Court Opinion

ID: 9810034
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 21:38:35.389872+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:39:20.609884
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE COATS,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
188 While I agree with the majority that in Miller v. Alabama, - U.S. --, 132 S.Ct. 2455, 2469, 183 L.Ed.2d 407 (2012), the Supreme Court created a new rule of criminal procedure not applicable to convictions already final before its announcement, I do not agree with the majority about the precise nature of that new rule or its impact on the sentencing statutes of this jurisdiction. In particular, I disagree with the justification offered by the majority for judicially redefining "life imprisonment," as that statutory term applied to juveniles sentenced for class 1 felonies during the times pertinent to these cases, maj. op. 1 32-34, taking it from having a meaning of "imprisonment without the possibility of parole," to effectively meaning imprisonment without the possibility of parole unless that sentence would be constitutionally disproportionate, in which case having a meaning of imprisonment "with the possibility of parole after forty years," maj. op. 132. Besides not agreeing that any statute of this jurisdiction needs amending or replacing, I am troubled by the majority's assertion that notwithstanding the inapplicability of the palliative doctrines of severance and revival, a court may (in the absence of legislative replacement itself) simply decide what kind of sentencing provision the legislature would have preferred had it known its first choice would be disallowed, and then judicially effect that preference on behalf of the legislature. Because I believe the judi-clary lacks the power to legislate, no matter how confident it may be of legislative preferences never actually enacted; and because I believe, in any event, the new procedural rule announced in Miller merely requires an individualized proportionality determination for juveniles sentenced to the harshest available sentence, I coneur in only a part of the majority opinion.
189 By analogizing life-without-parole, as the harshest sentence constitutionally permissible for juveniles, to the death penalty, the Supreme Court in Miller concluded that imposing such a life sentence without individualized consideration of the juvenile's age and age-related characteristics would create too great a risk of a disproportionate sentence. Miller, - U.S. at ---, 182 S.Ct. at 2469. The Supreme Court reached that conclusion by seeing it as the intersection of two separate strands of its proportionality jurisprudence: the first involving categorical bans on certain sentences for juveniles, see Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551, 575, 125 S.Ct. 1183, 161 L.Ed.2d 1 (2005) (banning death penalty for juveniles) Graham v. Florida, 560 U.S. 48, 76-80, 130 S.Ct. 2011, 176 L.Ed.2d 825 (2010) (banning life-without-parole for nonhomicide offenses committed by juveniles), and the second requiring individualized sentencing for the death penalty, the harshest sentence available for the general population. Rather than finding a new categorical ban for juveniles or extending the complex process of jury balancing required for death sentences, the Court chose to take a step it had previously rejected, even for the most serious and violent crimes, and found that the question whether a life-without-parole sentence for juveniles convicted of homicide offenses is constitutionally disproportionate cannot be resolved without consideration of the individual characteristics of each defendant.
190 In Harmelin v. Michigan, 501 U.S. 957, 995, 111 S.Ct. 2680, 115 L.Ed.2d 836 (1991), the Supreme Court was invited to extend the individualized capital sentencing doctrine to life-without-parole, and it emphatically refused to do so. (Scalia, J., writing for a majority of the Court at Part IV). In Close v. People, 48 P.3d 528, 580 (Colo.2002), this court parsed to a fare-thee-well the reasoning of Harmelin, as the final word in proportionality jurisprudence at the time, concluding that only an "abbreviated proportionality review" was initially required of any but death sentences, and only if that abbreviated proportionality review were to give rise to an inference of gross disproportionality would an "extended proportionality review" be required. I believe Miller is best understood as adding a new layer, or perhaps wrinkle, to the Court's proportionality juris*979prudence, singling out juvenile sentences of life-without-parole as a class of sentences which, in the absence of individualized consideration of the age and age-related characteristics of the juvenile defendant, "pose too great a risk of disproportionate punishment." Miller, - U.S. at --, 132 S.Ct. at 2469. Rather than striking down state statutes not providing for juvenile homicide sentences less harsh than life-without-parole, I understand Miller to simply mandate an individualized consideration of the constitutional proportionality of such sentences when imposed on a juvenile.
T91 We have long recognized that even statutorily mandated sentences are subject to review concerning their proportionality for Eighth Amendment purposes, see Close, 48 P.3d at 538-39, and if such a sentence is found to be disproportionate, the defendant must be resentenced in a manner that meets constitutional limitations. We have never suggested, and I believe it is clearly not the case, that a recidivist sentencing statute is unconstitutional simply because its manda-torily prescribed formula results in a disproportionate sentence in a given case. So too, a juvenile sentence of life-without-parole for capital murder is subject to a proportionality review. Although the abbreviated review required of such a sentence prior to Miller was adequate to demonstrate that the sentence was, on its face, not grossly disproportionate, since Miller that proportionality determination cannot be made without individualized consideration of the age and age-related characteristics of the particular defendant. And if that life-without-parole sentence is found to be disproportionate upon an individualized proportionality review, according to the standards implied in Miller, the juvenile must be resentenced to a constitutionally proportionate sentence.
T92 Because neither this court nor the Supreme Court has had occasion to review a sentence imposed in the wake of a determination that a statutorily mandated sentence was disproportionate, the principles governing such resentencing have not been firmly established. Because my understanding of Miller has not carried the day, there seems little point in working out in detail the possibilities for resentencing, should an individualized proportionality review result in a finding of disproportionality in some particular case, except to note that unlike the court of appeals, see People v. Valdes, 56 P.3d 1148 (Colo.App.2002); id. at 1154-55 (Dailey, J., dissenting), I believe a proper application of existing proportionality principles would require that the defendant be sentenced to the harshest available proportionate sentence included in the disproportionate mandatory sentence. And in this regard, I note only that this jurisdiction recognized, at the time pertinent here, a life sentence as to which parole eligibility commenced after forty years, § 18-1.3-406, C.R.S. (2014), as well as a sentence to forty-eight years for less culpable murders, with parole eligibility determined as with all felony sentences to a term of years. See § 18-1.3-401, C.R.S. (2014); see also Ankeney v. Raemisch, 2015 CO 14, 344 P.3d 847.
193 With regard to the question of retro-activity, I concur in the majority's conclusion that Miller creates a new rule of criminal procedure of a kind that we and the Supreme Court have held inapplicable to judgments already surviving direct review. Whatever its underlying rationale concerning the culpability of juveniles may portend, see Miller, - U.S. at --, 182 S.Ct. at 2482 (Roberts, C.J., dissenting), the Miller majority's choice to decline (at least for the time being) carving out another categorical ban and instead to merely mandate a new procedure cannot be ignored. To the extent that Miller merely adds a new component to its jurisprudence governing proportionality reviews, as I be-Heve, Supreme Court precedent for not applying new rules governing individualized review to convictions already past direct review is even more clear. See, e.g., Schriro v. Summerlin, 542 U.S. 348, 353, 124 S.Ct. 2519, 159 L.Ed.2d 442 (2004) (concluding that the new rule prohibiting sentencing judges from finding aggravating cireumstance necessary for imposition of death penalty not to be applied retroactively); see generally 7 Wayne LaFave et al., Criminal Procedure § 28.6(e) (8d ed.2014).
I 94 I also concur in the majority's analysis concluding that the doctrines of severance and revival cannot apply to this situation. *980While the result of my approach may ultimately be the same or similar to that of the majority, I am nevertheless concerned about the majority's suggestion that this court can simply implement what it believes to be the wish of the legislature, notwithstanding the failure of the accepted doctrines of severance and revival to produce that result. These two related doctrines have developed as acceptable rationales for leaving in place constitutional enactments or constitutional portions of enactments when the legislature's full, or most recent, enactment cannot survive constitutional serutiny. The fact that legislative intent is a necessary condition for leaving in effect some constitutional residue, however, in no way implies that legislative intent is a sufficient condition for judicial substitution of an entirely new enactment. And I find it less than comforting to simply declare this a unique situation as to which this, at least questionable, exercise of legislative power will henceforth be limited.
195 Because I agree with the majority that Miller creates a new rule of criminal procedure that is inapplicable to judgments already surviving direct review, but I believe that new rule has merely a limited impact on the Court's existing proportionality jurisprudence, I concur in part and dissent in part.