Dampier v. State

375 So.3d 1149

De’Andre DAMPIER a/k/a Deandre Dampier

v.STATE of Mississippi

NO. 2021-CT-00280-SCT

Supreme Court of Mississippi.

12/07/2023

RANKIN COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT, HON. DEWEY KEY ARTHUR, JUDGE

ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLANT: TAMARRA AKIEA BOWIE OFFICE OF STATE PUBLIC DEFENDER BY: GEORGE T. HOLMES, Jackson

ATTORNEY FOR APPELLEE: OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL BY: ASHLEY LAUREN SULSER

EN BANC.

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI

MAXWELL, JUSTICE, FOR THE COURT:

¶1. In 2004, then-sixteen-year-old De’Andre Dampier participated in an auto-dealership robbery during which the business owner was murdered. A jury convicted Dampier of capital murder. And the judge sentenced him to the only statutory sentence available at the time—life in pris- on without parole. In 2008, this Court affirmed Dampier’s conviction and sentence. Dampier v. State, 973 So. 2d 221 (Miss. 2008).

¶2. Four years later, the United States Supreme Court ruled that imposing mandatory life-without-parole sentences on juveniles violates the Eighth Amendment. Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460, 465, 132 S. Ct. 2455, 183 L. Ed. 2d 407 (2012). Based on Miller, this Court granted Dampier’s request to seek post-conviction relief from his life-without-parole sentence. After Dampier filed his PCR motion, but before the trial court addressed any of the Miller factors, the trial court vacated Dampier’s life-without-parole sentence. Citing Mississippi Code Section 99-19-101(1) (Rev. 2020), Dampier then requested that a jury be convened to decide if he should be sentenced to life with or without parole. The trial judge denied this request. And after a hearing in which the trial judge considered the Miller factors, the trial judge reimposed a sentence of life in prison without parole.

¶3. Dampier appealed. And his appeal was assigned to the Court of Appeals, which affirmed. Dampier v. State, No. 2021-KA-00280-COA, — So.3d —, 2022 WL 4903820 (Miss. Ct. App. Oct. 4, 2022). Dampier then sought certiorari review by this Court. Specifically, he argued that he had a statutory right to be resentenced by a jury. According to Dampier, our precedent on this issue—namely McGilberry v. State, 292 So. 3d 199 (Miss. 2020), and Wharton v. State, 298 So. 3d 921 (Miss. 2019)—is not only wrong but also has no application to his situation. We granted certiorari. And after review, we find no error in either McGilberry or Wharton. Nor do we find error in the Court of Appeals’ application of those two cases in the appellate court’s denial of Dampier’s statutory claim.

[1] ¶4. In McGilberry, we held that Section 99-19-101(1), triggered upon conviction of capital murder, "does not address the scenario before us—the resentencing of a juvenile offender based on the constitutional requirements of Miller." McGilberry, 292 So. 3d at 207. This is because, as we explained in Wharton, when a PCR petitioner like Dampier receives permission to proceed with a Miller-based claim in the trial court, what is going on is not a resentencing. Wharton, 298 So. 3d at 928. Rather, the petitioner is being given the opportunity to seek post-conviction relief and "show[ ] that, under application of the Miller factors …, the offender’s life-without-parole sentence is unconstitutional." Wharton, 298 So. 3d at 927.

[2] ¶5. For this reason, the trial court should not have vacated Dampier’s sentence before considering Dampier’s Miller-based PCR claim. To be clear, when we granted Dampier permission to file a petition for post-conviction relief in the trial court, we were doing just that—providing Dampier an opportunity to seek relief from his life-without-parole sentence based on the intervening Miller decision. Therefore, we reject Dampier’s assertion that he had a statutory right to be sentenced by a jury. The decision to be made by the trial court was whether Dampier was entitled to post-conviction relief from his life-without-parole sentence, imposed for a crime committed when he was a juvenile. And Section 99-19-101(1) simply does not apply in this scenario.

¶6. Thus, we agree with the Court of Appeals that the trial judge did not err by denying Dampier’s request for jury sentencing. We also agree, for the reasons stated in the Court of Appeals’ opinion, that the trial court did not err by ruling that, after a careful consideration of the Miller factors, life without parole was an appropriate sentence for Dampier’s crime.

¶7. We therefore affirm.

Background Facts & Procedural History

I. Conviction and Sentence

¶8. In 2005, Dampier was charged with the 2004 capital murder of Harry McGuffee, Jr., during the robbery of McGuffee’s auto dealership. Dampier’s older accomplice pled guilty. But Dampier was tried before a jury. The jury convicted Dampier of capital murder in 2006.

¶9. The State decided not to pursue the death penalty due to the fact Dampier was sixteen years old during the robbery-based murder. Dampier, 973 So. 2d at 227 n.17. So the trial judge sentenced Dampier to the only sentence statutorily available for capital murder—life in prison without the possibility of parole. Id. at 228; see Pham v. State, 716 So. 2d 1100, 1103 (Miss. 1998) (holding that when the State does not seek the death penalty for capital murder, "a trial judge may impose the only possible sentence"—life without the possibility of parole—"without formally returning the matter to the jury for sentencing"). When declaring Dampier’s sentence, the trial judge observed—"I’ve seen a lot of defendants, and I’ve handed down a lot of sentences, and this sentence is as justified as any of them that I’ve ever handed down."

¶10. Dampier appealed. And this Court affirmed in 2008. Dampier, 973 So. 2d at 237.

II. Miller v. Alabama

[3] ¶11. Four years later, in 2012, the United States Supreme Court handed down Miller, 567 U.S. 460, 132 S.Ct. 2455. In that case, the Supreme Court held "that the Eighth Amendment forbids a sentencing scheme that mandates life in prison without possibility of parole for juvenile offenders." Id. at 479, 132 S. Ct. 2455 (emphasis added). While "Miller does not prohibit sentences of life without parole for juvenile offenders," it does "require[ ] [the sentencing authority] ‘to take into account how children are different, and how those differences counsel against irrevocably sentencing them to a lifetime in prison." Parker v. State, 119 So. 3d 987, 995 (Miss. 2013) (second alteration in original) (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting Miller, 567 U.S. at 480, 132 S.Ct. 2455). Specifically, "Miller … identified several factors that must be considered by the sentencing authority …." Id. at 995-96 (discussing Miller factors).

¶12. Following Miller, Dampier filed a motion with this Court in May 2013. In this motion, Dampier alleged that, because he was sixteen years old at the time of the offense, his mandatory life-without-parole sentence was unconstitutional. See Order, Dampier v. State, No. 2013-M-00808 (Miss. Nov. 14, 2013). Dampier asked this Court to vacate his sentence and order a new sentencing hearing. Id. Alternatively, he requested leave to file a motion for post-conviction relief in the trial court. Id. This Court granted his request for alternative relief—leave to file in the trial court a motion for post-conviction relief seeking to vacate his sentence. Id.

III. PCR Proceeding

¶13. In 2015, the trial court vacated Dampier’s sentence and ordered a new sentencing hearing. This hearing was postponed multiple times over several years. In 2018, Dampier moved the trial court to impose a life-with-parole sentence or, alternatively, convene a jury to sentence him under Section 99-19-101. Two years later, Dampier moved again for jury sentencing. The trial court denied this motion, determining that Dampier’s "Miller resentencing" would be decided by the trial court.

¶ 14. The trial court held a hearing on February 23, 2021, for which Dampier was present. The trial court carefully considered both Dampier’s and the State’s arguments and each Miller factor. The court determined that Dampier "failed to convince the Court that the Miller considerations prohibit the imposition of a sentence of life without the possibility of parole in this case." The court thus sentenced Dampier to life without parole.

¶15. Dampier appealed. And we assigned his appeal to the Court of Appeals, which affirmed. Dampier, — So.3d at —, 2022 WL 4903820, at *19. In its opinion, the Court of Appeals considered and rejected all four of Dampier’s appellate arguments—that Dampier had a statutory right to jury resentencing, that Dampier’s sentence was disproportionate as a matter of law, that Dampier was wrongly denied adequate funds for the mitigation investigator, and that the trial court applied the wrong legal standard in sentencing Dampier to life without parole. Id. at — – —, 2022 WL 4903820, at **6-19.

¶16. Dampier petitioned this Court for writ of certiorari, which this Court granted specifically to address his argument that he had a statutory right to be resentenced by a jury. See Guice v. State, 952 So. 2d 129, 133 (Miss. 2007) (acknowledging and exercising this Court’s authority to limit the question on certiorari review).

Discussion

[4] ¶17. Dampier’s argument to this Court—that he had a statutory right to be resentenced by a jury—is not novel. Twice this Court has considered claims by PCR petitioners in the same position as Dampier who were sentenced to life in prison without parole pre-Miller. McGilberry, 292 So. 3d 199; Wharton, 298 So. 3d 921. And twice this Court has held that the sentencing statute on which Dampier relies—Section 99-19-101(1)—does not apply in the post-conviction-relief context when a petitioner seeks review of his sentence based on Miller. McGilberry, 292 So. 3d at 207; Wharton, 298 So. 3d at 925. Instead, Section 99-19-101(1) applies to the initial sentencing of a juvenile convicted of capital murder when, despite the parole prohibition in Mississippi Code Section 47-7-3(1)(c)(ii) (Rev. 2023), life imprisonment with the...