State v. Soto

Juvenile Law Center filed an amicus brief in the New Hampshire Supreme Court on behalf of Michael Soto, Robert Tulloch, Robert Dingman, and Eduardo Lopez, who were separately convicted of first degree murder as teenagers, and who each received a life without parole sentence.

Juvenile Law Center’s brief argued that their sentences were 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 they were sentenced for a crime they committed as minors, New Hampshire law mandated a life without parole sentence for their murder-based offense. As applied to juvenile offenders, this mandatory scheme is unconstitutional pursuant to Miller. Before the New Hampshire Supreme Court is whether Miller should be given retroactive effect and thus, whether Soto, Tulloch, Dingman, and Lopez should be resentenced following an individualized sentencing hearing. We asserted 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, 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. Second, Miller announced a substantive rule, which pursuant to Supreme Court precedent applies retroactively. Third, 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 Soto, Tulloch, Dingman, and Lopez.

On August 29, 2014, the New Hampshire Supreme Court held that the rule announced in Miller constitutes a new substantive rule of law that applies retroactively to cases on collateral review. Consequently, Soto et al. are entitled to retroactive benefit of the new Miller sentencing rule.