Resentencing on Eighth Amendment Grounds

Some inmates are serving long sentences for older crimes that would receive a much shorter sentence under today’s law. It is clear at this point that they cannot have today’s law applied to them retroactively, as Jessie discussed in this prior post. That’s true for inmates who received longer sentences under Fair Sentencing, State v. Whitehead, 365 N.C. 444 (2012), or earlier versions of Structured Sentencing, State v. Lee__ N.C. App. __, 745 S.E.2d 73 (2013). And it is so because the legislature has always made changes to the sentencing law apply prospectively. That’s all well and good as a matter of legislative intent, but do those inmates have a constitutional argument that their sentences violate the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment? After all, the amendment is informed by the “evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society.” Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97 (1976). Does a downward change in the way the legislature punishes an offense demonstrate an evolved standard? Two recent cases conclude it does not. In State v. Stubbs, __ N.C. App. __, 754 S.E.2d 174 (2014), the defendant received a life sentence for a second-degree burglary committed in 1973. He filed an MAR arguing that after almost forty years in prison, he had already served “nearly ten times the length of time that any defendant could be ordered to serve today.” (The maximum possible sentence today for second-degree burglary, a Class G felony, is 47 months.) The trial judge agreed, [...]