State v. Edwards

132 So. 3d 448, 2014 WL 130986, 2014 La. App. LEXIS 62
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedJanuary 15, 2014
DocketNo. 48,673-KA
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 132 So. 3d 448 (State v. Edwards) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Louisiana Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Edwards, 132 So. 3d 448, 2014 WL 130986, 2014 La. App. LEXIS 62 (La. Ct. App. 2014).

Opinion

BROWN, Chief Judge.

LOn June 13, 2008, defendant, Tiray Edwards, who was 15 years old, and his 21-year-old cousin, Tarsa Cooley, committed a string of robberies that culminated in the murder of a store clerk. Jurisdiction of the juvenile court was divested following defendant’s indictment for first degree murder. La. Ch. C. art. 305. Pursuant to an agreement, defendant pled guilty to armed robbery with a firearm, in violation of La. R.S. 14:64 and 14:64.3. Second degree murder and attempted armed robbery counts were dismissed. The plea agreement required that defendant testify against Cooley and that defendant would be sentenced to 20 years at hard labor. He did testify and was sentenced to the agreed 20 years at hard labor. A motion to reconsider sentence was denied. Defendant now appeals his sentence. We affirm.

Facts

On June 13, 2008, defendant and his cousin, Tarsa Cooley, both armed with handguns, went to a Family Dollar Store in Shreveport, Louisiana. Defendant remained outside while Cooley entered the store and robbed a woman of her purse. [450]*450The female’s purse contained only four dollars. Cooley fired a round into the store as he fled. The two then targeted a Texaco station; however, the clerk locked the door before the robbers could gain entry. When Cooley discovered that the station was locked, he accosted a man at a gas pump and stole his car. As their last stop of the day, the pair went to Max’s Pawn Shop. While defendant waited in the car, Cooley went inside to rob the store clerk. Although the clerk made no threatening movements, Cooley shot and killed him. Cooley then fled the store without taking any money. To cover their getaway, defendant fired shots into the store’s windows.

|2On July 10, 2008, a grand jury indicted defendant for first degree murder. However, on September 28, 2010, defendant was charged by an amended indictment with one count of second degree murder, one count of armed robbery with a firearm (the Family Dollar Store incident) and one count of attempted armed robbery with a firearm (the Texaco station incident).

On . February 28, 2011, defendant pled guilty to the armed robbery with a firearm charge (the Family Dollar Store incident). In exchange for both defendant’s plea and his testimony against Cooley, the state agreed to dismiss the two remaining charges in the amended bill of indictment.

Additionally, the state and defendant agreed to a 20-year hard labor sentence. The trial court accepted defendant’s plea and deferred sentencing until after defendant testified at Cooley’s trial.1

On August 8, 2011, and in accordance with the plea agreement, the trial court sentenced defendant to 20 years at hard labor. On August 24, 2011, defendant filed a motion to reconsider sentence, wherein he alleged various reasons as to why his sentence was cruel, unusual and excessive. First, defendant claimed that his youthful age, his lack of development, maturity, and education, and the fact that he was acting under the undue influence of convicted felons and drug abusers warranted leniency. He asserted that the sentence was disproportionate to the gravity of the offense and his amount of participation. He claimed to be remorseful and contrite for his actions. In support of his motion, defendant attached a litany of |sletters written on his behalf by his family members and other members of the community.

The trial court conducted a hearing on the motion on March 27, 2018. Noting the severity of the crimes committed, the trial court concluded that defendant benefited greatly from the 20-year sentence provided in the plea agreement. Moreover, his sentence was a low range sentence for armed robbery, which provided for a hard labor term of not less than 10 years nor more than 99 years. The trial court denied the motion to reconsider sentence. Defendant timely appealed.

Discussion

In Miller v. Alabama, _ U.S. _, 132 S.Ct. 2455, 183 L.Ed.2d 407 (2012), the U.S. Supreme Court declared unconstitutional mandatory life sentences without parole for all juvenile offenders. At the time of the plea negotiations, guilty plea, and sentence in the instant case, Miller, supra, had not yet been decided by the Supreme Court. Thus, at that time, defendant was facing a mandatory life sentence without parole under the second degree murder statute, making the 20-year hard labor sentence in the plea offer seem reasonable. Defendant claims that the [451]*451Supreme Court’s subsequent holding in Miller, supra, caused the plea bargaining process in the instant matter to be unreasonable and/or subject to scrutiny such that defendant may now challenge the ex-cessiveness of his sentence.

Miller held that the Eighth Amendment forbids a sentencing scheme that mandates life in prison without the possibility of parole for offenders under 18 years of age at the time of their crime. “By making youth (and all 14that accompanies it) irrelevant to imposition of that harshest prison sentence, such a scheme poses too great a risk of disproportionate punishment.” Miller, 132 S.Ct. at 2469. The Miller court further stated, “[Bjecause that holding is sufficient to decide these cases, we do not consider Jackson’s and Miller’s alternative argument that the Eighth Amendment requires a categorical bar on life without parole for juveniles ... Although we do not foreclose a sentencer’s ability to make that judgment in homicide cases, we require it to take into account how children are different, and how those differences counsel against irrevocably sentencing them to a lifetime in prison.” Id.

The Miller court clearly declined to categorically prohibit life-without-parole sentences for juveniles or alternatively to address whether Graham v. Florida, 560 U.S. 48, 130 S.Ct. 2011, 176 L.Ed.2d 825 (2010), requires an absolute rule prohibiting such a sentence for those who did not kill or intend to kill. What Miller invalidated was mandatory life without parole statutes for offenders under 18 years of age.

Defendant’s argument that the United States Supreme Court’s holding in Miller, supra, rendered his plea bargaining process unreasonable is without merit. The Miller case does not categorically prohibit sentences of life imprisonment without the benefit of parole for juvenile offenders. Instead, it requires a sentencing court first to consider an offender’s youth and attendant characteristics before imposing life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Thus, had defendant rejected the plea offer and been convicted at trial, he could have been sentenced to life imprisonment without Rparole, plus two additional 99-year without the benefit of parole sentences. As such, the plea bargaining process was not unreasonable. Furthermore, defendant pled guilty to armed robbery with a firearm, not to an offense that had a mandatory penalty of life without parole.

We again note that, as argued by defendant, the crime, plea and sentence in this case were all before the decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in Miller. As to a chance at resentencing for many individuals who were under 18 years of age and previously sentenced under the mandatory statutes, our supreme court has found that Miller's proscriptions are not retroactive. See State v. Tate, 12-2763 (La.11/05/13), 130 So.3d 829, 2013 WL 5912118.

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State v. Johnston
198 So. 3d 151 (Louisiana Court of Appeal, 2016)

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Bluebook (online)
132 So. 3d 448, 2014 WL 130986, 2014 La. App. LEXIS 62, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-edwards-lactapp-2014.