Opinion
No. 2018-M-00530
01-28-2019
JONSHA BELL Petitioner v. STATE OF MISSISSIPPI Respondent
Serial: 221864 EN BANC ORDER
Before the Court is Jonsha Bell's Application for Leave to File Motion for Post-Conviction Relief. Also before the Court are the State of Mississippi's Response in Opposition to Application for Leave to File Motion for Post-Conviction Relief, and Bell's Reply to State's Response in Opposition to Application for Leave to File Motion for Post-Conviction Relief.
In 1995, Bell was convicted of armed robbery, burglary, and two counts of kidnapping. Bell committed the offenses when he was seventeen years old. He was sentenced as a habitual offender to serve aggregate sentences totaling ninety-five years without the possibility of parole. In the instant petition, Bell asserts that his sentences are tantamount to an illegal, life-without-parole sentence for a juvenile, non-homicide offender. See Graham v . Florida , 560 U.S. 48, 130 S. Ct. 2011, 176 L. Ed. 2d 825 (2010) (Eighth Amendment prohibits imposition of life-without-parole sentences on juvenile, non-homicide offenders).
After due consideration, the Court finds that Bell's petition is without merit and should, therefore, be denied.
IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED that Jonsha Bell's Application for Leave to File Motion for Post-Conviction Relief is hereby denied.
SO ORDERED, this the 28th day of January, 2019.
/s/ Josiah D. Coleman
JOSIAH D. COLEMAN, JUSTICE
FOR THE COURT TO DENY: WALLER, C.J., RANDOLPH, P.J., COLEMAN, MAXWELL, BEAM AND CHAMBERLIN, JJ. TO GRANT: KITCHENS, P.J., KING AND ISHEE, JJ. KING, J., OBJECTS TO THE ORDER WITH SEPARATE WRITTEN STATEMENT JOINED BY KITCHENS, P.J., AND ISHEE, J.
JONSHA BELL
v.
STATE OF MISSISSIPPI
KING, JUSTICE, OBJECTING TO THE ORDER WITH SEPARATE WRITTEN STATEMENT: ¶1. Pursuant to the Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution, "[e]xcessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted." U.S. Const. amend. VIII; see also Miss. Const. art 3, § 28 ("Cruel or unusual punishment shall not be inflicted, nor excessive fines be imposed."). The United States Supreme Court, in Graham v. Florida , 560 U.S. 48, 130 S. Ct. 2011, 176 L. Ed. 2d 825 (2010), held that the Eighth Amendment barred courts from sentencing juvenile nonhomicide offenders to life without parole. Because aggregate term-of-years sentences that leave a defendant without an opportunity to obtain release are the fundamental equivalent of life without parole, I disagree with the majority's order denying Jonsha Bell's petition for post-conviction relief. ¶2. Bell, in the aggregate, was sentenced to serve ninety-five years for crimes committed when he was just seventeen years old. I would find that Bell's sentences violate the Supreme Court's holding in Graham , which mandated that "the State must . . . give defendants like Graham some meaningful opportunity to obtain release based on demonstrated maturity and rehabilitation." Graham , 560 U.S. at 75. The Supreme Court reasoned that "life without parole is 'the second most severe penalty permitted by law.'" Id. at 71 (quoting Harmelin v. Michigan , 501 U.S. 957, 1001, 111 S. Ct. 2680, 115 L. Ed. 2d 836 (1991)). It shares characteristics with the death penalty that no other sentence shares. Id. As the Court stated, a life without parole sentence guarantees that a juvenile offender
will die in prison without any meaningful opportunity to obtain release, no matter what he might do to demonstrate that the bad acts he committed as a teenager are not representative of his true character, even if he spends the next half century attempting to atone for his crimes and learn from his mistakes.Id. at 79. ¶3. The Supreme Court stated in Miller that "imposition of a State's most severe penalties on juvenile offenders cannot proceed as though they were not children." Miller , 567 U.S. at 474. The Court then restated the principles established in Roper v. Simmons , 543 U.S. 551, 125 S. Ct. 1183, 161 L. Ed. 2d 1 (2005), and Graham that "children are constitutionally different from adults for sentencing purposes" due to their "lack of maturity" and "underdeveloped sense of responsibility." Miller , 567 U.S. at 471. The Court continued that "[a] child's character is not as 'well formed' as an adult's; his traits are 'less fixed' and his actions less likely to be 'evidence of irretrievabl[e] deprav[ity].'" Id. (quoting Roper , 543 U.S. at 570). ¶4. The Supreme Court found that the Eighth Amendment prohibited States "from making the judgment at the outset that those offenders never will be fit to reenter society." Graham , 560 U.S. at 75. Yet the State has done exactly that in Bell's case. Bell's sentences total ninety-five years, ensuring that Bell will never again reenter society. The aggregate sentences strip away all incentive for Bell to learn from and to atone for his mistakes. They deny Bell his right to obtain release based on demonstrated maturity and rehabilitation. Just as a life-without-parole sentence unlawfully denies a juvenile offender a meaningful opportunity to obtain release, so does an aggregate sentence amounting to the same. ¶5. Bell was convicted of nonhomicide crimes and was sentenced to serve an equivalent of life without parole. Because sentencing a juvenile to serve aggregate sentences that extend beyond the juvenile's natural life expectancy violates the Eighth Amendment and the Supreme Court's mandate in Graham that the State provide a meaningful opportunity for release for nonhomicide juvenile offenders, I disagree with this Court's order denying Bell's petition for post-conviction relief. I would reverse and remand Bell's case for resentencing.
KITCHENS, P.J., AND ISHEE, J., JOIN THIS SEPARATE WRITTEN STATEMENT.
See also State v. Moore, 76 N.E.3d 1127, 1137-38 (Ohio 2016) ("Although the defendant in Graham was serving a life sentence, we conclude that the principles behind Graham apply equally to a juvenile nonhomicide offender sentenced to prison for a term of years that extends beyond the offender's life expectancy."); Bear Cloud v. State, 334 P.3d 132, 142 (Wyo. 2014) ("Like the Indiana Supreme Court, we will 'focus on the forest—the aggregate sentence—rather than the trees—consecutive or concurrent, number of counts, or length of the sentence on any individual count.'"); State v. Null, 836 N.W.2d 41, 72 (Iowa 2013) ("We conclude that Miller's principles are fully applicable to a lengthy term-of-years sentence as was imposed in this case because an offender sentenced to a lengthy term-of-years sentence should not be worse off than an offender sentenced to life in prison without parole who has the benefit of an individualized hearing under Miller."); People v. Caballero, 282 P.3d 291, 295 (Cal. 2012) (citing Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460, 132 S. Ct. 2455, 2458, 183 L. Ed. 2d 407 (2012)) ("Miller therefore made it clear that Graham's 'flat ban' on life without parole sentences applies to all nonhomicide cases involving juvenile offenders, including the term-of-years sentence that amounts to the functional equivalent of a life without parole sentence imposed in this case.");