 1996 (Docket
No. 173121). Our Supreme Court thereafter denied leave to appeal. 454 Mich 902 (1997).
         On several occasions, defendant moved for relief from judgment, but those motions did not
result in relief. Most recently, in November of 2022, defendant filed a successive motion for relief
from judgment arguing that he is entitled to resentencing in light of a retroactive change in the law.
Specifically, defendant insisted that his sentence of life without parole is unconstitutional in light
of Miller, 567 US at 489, Montgomery v Louisiana, 577 US 190; 136 S Ct 718; 193 L Ed 2d 599
(2016), and Parks, 510 Mich 225, because he was only 19 years old when the murder took place.
On November 17, 2022, the trial court denied that motion, reasoning that those cases do not apply
to defendant because he was “8 months and 21 days into his 19th year, and passed the ‘18 years or
under’ line drawn by the Parks court.” We granted defendant leave to appeal, so we must consider
his argument on the merits.

                                      II. LEGAL ANALYSIS

        Defendant asserts that his mandatory sentence of life without parole for first-degree felony
murder committed when he was 19 years old violates the Michigan constitutional prohibition of
cruel or unusual punishment. This Court reviews “questions of constitutional law de novo.” Parks,
510 Mich at 245. As our Supreme Court has held, “mandatorily subjecting 18-year-old defendants
convicted of first-degree murder to a sentence of life without parole violates the principle of
proportionality derived from the Michigan Constitution, . . . and thus constitutes unconstitutionally
cruel punishment under Const 1963, art 1, § 16.” Id. at 268. Two panels of this Court, however,
have held in published opinions that that rule does not apply to defendants who were older than 18
when they committed first-degree murder. People v Czarnecki (On Remand, On Reconsideration),
___ Mich App ___; ___ NW2d ___ (2023) (Docket No. 348732); People v Adamowicz (On Second
Remand), ___ Mich App ___; ___ NW2d ___ (2023) (Docket No. 330612). Those opinions relied
on our Supreme Court’s decision in People v Hall, 396 Mich 650; 242 NW2d 377 (1976), which
determined that “the punishment [of life without parole for felony murder] is proportionate to the
crime.” Id. at 658, citing People v Lorentzen, 387 Mich 167; 194 NW2d 827 (1972).

        In Adamowicz, ___ Mich App at ___; slip op at 3, this Court ruled “that under the Michigan
Constitution it was not cruel or unusual punishment to sentence defendant, who indisputably was
21 at the time he committed first-degree premeditated murder, to the mandatory sentence of life

2
  According to defendant’s judgment of sentence, he was born on September 20, 1973. The killing
took place on June 10, 1993, which was approximately three months before defendant turned 20.

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without the possibility of parole that the Legislature determined is warranted in this case.” Along
the way, we cited Hall, observing that “the Supreme Court has already upheld the constitutionality
of a sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole imposed upon an adult for the
crime of first-degree murder.” Id. Then, in Czarnecki, ___ Mich App at ___; slip op at 2, we dealt
with a defendant who “was sentenced to mandatory life in prison without the possibility of parole
for a first-degree murder that he committed at the age of 19.” Explaining how the Hall and Parks
decisions should be applied to 19-year-olds, we commented that “[o]ur Supreme Court in Parks
explicitly limited the effect its opinion had on Hall, stating that its ‘opinion today does not affect
Hall’s holding as to those older than 18.’ ” Id., citing Parks, 510 Mich at 255 n 9. We are bound
to follow those holdings of this Court and cannot “anticipatorily ignore” binding precedent. MCR
7.215(C)(2) (“A published opinion of the Court of Appeals has precedential effect under the rule
of stare decisis.”) Without additional extension of Miller by the United States Supreme Court or
Parks by our Supreme Court, we must conclude that defendant’s mandatory prison sentence of life
without parole for first-degree felony murder committed at the age of 19 continues to pass muster
under the United States Constitution and the Michigan Constitution, Const 1963, art 1, § 16.

       Affirmed.

                                                              /s/ Michael F. Gadola
                                                              /s/ Christopher M. Murray
                                                              /s/ Christopher P. Yates

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