State v. Mares

Juvenile Law Center filed an amicus brief in the Wyoming Supreme Court on behalf of Edwin Mares, who was convicted of first degree murder as a teenager, and who received a life without parole sentence.

Juvenile Law Center’s brief argued that his sentence was unconstitutional pursuant to the United States Supreme Court’s ruling in Miller v. Alabama, which banned mandatory life without parole sentences for juveniles. At the time he was sentenced for a crime he committed as a minor, Wyoming law prohibited the possibility of parole for all prisoners serving a life sentence. As applied to juvenile offenders, this mandatory life without parole scheme is unconstitutional pursuant to Miller. However, following the Miller decision, the Wyoming legislature attempted to cure this constitutional defect by providing parole review after twenty-five years of imprisonment.

Before the Wyoming Supreme Court is first, whether Miller’s holdings are moot as applied to Mares given the legislature’s revision. Second, the Supreme Court must decide whether Miller should be given retroactive effect and thus, whether Mares should be resentenced following an individualized sentencing hearing. We asserted that the legislature’s revisions were insufficient remedies to the state’s unconstitutional sentencing scheme and that Miller applies retroactively to cases like these, which were final before the decision came down from the U.S. Supreme Court and thus are being considered on collateral review. Specifically, our brief argued that, first, Miller mandates an individualized sentencing hearing before a prisoner is sentenced. This means the legislature’s attempt to cure this constitutional deficiency by granting parole review after a prisoner has served a twenty five year sentence is insufficient. Second, we argue that the United States Supreme Court has already answered the question of retroactivity by applying Miller to Kuntrell Jackson’s case, which was before the court on collateral review. Third, Miller announced a substantive rule, which pursuant to Supreme Court precedent applies retroactively. Fourth, even assuming the rule is procedural, Miller is a watershed rule of criminal procedure that applies retroactively. Finally, Miller must be applied retroactively because, once the Court determines that a punishment is cruel and unusual when imposed on a child, any continuing imposition of that sentence is itself a violation of the Eighth Amendment; the date upon which an unconstitutional mandatory life without parole sentence is imposed cannot convert it into a constitutional sentence. For each of these reasons, we argued that Miller applies retroactively to Mares.

On October 9, 2014 the Wyoming Supreme Court held that Miller applied retroactively to cases on collateral review.

Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth, Center for Children’s Law and Policy, Children and Family Justice Center, Children’s Law Center of California, Colorado Juvenile Defender Coalition, Defender Association of Philadelphia, Juvenile Justice Initiative, National Association of Counsel for Children, National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, National Juvenile Defender Center, National Juvenile Justice Network, Northeast Juvenile Defender Center, Pacific Juvenile Defender Center, Rutgers School of Law – Camden Children’s Justice Clinic, San Francisco Office of the Public Defender, Youth Law Center, Professor Mary Berkheiser, and Professor Stephen K. Harper joined this brief.