Opinion
SC: 165625 COA: 325834
12-15-2023
PEOPLE of the State of Michigan, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Robert TAYLOR, Defendant-Appellant.
Macomb CC: 2009-005243-FC
Order
On order of the Court, the application for leave to appeal the March 9, 2023 judgment of the Court of Appeals is considered, and it is DENIED, because we are not persuaded that the questions presented should be reviewed by this Court.
Welch, J. (dissenting).
In 2011, defendant Robert Taylor received a mandatory sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole (LWOP) for his conviction of first-degree felony murder, MCL 750.316(1)(b), in connection with the brutal killing of Matt Landry in 2009. Defendant was 16 years old when Landry was killed, and he was convicted under an aiding and abetting theory for his role as an accomplice to codefendant Ihab Masalmani. Defendant and Masalmani were tried separately. As this Court has previously noted, following the trials, Masalmani admitted responsibility for Landry’s murder and stated that defendant was not present when Landry was killed. See People v Taylor, 510 Mich. 112, 120 n 2, 987 N.W.2d 132 (2022). Because defendant was tried under an aiding and abetting theory, it was not necessary for the prosecution to prove that defendant intended for Landry to die or suffer great bodily harm—or even that he was present at the time of the murder. Rather, "if an aider and abettor participates in a crime with knowledge of the principal’s intent to kill or to cause great bodily harm, the aider and abettor is acting with ‘wanton and willful disregard’ sufficient to support a finding of malice" for purposes of felony murder. People v Riley (After Remand), 468 Mich. 135, 140, 659 N.W.2d 611 (2003).
Defendant was also convicted of carjacking, MCL 750.529a; conspiracy to commit carjacking, MCL 750.529a and MCL 750.157a; kidnapping, MCL 750.349; conspiracy to commit kidnapping, MCL 750.349 and MCL 750.157a; and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony, MCL 750.227b.
While his convictions were affirmed, defendant was resentenced following the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Miller v Alabama, 567 U.S. 460, 132 S.Ct. 2455, 183 L.Ed.2d 407 (2012), which held that mandatory LWOP for juvenile offenders violates the prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution. In light of Miller, the Michigan Legislature enacted MCL 769.25, which provided a procedural pathway for the prosecution to seek a sentence of LWOP for juvenile offenders. After defendant’s Miller resentencing hearing in 2014, the trial court again sentenced defendant to LWOP.
Defendant again appealed his sentence. In 2022, this Court held in defendant’s case that MCL 769.25 provides "a rebuttable presumption against the imposition of juvenile LWOP sentences in Michigan and that it is the prosecution’s burden to overcome this presumption by clear and convincing evidence .... " Taylor, 510 Mich. at 129, 987 N.W.2d 132. If the presumption is not rebutted, then the default sentence under MCL 769.25 is a term of years. Id. at 132, 987 N.W.2d 132. Although these holdings now require that defendant receive another Miller hearing before a new sentence can be imposed, we remanded his case to the Court of Appeals to specifically address defendant’s remaining argument that his LWOP sentence violates the Eighth Amendment and Const. 1963, ait. 1, § 16, because he was convicted of felony murder as an aider and abettor. On remand, the Court of Appeals held that under Miller and People v Carp, 496 Mich. 440, 521-526, 852 N.W.2d 801 (2014), vacated on other grounds and remanded sub nom. Carp v Michigan, 577 U.S. 1186, 136 S.Ct. 1355, 194 L.Ed.2d 339 (2016), there was no categorical bar to LWOP for youthful offenders convicted of felony murder pursuant to an aiding and abetting theory. See People v Taylor (On Remand), unpublished per curiam opinion of the Court of Appeals, issued March 9, 2023, 2023 WL 2439473 (Docket No 325834), pp. 4-9.
In his current application for leave to appeal, defendant now urges this Court, under the Eighth Amendment or Const. 1963, art. 1, § 16, to categorically bar LWOP sentences for juveniles who neither killed nor intended to kill. Taken to its logical extension, if correct, defendant’s argument would mean that a sentence of LWOP is constitutionally inappropriate for any juvenile convicted of felony murder under an aider and abettor theory. I believe this is an issue worthy of review.
The Court of Appeals read too much between the lines of the Miller opinion when it suggested that Miller rejected this line of argument under the Eighth Amend- ment. It is true that one of the defendants in Miller—Mr. Jackson—was convicted under an aider and abettor theory for acts committed while he was 14 years old. But Miller did not analyze whether the Eighth Amendment categorically prohibits a sentence of LWOP for a juvenile convicted as an aider or abettor, and any analysis on that issue would have been dictum given the holding that any form of mandatory LWOP for juvenile offenders violated the Eighth Amendment. Miller, 567 U.S. at 479, 132 S.Ct. 2455. Miller also expressly did "not consider Jackson’s and Miller’s alternative argument that the Eighth Amendment requires a categorical bar on life without parole for juveniles, or at least for those 14 and younger." Id.
Moreover, in Graham v Florida, 560 U.S. 48, 69, 130 S.Ct. 2011, 176 L.Ed.2d 825 (2010), which struck down LWOP sentences for juvenile offenders who had committed non-homicide offenses, the Court stated that "defendants who do not kill, intend to kill, or foresee that life will be taken are categorically less deserving of the most serious forms of punishment than are murderers," and "when compared to an adult murderer, a juvenile offender who did not kill or intend to kill has a twice diminished moral culpability. The age of the offender and the nature of the crime each bear on the analysis." It is also notable that Justice Breyer’s concurring opinion in Miller stated that "[g]iven Graham's reasoning, the kinds of homicide that can subject a juvenile offender to life without parole must exclude instances where the juvenile himself neither kills nor intends to kill the victim." Miller, 567 U.S. at 490, 132 S.Ct. 2455 (Breyer, J., concurring). The question of whether the Eighth Amendment categorically prohibits a sentence of LWOP for juvenile offenders convicted of felony murder under an aiding and abetting theory has never been answered by the United States Supreme Court.
This Court’s prior decision in Carp, to the extent it remains sound precedent, presents a different situation. The majority in Carp rejected arguments that Miller was retroactive, and it also rejected broader arguments that the Eighth Amendment or Const. 1963, art. 1, § 16 categorically prohibited all sentences of LWOP for juvenile homicide offenders. Carp, 496 Mich. at 518, 521, 852 N.W.2d 801. Moving past categorical bans, the majority also addressed one defendant’s narrower argument that the Eighth Amendment categorically prohibits LWOP for juveniles convicted of felony murder under an aider and abettor theory, id. at 522-533, 852 N.W.2d 801, and opined that
This holding was invalidated by the United States Supreme Court’s ruling to the contrary in Montgomery v Louisiana, 577 U.S. 190, 136 S.Ct. 718, 193 L.Ed.2d 599 (2016).
when a juvenile can be convicted of felony murder on an aiding-and-abetting theory while either intending to kill or having foreseen the possibility that a life could be taken, any categorical rule gleaned from Graham pertaining to the limited situation in which a juvenile homicide offender lacked the intent to kill and did not foresee the possibility that a life could be taken will once again not categorically bar the imposition of a sentence of life without parole for that offense. [Id. at 524-525, 852 N.W.2d 801.]
Thus, while the United States Supreme Court in Miller and Graham, did not directly address a categorical ban on LWOP for juvenile aiders and abettors to felony murder, this Court in Carp did dismiss defendant’s argument under the Eighth Amendment.
The Carp majority did not, however, decide whether the more protective language in Const. 1963, art. 1, § 16, which prohibits cruel or unusual punishment, categorically bars LWOP sentences for juveniles convicted of felony murder based on an aiding and abetting theory. The Carp majority instead deemed the facial and as- applied challenges brought under the state Constitution unripe for judicial review because the defendant raising these arguments was entitled to a resentencing proceeding pursuant to Miller and a former version of MCL 769.25. Carp, 496 Mich. at 527-528, 852 N.W.2d 801.
There were sound reasons to delay adjudication of an as-applied state constitutional challenge considering that the defendant in that case was entitled to a resentencing hearing and was not guaranteed to receive LWOP. However, I question the ripeness ruling made by the majority in Carp as to the facial challenge brought under Const. 1963, art. 1, § 16, given the majority's willingness to resolve the facial federal constitutional challenge.
This case would have presented an opportunity to reach the issue that was not decided in Carp—namely, whether Const. 1963, art. 1, § 16 prohibits the imposition of LWOP on juveniles convicted of felony murder under an aiding and abetting theory. Further, several of this Court’s decisions from 2022 suggest that the viability of Carp as precedent has been weakened and that it is now time to take a fresh look at the state constitutional arguments against the imposition of LWOP for juvenile offenders convicted of felony murder under an aiding and abetting theory. See Taylor, 510 Mich. at 129, 987 N.W.2d 132 (holding that there is "a rebuttable presumption against the imposition of juvenile LWOP sentences in Michigan" that the prosecution must overcome by "clear and convincing evidence"); People v Stovall, 510 Mich. 301, 313-322, 987 N.W.2d 85 (2022) (holding that Const. 1963, art. 1, §16 forbids the imposition of a mandatory sentence of probable life in prison on a juvenile who kills a person with malice but without premeditation); People v Parks, 510 Mich. 225, 244-245, 987 N.W.2d 161 (2022) (extending Miller to 18-year-old offenders under the Michigan Constitution as to mandatory sentences of LWOP and leaving the door open for application to older offenders whose brains had yet to finish developing fully); People v Boykin, 510 Mich. 171, 196, 987 N.W.2d 58 (2022) (holding that the Miller youth-related factors must be applied as mitigating considerations by a court at sentencing).
In my opinion, this Court should accept review of at least the facial constitutional challenges raised by defendant before he receives the resentencing hearing that has already been ordered. A decision on the facial constitutional challenge before another resentencing hearing occurs would eliminate an issue that defendant might seek to raise again later should he be sentenced to LWOP on remand, and resolution of the issue would provide a statewide benefit to the bench and bar.
I therefore respectfully dissent. It is my hope that the Court, in a future case, will consider in the first instance whether Const. 1963, art. 1, § 16 provides for a categorical ban of LWOP for juveniles convicted of felony murder under an aiding and abetting theory.