Jones v. Commonwealth
Juvenile Law Center filed an amicus brief in the Virginia Supreme Court on behalf of Donte Lamar Jones, who pled guilty to a capital murder he committed as a teenager, and for which he received a life without parole sentence.
Juvenile Law Center’s brief argued that Jones’ sentence is unconstitutional pursuant to the United States Supreme Court’s ruling in Miller v. Alabama, which banned mandatory life without parole sentences for juveniles. At the time Jones was sentenced for capital murder, Virginia law mandated a life without parole sentence for this crime. Before the Virginia Supreme Court is whether Miller should be given retroactive effect and thus, whether Jones should be resentenced following an individualized sentencing hearing. Juvenile Law Center asserted that Miller applies retroactively to cases like Jones’, which was final before the decision came down from the U.S. Supreme Court and thus is being considered on collateral review.
Specifically, Juvenile Law Center’s brief argued that first, the United States Supreme Court has already answered the question of retroactivity by applying Miller to Kuntrell Jackson’s case, which was before the court on collateral review. Second, Miller announced a substantive rule, which pursuant to Supreme Court precedent applies retroactively. Third, even assuming the rule is procedural, Miller is a watershed rule of criminal procedure that applies retroactively. Fourth, Miller must be applied retroactively because, once the Court determines that a punishment is cruel and unusual when imposed on a child, any continuing imposition of that sentence is itself a violation of the Eighth Amendment; the date upon which an unconstitutional mandatory life without parole sentence is imposed cannot convert it into a constitutional sentence. Finally, we argue that Jones’ interest in receiving a constitutional sentence far outweighs the Commonwealth’s interest in the maintaining the finality of his sentence.
The Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth, Center for Children’s Law and Policy, JustChildren, Justice Policy Institute, National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, National Juvenile Defender Center, National Juvenile Justice Network, National Legal Aid & Defender Association, and Youth Law Center joined this brief.
The Virginia Supreme Court affirmed the lower court holding that “because the trial court ha[d] the ability under Code § 19.2-303 to suspend part or all of the life sentence . . . , the sentencing scheme applicable to Jones’s conviction was not a mandatory life without the possibility of parole scheme.”
Jones filed a petition for certiorari to the United States Supreme Court arguing that “[b]ecause life without parole is the only sentence (other than death) authorized under Virginia’s capital murder statute, the Virginia Supreme Court’s characterization of that sentence as ‘not mandatory’ rings hollow.” The United States Supreme Court held the petition pending decision in Montgomery v. Louisiana, 577 U.S. 190 (2016), then vacated and remanded Jones for reconsideration in light of Montgomery.
On remand, the Virginia Supreme Court again affirmed the lower court’s decision holding that under Virginia law, Jones’s sentence was not a mandatory life without parole sentence, and therefore, Miller does not apply.