Opinion
A-14351
08-09-2024
State of Alaska, Petitioner, v. Winona M. Fletcher, Respondent.
Petition for Review Trial Court Case No. 3AN-11-12161CI
Before: Allard, Chief Judge, and Wollenberg and Terrell, Judges.
ORDER
In Fletcher v. State, this Court held that Article I, Section 12 of the Alaska Constitution requires a sentencing judge to consider a juvenile offender's youth and the attendant characteristics of youth (the Miller factors) before the court can sentence a juvenile tried as an adult to the functional equivalent of life without parole. We further held that a juvenile offender can only be constitutionally sentenced to the functional equivalent of life without parole if there is an on-the-record sentencing explanation that either explicitly or implicitly finds that the juvenile offender is one of the "rare" juvenile offenders "whose crime reflects irreparable corruption." We then remanded Fletcher's case to the superior court to determine whether this new constitutional rule applied to cases like Fletcher's, which are on collateral review.
See Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460, 477-78 (2012).
Fletcher v. State, 532 P.3d 286, 290, 311 (Alaska App. 2023).
Id. at 308 (quoting Miller, 567 U.S. at 479-80).
Id. at 325-26.
The superior court subsequently issued a written order, ruling that the new constitutional rule was retroactive under Judd v. State. The State now petitions for review of that decision, arguing that the superior court's retroactivity ruling is erroneous. For the reasons explained in this order, we grant the State's petition and affirm the superior court's ruling.
See Judd v. State, 482 P.2d 273 (Alaska 1971), overruled on other grounds by Charles v. State, 326 P.3d 978 (Alaska 2014). In Charles v. State, the Alaska Supreme Court distinguished between "limited ('direct review') retroactivity"i.e., when a new constitutional rule applies retroactively to cases on direct review - and "full retroactivity"i.e., when a new constitutional rule applies retroactively to cases on collateral review after the conviction is considered final. See Charles, 326 P.3d at 982. In Charles, the Alaska Supreme Court held that new constitutional rules automatically apply to cases on direct review. Id. at 984-85. Therefore, Fletcher already applies to cases on direct review. However, whether Fletcher is fully retroactive and applicable to cases already on collateral review is determined by the three-part Judd test. See id. at 985 n.66; State v. Smart, 202 P.3d 1130, 1138-40 (Alaska 2009) (using the three-part Judd test to determine whether Blakely is fully retroactive and explaining that the Judd test is at least as protective as the federal full retroactivity test under Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288 (1989)).
Why we affirm the superior court's retroactivity ruling
The Judd test requires the court to consider three factors when deciding whether a new constitutional rule applies to cases that are on collateral review. These three factors are: "(1) the purpose to be served by the new standards; (2) the extent of the reliance by law enforcement authorities on the old standards; and (3) the effect on the administration of justice of a retroactive application of the new standards." For the most part, these factors involve questions of law to which we apply our independent judgment.
Smart, 202 P.3d at 1140 (citing Judd, 482 P.2d at 277-78).
Id. at 1134.
The first factor - the purpose to be served by the new rule - "generally takes precedence over the other two factors[.]" Thus, "[w]here the major purpose of new constitutional doctrine is to overcome an aspect of the criminal trial which substantially impairs its truth-finding function and so raises serious questions about the accuracy of guilty verdicts in past trials, the new rule [is to be] given complete retroactive effect" and no further analysis is required. Conversely, "where the purpose of a new constitutional standard is not to minimize arbitrary or unreliable fact findings, but to serve other ends, retroactive application has generally been denied."
Fletcher, 532 P.3d at 325.
Rutherford v. State, 486 P.2d 946, 952-53 (Alaska 1971).
Id. at 953.
Here, the purpose to be served by the new constitutional rule relates to the integrity and fairness of a juvenile offender's sentence. That is, the new constitutional rule helps ensure that children are recognized as constitutionally different than adults for purposes of criminal sentencing and that only "irreparably corrupt" juvenile offenders are sentenced to the functional equivalent of life without the possibility of parole. The new rule also helps ensure that the trial court's sentencing is informed by the new brain and social science that underpin the United States Supreme Court decisions in Roper v. Simmons, Graham v. Florida, Miller v. Alabama, and Montgomery v. Louisiana.
Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460, 479-80 (2012); see also Montgomery v. Louisiana, 577 U.S. 190, 206-10 (2016).
Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551, 570-71 (2005).
Graham v. Florida, 560 U.S. 48, 68 (2010).
Miller, 567 U.S. at 471-72, 476-80.
Montgomery, 577 U.S. at 213.
Because the new rule enhances the accuracy and integrity of a juvenile offender's criminal sentence, the superior court concluded that the first Judd factor weighed in favor of full retroactivity. However, because the new rule related only to the accuracy and integrity of a defendant's sentence rather than their underlying conviction, the court concluded that the first factor was not dispositive and that consideration of the other two factors was also required. We agree with both parts of this analysis.
The second factor - the extent of the reliance by law enforcement authorities on the old standards - requires the court to look at past practices and to determine how reasonable that past reliance was. The superior court concluded that it was reasonable for state officials to rely on the then-existing case law governing sentencing juvenile offenders as adults. That is, because there was ample case law prior to Fletcher indicating that youthfulness should be considered when sentencing juvenile offenders as adults, it was not unreasonable for officials to assume this more general consideration of age was adequate, without the specific consideration of the Miller factors. The superior court also later concluded that, like society in general, crime victims have an interest in the finality of criminal cases. We agree with this analysis and therefore find that this factor weighs against full retroactivity.
See State v. Smart, 202 P.3d 1130, 1146 (Alaska 2009).
Alaska Const. art. I, § 24.
Lastly, we agree with the superior court that the third Judd factor - the effect on the administration of justice of a retroactive application of the new standards - weighs in favor of full retroactivity. To evaluate this factor, courts look at "the entire number of retroactivity claims that will be brought and ask[] how those cases will affect the administration of justice." Thus, in evaluating the retroactivity of the Blakely v. Washington decision in State v. Smart, the Alaska Supreme Court held that this factor weighed against full retroactivity because there were 250 Blakely claims already filed and "hundreds more" that would likely be filed if Blakely were held to be fully retroactive. As the court noted, "[r]eview of even 250 cases would take up a great amount of court and staff time." Moreover, if a defendant's sentence is overturned, "more time will be spent re-litigating aggravating factors":
Smart, 202 P.3d at 1146.
Blakely v. Washington, 542 U.S. 296 (2004).
Smart, 202 P.3d at 1146.
Id.
Prosecutors will have to reevaluate whether to bring the charges, old witnesses will have to be found, juries may have to be empaneled, court time will be spent relitigating, defense attorney and prosecutor time will be spent relitigating, and Department of Corrections time will be spent transporting convicted defendants to the courtroom.
Id.
The court therefore concluded that making Blakely retroactive would create "a major administrative problem" while not actually advancing an important constitutional principle.
Id. (quoting Smart, 146 P.3d at 44 (Coats, C.J., dissenting)).
The opposite is true here. Making Fletcher fully retroactive would advance an important constitutional principle - namely, ensuring that juveniles tried as adults in the Alaska courts are not subject to cruel and unusual punishment and that only juveniles who have been found to be "irreparably corrupt" will remain sentenced to de facto life without parole sentences. Moreover, advancing this important constitutional principle will not create a major administrative problem because there are, by all accounts, only a handful of cases that would be directly affected by a fully retroactive Fletcher holding.
See Fletcher v. State, 532 P.3d 286, 296-303 (Alaska App. 2023) (describing how the landscape of juvenile sentencing has changed since Miller and discussing legislative changes and state court decisions); see also State v. Booker, 656 S.W.3d 49, 61-63 (Tenn. 2022) (noting that juvenile homicide offender's sentence of 60 years with parole eligibility after serving 51 years made Tennessee "a clear outlier in its sentencing of juvenile homicide offenders" because the vast majority of jurisdictions (thirty-six states) allow juvenile homicide offenders to be parole eligible after serving, at most, 35 years).
We note that, even if Fletcher was not given full retroactivity, the Fletcher rule would still apply to any future sentencings and to any cases that were still on direct review when Fletcher was decided. See Charles v. State, 326 P.3d 978, 985 (Alaska 2014).
Indeed, in Fletcher, we identified only one other juvenile (Brian Hall) who received a sentence above the 135-year-sentence that Fletcher received. We also noted that there were two other juveniles who had received sentences above 99 years to serve. We then remanded the case to the superior court for further proceedings on retroactivity, which provided the State an opportunity to put forward any additional statistics.
Fletcher v. State, 532 P.3d 286, 321 n.223 (Alaska App. 2023) (citing Hall v. State, 1999 WL 34000714 (Alaska App. Mar. 10, 1999) (unpublished) (159 years with parole eligibility after 53 years)).
Id. (citing Watkinson v. State, 980 P.2d 469, 470, 473-74 (Alaska App. 1999); Gonzales v. State, 2014 WL 4176179, at *11-13 (Alaska App. Aug. 20, 2014) (unpublished)).
Notably, the State did not identify any additional cases where juvenile offenders had received lengthy sentences akin to the four cases already identified in Fletcher. But, in its motion before the superior court, the State pointed out that there were currently six cases on collateral review in which juvenile defendants who were tried as adults have filed motions to correct their sentences or applications for postconviction relief seeking to apply the Fletcher rule retroactively to their sentences. The State acknowledged that these defendants "might not prevail on their claims" because they may not have sentences that qualify as de facto life without parole sentences. But the State noted that the claims would nevertheless have to be "entertained and litigated" in at least some capacity because our decision in Fletcher did not definitively resolve what constitutes a de facto life without parole sentence.
We agree with the State that we must look at the total number of claims that may be filed, in addition to the number of claims for which some form of relief may be granted. But we disagree that the two sets of claims weigh equally heavily. The time that it will take to resolve cases where the juvenile offender has a colorable claim of a de facto life without parole sentence will obviously take longer than cases where the sentence is not long enough to qualify as a de facto life without parole sentence.
See Smart, 202 P.3d at 1146 ("Judd asks what effect retroactive application will have on the administration of justice, not how many appeals might be successful. Full retroactive application thus looks at the entire number of retroactivity claims that will be brought and asks how those cases will affect the administration of justice.").
In any event, the proceedings on remand have largely confirmed that the effect on the administration of justice of making Fletcher fully retroactive will be minimal and that the number of directly affected cases will be significantly less than the hundreds at issue in the Smart decision.
See id.
This is not to ignore the impact that any resentencings may have on the participants and the administration of justice. In its role as amicus, the Office of Victims' Rights urges us to consider the potential trauma to the victim that resentencing may pose. We agree that the interests of crime victims should be considered as part of the Judd analysis.
As an initial matter, we note (as the superior court did) that crime victims are not a monolithic group and that different victims may have different reactions to a potential resentencing. As the superior court observed:
[T]he Court must consider the interests of all crime victims. It is well understood that not everyone reacts to trauma in the same way. Many, like the victims here, feel revictimized every time the case reaches a new stage of litigation. Many others choose never to interact with the justice system. And still others forgive the perpetrators, and state their sincere hope for the offenders' rehabilitation. Even the range of reactions discussed here oversimplifies the complex and shifting emotions of crime victims. The Court cannot emphasize enough that all reactions are equally valid and deserve the Court's respect.
The superior court acknowledged that the retroactivity ruling "will undoubtedly have some impact" on the victims of the affected cases and the court recognized that a victim's right to a timely disposition is adversely affected by any resentencing that may occur. But the court also concluded that a victim's constitutional right to be treated with dignity and fairness was not implicated by the retroactivity decision because "the justice system can protect both the constitutional rights afforded to all defendants and ensure that victims are treated with dignity, fairness, and respect." As the superior court observed, "Rights are not a finite commodity - affording rights to a defendant does not necessarily lessen the rights of a victim."
See Alaska Const. art. I, § 24.
We agree that the rights of victims should be safeguarded through this process and that it is possible to address the potential constitutional infirmities in juvenile offenders' sentences on collateral review without undermining the important rights that crime victims have in our system.
See id.
Ultimately, having balanced the three Judd factors, we agree with the superior court's conclusion that the Fletcher decision should be fully retroactive to those cases on collateral review where juvenile offenders have received the functional equivalent of a life without parole sentence. Accordingly, the State's petition is GRANTED and the superior court's order ruling that Fletcher is fully retroactive is AFFIRMED.
Entered at the direction of the Court.