In
1985, the defendant was convicted of first-degree murder and other crimes for
his participation in a fatal shooting.
He was sentenced to the mandatory term of life without parole (LWOP). He was 18 years and 3 months old when he
committed the crimes. In 2018, the
defendant filed a successive motion for relief from judgment, seeking
resentencing under Miller v Alabama,
567 US 460 (2012), in which the U.S. Supreme Court held that mandatory
LWOP violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual
punishments when applied to offenders under the age of 18. In Montgomery
v Louisiana, 136 S Ct 718
(2016), the U.S. Supreme Court held that Miller
announced a new substantive constitutional rule and, therefore, was retroactive
on state collateral review. The
defendant argued in his successive motion for relief from judgment that Miller should
be applied to him in light of new scientific evidence regarding brain
development. The trial court denied the defendant’s
motion and the Court of Appeals dismissed his application for leave to appeal. The
Supreme Court has ordered oral argument on the application to address: (1) whether the defendant’s successive motion for relief from judgment is
“based on a retroactive change in law,” MCR 6.502(G)(2), where the law relied
upon does not automatically entitle him to relief; and (2) if so, whether the
United States Supreme Court’s decisions in Miller v Alabama,
567 US 460 (2012), and Montgomery v Louisiana,
136 S Ct 718 (2016), should be applied to 18 year old defendants convicted of
murder and sentenced to mandatory life without parole, under the Eighth
Amendment to the United States Constitution or Const 1963, art 1, § 16,
or both.