Justices: Convicted man’s hearing waived in error

Murderer sentenced to life term at 17 in 2000

The 2012 U.S. Supreme Court case barring automatic life sentences for teenage murderers affected more than 50 inmates in the Arkansas Department of

Correction.

A man who was convicted in Hempstead County in 2000 of capital murder for a crime committed when he was 17 should not have been resentenced on May 4, 2017, under the Fair Sentencing of Minors Act of 2017, which became effective March 20, 2017, the Arkansas Supreme Court said Thursday.

The majority opinion, written by Justice Courtney Hudson Goodson, cited a 2012 U.S. Supreme Court case, Miller v. Alabama, in which the court held that the Eighth Amendment forbids a mandatory sentence of life without parole for a juvenile offender. The court also held that a minor facing a life-without-parole sentence is entitled to a sentencing hearing at which a judge or jury may consider individual circumstances of the crime and the defendant’s characteristics.

Marlon Donte Howell, now 36, was convicted on Dec. 11, 2000, in Hempstead County Circuit Court of capital murder, in the shooting of Daryl Allen Sr. on April 29, 2000. He received a mandatory sentence of life without parole after the state waived the death penalty.

But after the Miller decision, he filed a petition in 2016 for a new sentencing hearing. That resulted in his life-without-parole sentence being vacated. But before he could be resentenced in Hempstead County, Arkansas legislators passed the Fair Sentencing Act — Act 539 of 2017 — which eliminated life without parole for juvenile offenders and instead made them eligible for parole after 30 years.

On March 21, 2017, the state asked Hempstead County Circuit Judge Duncan Culpepper to forgo the previously authorized resentencing hearing and instead sentence Howell to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 30 years, pursuant to the Fair Sentencing Act. The state asserted that the Fair Sentencing Act applied retroactively, and Culpepper agreed, sentencing Howell accordingly on May 4, 2017.

Howell fought the application of the 2017 law by presenting copies of sentencing orders in 14 similar cases that had already been resentenced under Miller, but Culpepper denied his request for relief on May 24. Howell’s appeal of that ruling led to Thursday’s Arkansas Supreme Court ruling.

In his appeal, Howell cited a 2018 Arkansas Supreme Court case, Harris v. State, in which the court said the Fair Sentencing Act didn’t apply to a similarly situated offender and ordered a new sentencing hearing. In the opinion issued Tuesday, the majority of the Supreme Court agreed that Harris is controlling in Howell’s case, and that the Fair Sentencing Act isn’t retroactive and applies only to crimes committed after March 20, 2017.

In Harris, the state’s high court said he was entitled to a hearing at which he could present evidence about his individual characteristics and the circumstances of the crime, and be sentenced within the discretionary range for a Class Y felony: 10 to 40 years or life in prison. The same applies to Howell, Goodson wrote, reversing and remanding the case to Hempstead County.

Justices Shawn Womack and Rhonda Wood dissented. Womack didn’t issue a separate opinion, saying his reasons are the same that he set out in a dissenting opinion in the 2018 Harris decision.

The 2012 U.S. Supreme Court case barring automatic life sentences for teenage murderers affected more than 50 inmates in the Arkansas Department of Correction.

Last week, the Arkansas Supreme Court sent back another one of the cases that had resulted in resentencings, also citing the improper application of the 2017 Fair Sentencing Act, this time by a Crawford County circuit judge. The ruling means a new resentencing hearing for Tony Ray, who was first resentenced in October 2017 under the Fair Sentencing Act.

Ray, 38, was 16 in 1997 when he and Michael Hinkston shot Lisa Lewis to death with a shotgun in her Van Buren home and stole her car. Hinkston was an adult at the time.

The state’s high court ordered that Ray be allowed to present evidence for sentencing within the 10 to 40 years or life range.