Michigan Court of Appeals Affirms LWOP Sentence for Defendant Who Committed Offenses at Age 16
Recent Cases in Law and Neuroscience, Curated by the Center for Law, Brain & Behavior and the Shen Neurolaw Lab with support from the Dana Foundation
On December 22, 2020, a Michigan Court of Appeals affirmed the LWOP sentence of Barbara Hernandez for offenses she committed at age 16.
Hernandez was convicted in 1991 of first-degree murder and armed robbery and was sentenced to mandatory life without the possibility of parole (LWOP). She was 16 at the time of her offenses. Following the 2012 United States Supreme Court decision in Miller v. Alabama, prohibiting mandatory LWOP sentences for juveniles under age 18 at the time of their offenses, Hernandez was resentenced to discretionary LWOP. She appealed.
During Hernandez’s Miller resentencing hearing, the court considered all five Miller factors. The court found that the first two factors — her “chronological age and its hallmark features — among them, immaturity, impetuosity, and failure to appreciate risks and consequences” and her “family and home environment that surrounds [her] — and from which [she] cannot usually extricate [herself] — no matter how brutal or dysfunctional” — were in her favor. The appeals court agreed.
The trial court found that the third Miller factor, contemplating “the circumstance of the homicide offense” did not “favor leniency.” The appeals court agreed, due to Hernandez’s participation in the “especially brutal” murder; the victim was stabbed at least 10 times and was left “just short of decapitation.” The court also found that the fourth factor, regarding whether the defendant would have been “charged and convicted of a lesser offense if not for the incompetencies of youth[,]” did not favor Hernandez, a finding Hernandez did not challenge on appeal.
The fifth Miller factor regards the possibility of rehabilitation. The court did not “explicitly [state] that this factor weighed against” Hernandez, but “expressed concern regarding [Hernandez’s] rehabilitation prospects.” The appeals court noted that Hernandez received 17 misconduct tickets between the ages of 23 and 33 while incarcerated, stating that “defendant’s continued misconduct as an adult suggests that her crimes at the age of 16 may have been influenced by a more deeply rooted proclivity for deviant behavior” rather than her youth and impulsivity. Hernandez argued that “after a rocky start to her incarceration, she developed an overwhelmingly positive prison record” including obtaining her GED and completing college credits, and being assessed by the DOC as “presenting a low risk for recidivism or violence.”
The trial court cited Hernandez’s psychological evaluation, which, though ultimately concluding that Hernandez had been rehabilitated, stated that “she identifies with a depressive dependency, a tendency to sabotage her occasional good fortune, self-pity, an anxious seeking of reassurance from others, and behavior that often serves to undo the support of those who have provided it in the past.” Because of this, the trial court had concerns about Hernandez’s reentry plan. The appeals court found that “the trial court’s concern about the imprecise nature of defendant’s plan was not relevant to defendant’s rehabilitation.”
However, the appeals court “disagree[d] with defendant’s contention that she is entitled to yet another resentencing” as “it is clear from the record that the trial court took each of the factors outlined in Miller into consideration, and the court explained the reasons underlying its decision to resentence defendant to LWOP.” The court therefore affirmed Hernandez’s LWOP sentence.
One judge dissented and stated that “a LWOP sentence is not a reasonable outcome. Accordingly, I would reverse and remand for defendant to be sentenced to a term of years.” The dissenting judge first argued that the third and fifth Millerfactors, which both courts found did not favor leniency, do favor leniency. The judge then asserted that regardless of whether those factors are found to favor Hernandez, the courts did find that the first two factors favor Hernandez and did not thoroughly consider these factors to be mitigating circumstances.
Key words: Michigan, LWOP, Miller v. Alabama, adolescent brain
Citation: People v. Hernandez, 2020 WL 7635454
This post is the 59th post as part of an ongoing Center for Law, Brain & Behavior (CLBB) series tracking the latest developments in law and neuroscience cases. To see previous posts about recent cases, see the full case archive on the CLBB website. To see updates on legal scholarship, see the Neurolaw News, hosted by the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Law and Neuroscience. This project is made possible through support of the Dana Foundation.
