113 So.3d 20Juvenile defendant was convicted in the Circuit Court, Sarasota County, Lee E. Haworth, J., of first-degree felony murder, and received a life sentence without possibility of parole. Defendant appealed. The District Court of Appeal, 27 So.3d 800, affirmed.
Holdings: Supplementing original opinion after withdrawal of mandate, the District Court of Appeal, Altenbernd, J., held that:
(1) felony murder, where the juvenile defendant did not actually commit the murder, is not a “nonhomicide” offense for purposes of the categorical rule that the Eighth Amendment forbids a life sentence without parole for a juvenile who did not commit homicide;
(2) statutorily mandated life-without-parole sentence for juvenile defendants who commit felony murder may constitute a grossly disproportionate sentence in some cases; and
(3) in felony murder cases where the juvenile defendant did not actually commit the murder, trial courts must have discretion to impose a lesser sentence when life without possibility of parole would be disproportionate to the circumstances of the crime.
Reversed and remanded.
Excerpt from Westlaw