Resentencing of juvenile offender; Youth as a mitigating factor; People v Boykin; Miller v Alabama; Term-of-years sentence; MCL 769.25; Cruel or unusual punishment; Const 1963 art 1 § 16; De facto life sentence; Meaningful opportunity for release; People v Stovall; People v Eads; People v Bullock factors; Life without parole (LWOP)

The court held that the trial court adequately considered defendant’s youth as a mitigating factor when resentencing him to 30 to 70 years for first-degree felony murder and that he failed to establish that the sentence constituted cruel or unusual punishment. Defendant was 17 when he participated in an armed robbery during which a security guard was killed. He was originally sentenced to LWOP, but the Supreme Court ultimately vacated that sentence and remanded under the framework governing juvenile LWOP. The prosecution did not again seek LWOP, and defendant received a 30-to-70-year sentence for felony murder, with a consecutive two-year felony-firearm sentence. On appeal, the court rejected his contention that the trial court inadequately considered his youth. For a term-of-years sentence, the trial court need not expressly analyze each Miller factor or “give a detailed on-the-record explanation” of how those factors affected the sentence. It “is required only to make a record demonstrating that the court considered the defendant’s youth and treated it as a mitigating factor.” The record did so here. The trial court expressly addressed defendant’s age and brain development, traumatic childhood, family environment, circumstances surrounding the offense, and substantial rehabilitative progress. It also treated those circumstances as mitigating rather than aggravating. The court next rejected defendant’s unpreserved constitutional challenge. He had to serve 32 years before parole eligibility and would first be eligible at age 51. In contrast to sentences previously held unconstitutional, defendant had not shown it was clear or obvious that his sentence deprived him of “a meaningful opportunity to obtain release based on demonstrated maturity and rehabilitation” during his lifetime. Applying the Bullock factors, the court emphasized the gravity of first-degree murder, the 30-year minimum’s placement toward the lower end of the legislatively authorized range, comparable parole-eligibility periods in other jurisdictions, and defendant’s meaningful opportunity to pursue rehabilitation and eventual parole. Affirmed.