MELTON v. STATE (2020)

On Motion for Rehearing

The State asks us to rehear our decision holding that the postconviction court lacked jurisdiction to vacate a prior order in which it had granted Antonio Melton's motion to correct an illegal sentence and ordered resentencing. Alternatively, the State requests that we certify a question of great public importance. We deny the motion for certification but grant the motion for rehearing, withdraw our prior opinion, and substitute the following opinion in its place.

I.

Melton was sentenced to life imprisonment with a possibility of parole after twenty-five years for a first-degree murder he committed when he was seventeen years old.¹ Over two decades later, he filed a pro se motion to correct an illegal sentence under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.800(a), claiming that he was entitled to resentencing under Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460, 132 S.Ct. 2455, 183 L.Ed.2d 407 (2012), and Atwell v. State, 197 So. 3d 1040 (Fla. 2016).²

The State at first agreed that Melton was entitled to relief, and so did the postconviction court. The court granted Melton's motion and noted that it would set his resentencing by separate order. But that never happened. Melton had since been sentenced to death row for an unrelated crime, and the parties asked the court to delay scheduling the resentencing hearing in this case.

In the meantime, the law on juvenile sentencing continued to evolve. Based on the intervening decision of State v. Michel, 257 So. 3d 3 (Fla. 2018),³ the State changed its position and argued that Melton was no longer entitled to resentencing because his life sentence includes the possibility of parole. In turn, Melton contended that the State should be barred from making this argument, in part because it had previously agreed that he was entitled to resentencing under Miller and Atwell.

Considering the new controlling law, the postconviction court vacated the order it had entered more than a year and a half earlier and denied Melton's motion for resentencing on his first-degree murder conviction. This appeal followed.

II.

Melton contends that the initial postconviction order granting him relief under rule 3.800(a) was a final appealable order, even though his resentencing had not taken place. And because the State failed to timely seek rehearing or appeal, the court lacked authority to reconsider the prior ruling. What's more, he argued it would be a manifest injustice to deny him resentencing when it had been granted to similarly situated Atwell defendants.

On Melton's first point, this Court, sitting en banc, recently held that an order granting a rule 3.800(a) motion is not final or appealable, and thus a postconviction court has inherent authority to reconsider its ruling before resentencing is complete. Rogers v. State, 296 So.3d 500 (Fla. 1st DCA May 1, 2020). So too here, the postconviction court did not err by vacating its previous ruling simply because the State failed to challenge it before it did. Because resentencing had not yet occurred, the court retained jurisdiction to reconsider its order granting resentencing based on an intervening change in the law. Id. at D1072.

Melton next contends that denying him a resentencing would be a manifest injustice because other Atwell defendants were resentenced in the time before Michel and Franklin were decided. But it is well settled that “[t]he decisional law in effect at the time an appeal is decided governs the issues raised on appeal, even where there has been a change of law since the time of trial.” Wheeler v. State, 344 So. 2d 244, 245 (Fla. 1977). Melton cannot show that his life-with-parole sentence is illegal under the law as it now stands. And “[i]f the sentence is not illegal, then there is neither reason nor authority to have a resentencing hearing or grant a 3.800(a) motion and enter a corrected sentence.” Rogers, 296 So.3d at 523 (Tanenbaum, J., concurring in result).

We thus affirm the postconviction court's order denying Melton's motion for relief under rule 3.800(a).

Affirmed.

FOOTNOTES

1.   Although not at issue in this appeal, Melton was also convicted of armed robbery and sentenced to life in prison to run consecutively with his first-degree murder sentence.

2.   In Miller, the United States Supreme Court held that a mandatory life sentence without parole for a juvenile offender violates the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. 567 U.S. at 479, 132 S.Ct. 2455. Later in Atwell, the Florida Supreme Court extended the reasoning in Miller and held that a juvenile homicide offender's life with parole sentence violated the Eighth Amendment. 197 So. 3d at 1049–50.

3.   In Michel, a plurality of the Florida Supreme Court receded from Atwell and held that there is no Eighth Amendment violation if a juvenile offender's life sentence includes the possibility of parole. 257 So. 3d at 7. A majority of the supreme court later reaffirmed Michel in Franklin v. State, concluding that Atwell was incorrectly decided and is no longer good law. 258 So. 3d 1239, 1240–41 (Fla. 2018).

Ray, C.J.

Rowe and Tanenbaum, JJ., concur.