Miller v. Alabama Not Retroactive in Minnesota

Chambers v. State, Minn.S.Ct., 5/31/2013.  Justice Dietzen, in a 5-2 opinion, holds that Miller v. Alabama, ___ U.S. ___, 132 S.Ct. 2455 (2012), does not apply retroactively in Minnesota.  Mr. Chambers, whom I’ve represented on and off – including the filing of this post conviction petition – since the day after the crash is serving a life without possibility of release for a homicide committed when he was a juvenile.  Miller held that a mandatory life without possibility of release for a juvenile homicide offender violates the Eighth Amendment. 

Justices Page and Paul Anderson dissented.  Ultimately, SCOTUS will have to answer the question whether Miller is retroactive.

ADDENDUM:  Some of the postings/links got messed up in the flurry of the last Opinions from Justice Paul Anderson.  This one among them.  Here's what I had written the first time I posted about this case:

In a 5-2 Opinion, Justice Dietzen announces that the rule of Miller v. Alabama,  does not apply retroactively in Minnesota.  Miller announced last year that a mandatory sentence for a juvenile who has been convicted of a homicide of life without possibility of release violates the Eighth Amendment. 

A jury convicted Tim Chambers of first degree homicide back in the late ‘90’s.  At sentencing, his trial attorney – me – argued that a mandatory sentence of life with possibility of release violated the Eighth Amendment (and the companion state constitutional provision).  The trial court disagreed, and the Minnesota Supreme Court upheld the life without parole sentence on direct appeal, rejecting my continued argument to the contrary. 

Justices Paul Anderson and Page dissented.  Here’s part of the introduction to Justice Anderson’s dissent:

I cannot understand, much less appreciate, why the majority is so drawn to the continued imposition of a cruel and unusual punishment. The majority consciously avoids the clear and principled lines of legal analysis available to it to remand this case to the postconviction court. The postconviction court should be allowed to fix the constitutionally defective portion of Chamber’s sentence—its mandatory nature—and to resentence Chambers in accordance with his constitutional rights as articulated by the Supreme Court in Miller.