Geter v. State

115 So. 3d 375, 2012 Fla. App. LEXIS 16051, 2012 WL 4448860
CourtDistrict Court of Appeal of Florida
DecidedSeptember 27, 2012
DocketNo. 3D12-1736
StatusPublished
Cited by64 cases

This text of 115 So. 3d 375 (Geter v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court of Appeal of Florida primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Geter v. State, 115 So. 3d 375, 2012 Fla. App. LEXIS 16051, 2012 WL 4448860 (Fla. Ct. App. 2012).

Opinion

CORTINAS, J.

Drewery Geter appeals a circuit court order denying his motion for postconvic[376]*376tion relief filed pursuant to Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 8.800.

Geter was arrested for first-degree murder in December 2000, on the eve of his seventeenth birthday. Earlier that same day, a rock or stone was thrown through the front window of the victim’s home, breaking the window, and allowing Geter to gain entry into the home. The victim, in an attempt to defend her home, her child, and herself, struggled with Geter and struck him in the head with a crowbar. However, Geter was able to overpower the victim. He ripped the victim’s panties from her body, raped her, and ejaculated inside her vagina.1 During the violent struggle between the victim and Geter, the victim’s three-year-old son was awoken by his mother’s screams.

After the rape, Geter got a butcher knife. He stabbed the victim in the neck eight to twelve times. Geter then cut the victim from her elbow to her wrist so that she would bleed faster and die. When the victim still had not died, Geter finally choked her to death. The victim’s three-year old son witnessed the brutal murder of his mother. Before leaving the victim’s home, Geter passed by the victim’s son and told him to be a good boy.

On April 30, 2003, Geter was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment as a juvenile offender on June 23, 2003. On direct appeal, this Court affirmed Geter’s conviction and sentence on October 13, 2004. Geter’s three subsequent postconviction motions were denied by this Court without discussion, on October 28, 2005, September 2, 2009, and May 12, 2010, respectively. Geter now files this 3.800 motion seeking postconviction relief on the basis of the recent United States Supreme Court decision in Miller v. Alabama, — U.S. -, 132 S.Ct. 2455, 183 L.Ed.2d 407 (2012). The issue before this Court is whether Miller applies retroactively to postconviction proceedings involving a juvenile homicide offender whose conviction of first-degree murder and sentence to life imprisonment was final prior to the Miller decision. We conclude that under Florida law, Miller cannot be applied retroactively to Florida postconviction proceedings where the life sentence was already final when Miller was rendered. Accordingly, we affirm the circuit court’s order that denied Geter’s motion for postconviction relief.

Recently, the Supreme Court in Miller, 132 S.Ct. at 2461, held that the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment precludes juvenile homicide convictions that mandate a life sentence without first considering “mitigating factors of youth.” The Supreme Court explained that under Eighth Amendment guarantees, “a judge or jury must have the opportunity to consider mitigating circumstances before imposing the harshest possible penalty for juveniles.” Id. at 2475 (emphasis added). Thus, the determination in Miller focuses on a new procedure for criminal sentencing. Id. As the Supreme Court clarified, “[o]ur decision does not categorically bar a penalty for a class of offenders or type of crime, as for example, in [Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551, 125 S.Ct. 1183, 161 L.Ed.2d 1 (2005) ] or [Graham v. Florida, 560 U.S. 48, 130 S.Ct. 2011, 176 L.Ed.2d 825 (2010)].2 Instead [377]*377[Miller] mandates only that a sentencer follow a certain process — considering an offender’s youth and attendant characteristics — before imposing a particular penalty.” Miller, 132 S.Ct. at 2471. Clearly and unequivocally, the Supreme Court distinguished between the substantive determinations of a categorical bar prohibiting a “penalty for a class of offenders or type of crime,” as in Roper and Graham, and the procedural determination in Miller that merely requires consideration of mitigating factors of youth in the sentencing process. Id.

In determining whether Florida law allows retroactive application, we must first consider the content of Miller itself. See Hernandez v. State, 61 So.3d 1144, 1149 (Fla. 3d DCA 2011); Barrios-Cruz v. State, 63 So.3d 868, 871 (Fla. 2d DCA 2011). The Supreme Court’s language in Miller did not explicitly state whether or not Miller should be applied retroactively. Accordingly, “[t]o determine whether a new rule applies retroactively to final cases in postconviction proceedings, ... courts in Florida conduct a retroactivity analysis under Witt v. State, 387 So.2d 922 (Fla.1980).” Hernandez, 61 So.3d at 1150 (citation omitted); see also State v. Fleming, 61 So.3d 399, 403 (Fla.2011). Long ago, the Witt Court rejected “in the context of an alleged change of law, the use of post-conviction relief proceedings to correct individual miscarriages of justice or to permit roving judicial error corrections, in the absence of fundamental and constitutional law changes which cast serious doubt on the veracity or integrity of the original trial proceeding.” Witt, 387 So.2d at 929 (footnote omitted). In limiting the scope of postconviction relief, the Florida Supreme Court reasoned that “[t]o allow non-constitutional claims as bases for post-conviction relief is to permit a dual system of trial and appeal, the first being tentative and nonconclusive. Id. at 929-30. Our justice system could not accommodate such an expansion; our citizens would never tolerate the deleterious consequences for criminal punishment, deterrence and rehabilitation.” Id. at 928-29.

As Witt explains,

[Hjistory shows that most major constitutional changes are likely to fall within two broad categories. The first are those changes of law which place beyond the authority of the state the power to regulate certain conduct or impose certain penalties. This category is exemplified by Coker v. Georgia, 433 U.S. 584, 97 S.Ct. 2861, 53 L.Ed.2d 982 (1977), which held that the imposition of the death penalty for the crime of rape of an adult woman is forbidden by the eighth amendment as cruel and unusual punishment. The second are those changes of law which are of sufficient magnitude to necessitate retroactive application as ascertained by the three-fold test of [Stovall v. Denno, 388 U.S. 293, 87 S.Ct. 1967, 18 L.Ed.2d 1199 (1967)] and [Linkletter v. Walker, 381 U.S. 618, 85 S.Ct. 1731, 14 L.Ed.2d 601 (1965)]. Gideon v. Wainwright, [372 U.S. 335[, 83 S.Ct. 792, 9 L.Ed.2d 799] (1963)], of course, is the prime example of a law change included within this category.3

[378]*378Id. at 929 (footnotes omitted); see also Barrios-Cruz, 63 So.3d at 871; State v. Barnum, 921 So.2d 513, 519 (Fla.2005).

In contrast, “[o]n the opposite end of the spectrum are ‘evolutionary refinements in the criminal law5 which, according to Witt, are not applied retroactively.” Barnum, 921 So.2d at 519 (quoting Witt, 387 So.2d at 929).

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Bluebook (online)
115 So. 3d 375, 2012 Fla. App. LEXIS 16051, 2012 WL 4448860, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/geter-v-state-fladistctapp-2012.