Miller Resentencing Project Report

Abstract

In June of 2012, United States Supreme Court issued two cases, Miller v. Alabama and Jackson v. Hobbs, which prohibited imposition of mandatory sentences of life without parole on juvenile offenders convicted of homicide offenses. As part of its holding, Court stressed that life without parole sentences are to be reserved for the rare juvenile offender whose crime reflects corruption. This language leaves open question, just how rare is it for a Miller inmate’s crime to be a reflection of corruption?This report is focused exclusively on Miller inmates, which we have defined as juvenile offenders serving mandatory sentences of life without parole for homicide offenses, in State of Florida. The report begins by painting a picture of who Florida’s Miller inmates are — where they were convicted, what age they were at time of offense, their race, and their gender. Then, report goes on to examine their disciplinary history in Department of Corrections for evidence of how amenable they are to rehabilitation. The data from Department of Corrections reveals that average number of disciplinary reports received by Miller inmates after 10 or more years of incarceration is 16.48. However, this average is inflated by a handful of Miller inmates at upper end of spectrum. A more careful analysis reveals that majority of Miller inmates had less than 15 disciplinary reports after 10 years of incarceration. Additionally, self-report data that we received from Miller inmates shows that inmates are most likely to receive disciplinary reports within first 5 years of being admitted to Department of Corrections, with only a fifth of inmates who had been admitted for more than 10 years reporting a disciplinary report within past year. The inmates also most often reported receiving disciplinary reports for some form of disobedience.In sum, report finds that most Miller inmates receive a handful of disciplinary reports within first few years of incarceration, mostly for some form of disobedience, and then receive fewer and fewer reports as they grow and mature. We hope that this data will prove useful for those litigators and members of judiciary attempting to distinguish a typical pattern of institutional adjustment from irreparable corruption that Supreme Court spoke of.