The Michigan Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear applications for leave to appeal from three men who were under 21 when they allegedly either killed another person or took part in the planning of killing someone and were sentenced to life in prison without parole, a sentence they argue is unconstitutional due to their youth at the time of the crime.
The justices will hear the applications for leave to appeal of three young defendants: Andrew Michael Czarnecki, Adonte Marquis Bouie and John Antonio Poole, who say the state high court's July 2022 ruling in People v. Parks should apply to their cases.
In Parks, the Michigan Supreme Court held that mandatorily sentencing 18-year-olds to life without parole was a cruel punishment that violates the Michigan Constitution.
In Czarnecki and Bouie's cases, the justices asked the parties to address whether the Parks holding should be extended to defendants who are 19 and 20, respectively, at the time they commit a crime and are sentenced to mandatory life in prison. In Poole's case, the justices asked the parties to address whether the Parks decision can apply retroactively to cases that have already passed the deadline for direct review.
The justices will consider whether they would have to overrule People v. Hall, a 1976 decision that found the sentencing of a 17-year-old to life in prison without parole to be constitutional, to extend those protections and, if so, whether they should. John Sam Hall was released from prison in 2017, a few years after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Miller v. Alabama
that mandatory life without parole for juveniles without considering their youth is unconstitutional.Czarnecki was 19 when prosecutors say he killed Gavino Rodriguez in a robbery gone wrong. A jury convicted Czarnecki of first-degree murder and armed robbery, and he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
The Michigan Supreme Court had already considered Czarnecki's case and remanded his sentence appeal to the Court of Appeals for the intermediate panel to consider whether his sentence was unconstitutional considering the Parks decision. In December, a Michigan Court of Appeals panel affirmed the life sentence, saying the Parks decision did not affect those older than 18.
In his application to appeal, Czarnecki said the Michigan Supreme Court erred by not completely overruling Hall in its Parks decision. Hall, he said, was decided in the 1970s and without the benefit of decades of research on minors' brains.
"In the half-century since Hall, standards of decency have seismically shifted," Czarnecki said.
Czarnecki said that, at 19, his brain was "indistinguishable" from an 18-year-old's for the purposes of punishment and rehabilitation. Michigan courts have already recognized that 18-year-olds are less culpable than adults whose brains are fully developed, Czarnecki said in his February application for leave to appeal.
Prosecutors in that case have not yet filed a response.
Bouie was 20 years old when prosecutors allege he and his friend, Ashton Greenhouse, planned to retaliate against a group for robbing Greenhouse. They tried multiple times, and on one occasion in August 2016, someone not involved in the dispute, Aniya Edwards, was killed in a shootout, according to Bouie's October application for leave to appeal.
A jury convicted Bouie of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, and he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. He was acquitted of any charges that had to do with Edwards' death.
Bouie argued that his 20-year-old brain was not significantly scientifically different from a 17-year-old's, so they should be treated the same under state and federal constitutions.
"It is now well established that a person's brain attains maturity only once he reaches his mid-twenties," Bouie said. "Children cannot receive a life-without-parole sentence for a nonhomicide offense. Because 20-year-olds, like 17-year-olds, are in a phase of heavy brain development, they should not be subjected to life without parole for non-homicide offenses."
Bouie's appeal also asks the court to find that his conviction of conspiracy to commit first degree murder should be vacated because prosecutors had not established the intended victim of the conspiracy. He argued that Edwards was never the intended victim.
Prosecutors in Bouie's case also have not yet filed a response.
Poole was 18 when he was commissioned by his uncle to shoot and kill someone over a real estate transaction in 2001, according to a Court of Appeals opinion. He turned 19 within a month of the crime. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Prosecutors appealed the January Court of Appeals decision that vacated Poole's first-degree murder sentence in light of Parks. The appellate panel had said the Parks decision was a new substantive rule that removed the state's authority to impose mandatory life without parole sentences on 18-year-olds and said the trial court must consider Poole's youth in the sentencing.
Prosecutors said in the March application for leave to appeal that Parks did not categorically ban a penalty for a group of offenders, but instead mandates that a judge to follow a certain process before imposing a penalty and doesn't trigger retroactively.
Poole argued that Parks should be applied retroactively to cases that had final convictions at the time Parks was decided. The U.S. Supreme Court had not yet acknowledged that young people are entitled to sentencing protections when he was sentenced, so he could not have raised that challenge earlier, Poole said.
Michigan's State Appellate Defender Office, which is representing all the defendants, told Law360 on Monday that the cases are important for the Michigan Supreme Court to consider, saying sentencing young people to die in prison "simply doesn't make sense."
"Sentencing young people to die in prison is a practice that states across the country are examining and rejecting," the office said in a statement. "The law should take into account the undisputed science — that adolescents and late adolescents are capable of growth and rehabilitation. We know from data gathered from the so-called 'juvenile lifers' — those under age 18 when they committed first-degree murder — that releasing these young people after a period of incarceration is not a danger to society. To the contrary, this group has virtually no recidivism and contribute in meaningful ways to their communities and families."
The Wayne County Prosecutor's Office, which is prosecuting Czarnecki and Poole's cases, declined to comment Monday.
The people of the state of Michigan in Czarnecki's case are represented by Jon Wojtala of the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office.
Andrew Czarnecki is represented by Maya Menlo of the State Appellate Defender Office.
The people of the state of Michigan in Poole's case are represented by Tim Baughman of the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office.
John Antonio Poole is represented by Maya Menlo of the State Appellate Defender Office.
The people of the state of Michigan in Bouie's case are represented by Marilyn Day of the Oakland County Prosecutor's Office.
Adonte Marquis Bouie is represented by Steven Helton of the State Appellate Defender Office.
The cases are People of Michigan v. Andrew Michael Czarnecki, case number 166654, People of Michigan v. Adonte Marquis Bouie, case number 166232, and People of Michigan v. John Antonio Poole, case number 166813, all in the Michigan Supreme Court.
--Editing by Rich Mills.