People v. Bennett

335 Mich.App. 409

966 N.W.2d 768

PEOPLE of the State of Michigan, Plaintiff-Appellee,

v. David Leroy BENNETT, also known as David Lenory Bennett, Defendant-Appellant,andMichigan Protection and Advocacy Service Inc., Amicus Curiae.

No. 350649

Court of Appeals of Michigan.

Submitted December 8, 2020, at Detroit.

Decided January 21, 2021, 9:05 a.m.

Dana Nessel, Attorney General, Fadwa A. Hammoud, Solicitor General, Kym L. Worthy, Prosecuting Attorney, Jason W. Williams, Chief of Research, Training, and Appeals, and Jon P. Wojtala, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, for the people.

Bush Seyferth PLLC (by Susan M. McKeever, Derek J. Linkous, Andrea S. Carone, and Grant A. Newman) for defendant.

John Schwend for Michigan Protection and Advocacy Service, Inc., Amicus Curiae.

Before: Swartzle, P.J., and Beckering and Gleicher, JJ.

Gleicher, J. David Bennett was 17 years old when he stabbed Vivian Berry to death. The jury rejected his insanity defense and convicted him of first-degree murder, MCL 750.316. The trial judge sentenced Bennett to life imprisonment without parole, as required under Michigan law.

Forty years later, the United States Supreme Court held that when imposed on a juvenile, a mandatory sentence of life without parole constitutes cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution. Miller v. Alabama , 567 U.S. 460, 465, 132 S. Ct. 2455, 183 L. Ed. 2d 407 (2012). The Supreme Court later imbued Miller with retroactive effect, entitling Bennett to a resentencing hearing.

Montgomery v. Louisiana , 577 U.S. 190, 208-209, 136 S. Ct. 718, 193 L. Ed. 2d 599 (2016). On resentencing, the judge determined that because Bennett is mentally ill—a condition that remained undiagnosed and untreated until Bennett's incarceration—he "might" be unable to care for himself if released. For that reason, the judge opted to reimpose a life-without-parole sentence.

The resentencing court improperly employed Bennett's mental illness as a factor weighing against his release and compounded that error by relying on speculation, not evidence. We vacate Bennett's sentence and remand for resentencing to a term of years.

I. LEGAL CONTEXT

Anticipating that the United States Supreme Court would give Miller retroactive effect, Michigan's Legislature designed a system for resentencing all prisoners serving life without parole who were under the age of 18 when they committed the offense. MCL 769.25a. In those cases, the resentencing court must select either life without parole or a term-of-years sentence. MCL 769.25a(2). Prosecutors seeking imposition of a life-without-parole sentence are obligated to file a motion specifying the grounds for imposing that punishment. MCL 769.25a(4)(b). The resentencing court then must hold a hearing to consider the juvenile sentencing factors set forth in Miller and other relevant information, including the defendant's "record while incarcerated." MCL 769.25(6). The court is additionally obligated to "specify on the record the aggravating and mitigating circumstances considered by the court and the court's reasons supporting the sentence imposed." MCL 769.25(7). If the court elects a term-of-years sentence rather than life without parole, "the court shall sentence the individual to a term of imprisonment for which the maximum term shall be not less than 60 years and the minimum term shall be not less than 25 years or more than 40 years." MCL 769.25(9). Bennett has served seven years more than the longest minimum term allowable under the statute.

At a resentencing hearing, MCL 769.25 requires that the judge take into account the "hallmark features" of youth, known as the Miller factors. The Miller factors developed from the Eighth Amendment proportionality principles described by the United States Supreme Court in other decisions involving juvenile sentencing: Roper v. Simmons , 543 U.S. 551, 125 S. Ct. 1183, 161 L. Ed. 2d 1 (2005), and Graham v. Florida , 560 U.S. 48, 68, 130 S. Ct. 2011, 176 L. Ed. 2d 825 (2010). The Court observed in Graham and repeated in Miller that "[t]he concept of proportionality is central to the Eighth Amendment." Graham , 500 U.S. at 59, 111 S.Ct. 1661 ; Miller , 567 U.S. at 469, 132 S.Ct. 2455. That concept, the Court emphasized in Miller , must be viewed in a manner that gives meaning to "the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society." Miller , 567 U.S. at 469, 132 S.Ct. 2455 (quotation marks and citations omitted).

Those evolving standards have led to a recognition that "imposing the death penalty for nonhomicide crimes against individuals, or imposing it on [intellectually disabled] defendants, violates the Eighth Amendment."¹ Id. at 470, 132 S. Ct. 2455. In line with these precepts, Roper held that the Eighth Amendment categorically prohibits imposing the death penalty on defendants who were under 18 years old when the crime was committed, and Graham barred life-without-parole sentences for juvenile nonhomicide offenders. Miller , 567 U.S. at 470, 132 S.Ct. 2455. "[T]he confluence of these two lines of precedent" led the Supreme Court to conclude in Miller "that mandatory life-without-parole sentences for juveniles violate the Eighth Amendment." Id.

Miller ’s holding is grounded in the propositions that "children are constitutionally different from adults for purposes of sentencing," "have diminished culpability and greater prospects for reform," and "are less deserving of the most severe punishments." Id. at 471, 132 S. Ct. 2455 (quotation marks and citation omitted). The "distinctive attributes of youth" render the customary penological justifications for harsh sentencing—retribution, deterrence, and incapacitation—far less relevant in the context of minors. Id. at 472-473, 132 S. Ct. 2455. Rather than focusing on that traditional trio of sentencing factors, Miller requires judges to bear in mind that youth "is a time of immaturity, irresponsibility, impetuousness[,] and recklessness." Id. at 476, 132 S. Ct. 2455 (quotation marks and citation omitted; alteration in original). These qualities, the Court stressed, are almost always "transient." Id. (quotation marks and citation omitted).

The Court additionally noted that childhood is a time when we are " ‘most susceptible to influence and to psychological damage.’ " Id ., quoting Eddings v. Oklahoma , 455 U.S. 104, 115, 102 S. Ct. 869, 71 L. Ed. 2d 1 (1982). Eddings was "especially on point," in the Court's view, Miller , 567 U.S. at 476, 132 S.Ct. 2455, and it is particularly pertinent here, too. The 16-year-old defendant in Eddings entered a nolo contendere plea to the charge of first-degree murder of a police officer, putting him at risk of the death penalty. Eddings , 455 U.S. at 106, 102 S.Ct. 869. At the sentencing hearing, he presented evidence that he had been severely abused by his parents and was mentally and emotionally "disturbed." Id. at 107, 102 S. Ct. 869. Although the Supreme Court did not use the term "mental illness," the description of the defendant's condition is consistent with that phrase.²

The sentencing judge weighed Eddings's youth as a strong mitigating factor but refused to consider the "fact" of Eddings's "violent background" or his psychological or emotional disorders. Id. at 109, 102 S. Ct. 869 (quotation marks omitted). The Oklahoma appellate court "conceded that Eddings had a ‘personality disorder,’ but cast this evidence aside on the basis that ‘he knew the difference between right and wrong ... and that is the test of criminal responsibility.’ " Id. at 113, 102 S. Ct. 869.

The Supreme Court reversed, vacating Eddings's death sentence and ordering that on remand "all relevant mitigating evidence" be considered. Id. at 117, 102 S. Ct. 869. The Court had "no doubt that evidence of a turbulent family history, of beatings by a harsh father, and of severe emotional disturbance is particularly relevant," id. at 115, 102 S. Ct. 869, reasoning:

Eddings was not a normal 16-year-old; he had been deprived of the care, concern, and paternal attention that children deserve. On the contrary, it is not disputed that he was a juvenile with serious emotional problems, and had been raised in a neglectful, sometimes even violent, family background. In addition, there was testimony that Eddings'[s] mental and emotional development were at a level several years below his chronological age. All of this does not suggest an absence of responsibility for the crime of murder, deliberately committed in this case. Rather, it is to say that just as the chronological age of a minor is itself a relevant mitigating factor of great weight, so must the background and mental and emotional development of a youthful defendant be duly considered in sentencing. [ Id. at 116, 102 S.Ct. 869.]^{[3 ]}

Miller ’s citation of and specific reliance on Eddings informs our approach to this case. It is beyond dispute that the "qualities of youth" encapsulated in the Miller factors include untreated mental illness born of an abusive childhood or exacerbated by living in an abusive home.

Miller details the many reasons that precedent, science, and common sense mandate that juvenile homicide offenders be approached differently than adults for sentencing purposes. The Court adopted several guideposts that must inform a judge's sentencing evaluation. These factors apply in both initial sentencings and in resentencing hearings necessitated by Montgomery . Specifically, before resentencing an adult to life without parole for a homicide committed while a juvenile, a court must still consider "the family and home environment that surrounds him—and from which he cannot usually extricate himself—no matter how brutal or dysfunctional"; "the circumstances of the homicide offense, including the extent of his participation in the conduct and the way familial and peer pressures may have affected him"; that a youthful offender "might have been charged and convicted of a lesser offense if not for...