Opinion
No. 167
04-02-2019
RONALD GENE WATTERS v. STATE OF MARYLAND
Circuit Court for Wicomico County
Case No. 22-K-89-000818
UNREPORTED
Friedman, Beachley, Moylan, Charles E., Jr. (Senior Judge, Specially Assigned), JJ. PER CURIAM *This is an unreported opinion, and it may not be cited in any paper, brief, motion, or other document filed in this Court or any other Maryland Court as either precedent within the rule of stare decisis or as persuasive authority. Md. Rule 1-104.
In 1988, Ronald Watters, appellant, was convicted of first-degree murder and other related offenses following a jury trial in the Circuit Court for Wicomico County. Mr. Watters, who was 17 years old at the time he committed the crimes, was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
In 2017, Mr. Watters filed a motion to correct illegal sentence, which the court granted, and he was re-sentenced to life imprisonment with the possibility of parole. He now appeals raising a single issue: whether a life sentence with the possibility of parole imposed upon a juvenile, under current Maryland law, violates the Eighth Amendment because it fails to afford the defendant a meaningful opportunity for eventual release based upon a showing of maturation and rehabilitation. Mr. Watters concedes, and we agree, that the Court of Appeals rejected this argument in Carter v. State, 461 Md. 295, 343-46 (2018) (holding that Maryland's current parole scheme, as it applies to juvenile offenders serving a life sentence, provides a "meaningful opportunity to obtain release based on demonstrated maturity or rehabilitation" and thus does not violate the Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment). And we must follow opinions assented to by a majority of the Court of Appeals unless they are subsequently overruled in another case or by statute. See Marlin v. State, 192 Md. App. 134, 151 (2012). Because Mr. Watters's life sentence does not violate the Eighth Amendment, we affirm the judgment of the circuit court.
Mr. Watters raised this issue in his motion to correct illegal sentence and at his re-sentencing hearing.
JUDGMENT OF THE CIRCUIT COURT FOR WICOMICO COUNTY AFFIRMED. COSTS TO BE PAID BY APPELLANT.