Sentencing; Resentencing of juvenile defendants who were sentenced to life without parole (LWOP); People v Taylor

In an order in lieu of granting leave to appeal, the court vacated its 2022 order in this case, the Court of Appeals judgment (see e-Journal # 75500 in the 6/7/21 edition), and the trial court’s sentence, and remanded the case to the trial court for resentencing. Pursuant to Taylor, a trial court may not impose a LWOP sentence “on a defendant who was under 18 years of age at the time of his crime unless the prosecution has overcome its burden to rebut the presumption, by clear and convincing evidence, that [LWOP] is a disproportionate sentence.” Given that the trial court here “was not operating within this framework,” the court found that defendant was entitled to resentencing.

Dissenting, Justice Viviano disagreed that defendant was entitled to resentencing. For the reasons given in his dissent in Taylor, he did “not believe there is a presumption that [LWOP] is a disproportionate sentence or that the prosecution is required to rebut” it in order for a LWOP sentence to be imposed “on a defendant who was under the age of 18 at the time of his crime.”