In boxing, when one fighter puts up his dukes, the other boxer is not supposed to shoot him in the face. That is not proper under the Marquis of Queensbury rules!
KEY: Following recent mandates from the U.S. Supreme Court, the Minnesota Supreme Court reversed Jackson’s sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of release for the gang-related and premeditated first-degree shooting of 15-year-old Michael Anthony Bluntson. The Minnesota Supreme Court remanded the case to the district court for a new sentence of life imprisonment with the possibility of release after 30 years.
THE BACKGROUND: On February 26, 2006, Jackson was a 17-year-old member of the Emerson Murder Boys gang in Minneapolis. Jackson and other EMB members were looking for action because Jackson told the others that someone had shot another EMB member. They came across 15-year-old Michael Anthony Bluntson. Jackson said he was going to “box” Bluntson and got out of the car.
The two youths assumed sparring positions, but Jackson then pulled a gun from his waistband. The gun misfired on the first pull of the trigger, then Jackson fatally shot Bluntson in the face.
The jury convicted Jackson on several counts. The district judge convicted him of premeditated first-degree murder and sentenced him to life imprisonment without the possibility of release. On direct appeal, the Supreme Court affirmed Jackson’s conviction and sentence in 2008.
In 2013, Jackson filed this post-conviction petition. After a hearing, the post-conviction court rejected his claim that a key trial witness had recanted his testimony, because the witness refused to recant his testimony at the appellate testimony and because Jackson could not offer any admissible evidence that the witness had recanted his testimony after the trial.
The post-conviction court also rejected Jackson’s claim that the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision in Miller prohibited sentences of life without release (“LWOR”) for murders committed while the criminal was still a minor. The post-conviction court based this decision on two Minnesota Supreme Court decisions that held generally that U.S. Supreme Court decisions on criminal rights do not apply retroactively in cases where the trial, conviction, and sentence are final unless the U.S. Supreme Court specifically that the new criminal right must be applied retroactively.
The Minnesota Supreme Court then heard Jackson’s appeal from that decision by the post-conviction court. But before it could issue its opinion, the Minnesota Supreme Court received a new decision in Montgomery which ordered Miller’s new criminal rule against LWOR sentences for minors to be applied retroactively.
THE MAJORITY: The Minnesota Supreme Court remanded Jackson’s case to the district court for a new sentence of life imprisonment with the possibility of release after 30 years.
First, the post-conviction court did not abuse its discretion by determining that out-of-court statements of an eyewitness lacked the requisite “corroborating circumstances” to be admissible under the rules.
Second, the rule announced in Miller, which applies retroactively to appellant who was a juvenile at the time of his offense, was violated when appellant received a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of release.
Third, a fair and meaningful resentencing hearing for a violation of the Miller rule is not possible here because appellant’s sentence was final before the Miller rule was announced.
Instead, the remedy applicable in this case is as-applied severance and revival, vacation of appellant’s sentence, and remand to the district court for imposition of a sentence of life imprisonment with the possibility of release after 30 years. Affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded.
CONCUR: Justice Stras opined: “I agree with the court that Jackson is entitled to be resentenced to a term of life imprisonment with the possibility of release. Based on my dissent in Ali, however, I cannot fully join the court’s opinion because I believe that every juvenile offender facing a mandatory term of life imprisonment is entitled to such a remedy and that partial severance, not revival, fully resolves the constitutional defects in Minnesota’s current first-degree murder statutes.”
Anderson (Gildea, Dietzen, Lillehaug, Hudson, and Chutich)
CONCUR: Stras
[CRIME] [MURDER] [PREMEDITATED] [FIRST-DEGREE] [GANG] [JUVENILE] [CONSTITUTION]
Date: August 03, 2016
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