Ninth Circuit talks through requirements for Miller resentencing a decade after mandatory LWOP

The Ninth Circuit yesterday issued an interesting opinion faulting a district court for how it limited the evidence it considered and other problems with how it conducted a resentencing of a juvenile murderer given a mandatory LWOP sentence a decade before such a sentences was deemed unconstitutional by the Surpeme Court.  Miller fan will want to read US v. Pete, No. 14-103 (9th Cir. April 11, 2016) (available here), in full, and here is how the opinion starts and along with some key passages from the heart of its analysis: 

Branden Pete was 16 years old when he committed a crime that resulted in a mandatory sentence of life without the possibility of parole.  Later, Miller v. Alabama, 132 S. Ct. 2455 (2012), held unconstitutional for juvenile offenders mandatory terms of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.  On resentencing, the district court refused to appoint a neuropsychological expert pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3006A(e) to help Pete develop mitigating evidence.

Our principal question on appeal is whether the district court abused its discretion in declining to appoint such an expert to aid the defense.  We conclude that it did, and so remand for appointment of an expert, and for resentencing after considering any expert evidence offered.  We also consider, and reject, Pete’s other challenges to his resentencing....

In rejecting the motion to appoint an expert, the district court ... noted that Pete’s upbringing and the circumstances of the crime have not changed, and maintained that because a psychiatric evaluation had been done in 2003, a second evaluation would be “duplicative.” “[I]t is difficult to conceive how,” the district court stated, “the passage of time may impact [the psychiatric] evidence” presented during the pretrial proceedings nearly ten years before.  Further, the district court held that the impact of incarceration on Pete “is not the type of mitigating evidence which Miller contemplates.”  We disagree with the district court as to all three aspects of its reasoning....

When the district court ruled that no expert testimony was “necessary,” it ignored Miller’s reasoning and directives.  At the time of resentencing, Pete’s neuropsychological condition had not been evaluated in more than a decade.  An updated evaluation could have revealed whether Pete was the same person psychologically and behaviorally as he was when he was 16.  Rather than being “duplicative,” as the district court believed, a new evaluation could have shown whether the youthful characteristics that contributed to Pete’s crime had dissipated with time, or whether, instead, Pete is the “rare juvenile offender whose crime reflects irreparable corruption.” Id. at 2469 (citation omitted); see also Montgomery, 136 S. Ct. at 733.  Similarly, without current information relating to the policy rationales applicable specifically to juvenile offenders, Pete was hamstrung in arguing for a more lenient sentence.

More specifically, the significant mitigating evidence available to Pete at resentencing, other than his own testimony and that of his lawyer (neither of which the district court credited), would have been information about his current mental state — in particular, whether and to what extent he had changed since committing the offenses as a juvenile. This information was directly related to Pete’s prospects for rehabilitation, including whether he continued to be a danger to the community, and therefore whether the sentence imposed was “sufficient, but not greater than necessary, to comply with the purposes” of sentencing. 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a); see id. (a)(2)(C), (D).  Such information is pertinent to determining whether, as Miller indicates is often the case, Pete’s psychological makeup and prospects for behavior control had improved as he matured, with the consequence that his prospects for rehabilitation and the need for incapacitation had changed.