Rush, C.J.
Seventeen-year-old Carltez Taylor was convicted of murder and conspiracy to commit murder, and sentenced to life without parole (“LWOP”). He appeals his convictions, arguing that the State’s references to his nickname “Looney the Shooter” led to fundamental error, that the State untimely amended the conspiracy to commit murder charge, and that insufficient evidence supports his conspiracy to commit murder conviction. He also argues that his LWOP sentence is inappropriate, violates the United States and Indiana Constitutions’ proportionality requirements, and violates the Sixth Amendment because a jury never found a qualifying aggravator beyond a reasonable doubt. We reject his first three arguments, revise his sentence from LWOP to an aggregate eighty-year term, and decline to address his other challenges to LWOP.
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… Taylor argues that his LWOP sentence is inappropriate and should thus be reduced to a term of years.
Under Article 7, Section 4 of the Indiana Constitution, we “have, in all appeals of criminal cases, the power to . . . review and revise the sentence imposed.” Ind. Const. art. 7, § 4; Wilkes v. State, 917 N.E.2d 675, 693 (Ind. 2009). We have implemented this power through Appellate Rule 7(B), which allows us to revise sentences that are “inappropriate in light of the nature of the offense and the character of the offender.” See Gibson v. State, 51 N.E.3d 204, 215 (Ind. 2016).
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While we apply our power under Rule 7(B) sparingly, we may revise sentences “when certain broad conditions are satisfied.” Rice v. State, 6 N.E.3d 940, 947 (Ind. 2014). Sentence appropriateness thus turns on “myriad . . . factors that come to light in a given case.” Cardwell v. State, 895 N.E.2d 1219, 1224 (Ind. 2008). …
Taylor’s LWOP sentence was lawful. … The jury found that the State had proven the lying-in-wait aggravator and recommended LWOP, and the trial court accepted that recommendation.
But “[e]ven where a trial court has not abused its discretion in sentencing, the Indiana Constitution authorizes independent appellate review and revision of a trial court’s sentencing decision.” Eckelbarger, 51 N.E.3d at 170. …
LWOP is the harshest punishment the Constitution permits against any child. … It’s a denial of hope, a killer of behavior and character improvement, and a guarantee—regardless of future potential—of a death behind bars. See Brown, 10 N.E.3d at 8. As such, it “is reserved for use in only the most heinous of crimes that so shock our conscience as a community.” Conley v. State, 972 N.E.2d 864, 880 (Ind. 2012).
Indeed, only four other juveniles in the State of Indiana have ever received such a sentence. …
For the nature of the offenses, Taylor recognizes that his crimes were tragic and senseless but argues that they were not the most heinous of offenses. … We agree with the parties that Taylor’s crimes were both senseless and heinous. He lay in wait and murdered another juvenile by shooting him in the back as he ran away.
Still, we consider many factors in weighing 7(B) revisions. “[M]ost significantly” here, Taylor was only seventeen years old at the time of the crimes. See Brown, 10 N.E.3d at 6. As this Court and the United States Supreme Court have recognized, “children are different.” Id. (quoting Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460, 480 (2012)). “[J]uveniles are less culpable than adults and therefore are less deserving of the most severe punishments.” Id. at 7 (citing Graham v. Florida, 560 U.S. 48, 68 (2010)).
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Taylor’s life story certainly does not absolve him of responsibility for his heinous and senseless crimes. But LWOP “forswears altogether the rehabilitative ideal.” Brown, 10 N.E.3d at 8 (emphasis added) (quoting Miller, 567 U.S. at 473); see also Ind. Const. art. 1, § 18 (“The penal code shall be founded on the principles of reformation . . . .”).
Revising sentences by placing crimes “along a spectrum of heinous to horrific in no way diminishes the seriousness of any particular offense or the suffering of any particular victim.” Hamilton v. State, 955 N.E.2d 723, 728 (Ind. 2011). But it does uphold important distinctions by reserving the harshest punishments for the most heinous crimes …
Our collective judgment is that Taylor’s character and the nature of his offense—grievous as it was—do not warrant making him Indiana’s fifth juvenile sentenced to a guaranteed death in prison. Instead, we revise his sentence to an aggregate eighty years: sixty-five years—the maximum term of years—for murder, plus a fifteen-year enhancement for using a firearm. See I.C. §§ 35-50-2-3, -11. We leave intact Taylor’s concurrent thirty-five-year conspiracy to commit murder sentence.
We affirm Taylor’s convictions and remand to the trial court to enter a sentencing order consistent with this opinion.
David and Goff, JJ., concur.
Slaughter, J., concurs in part and dissents in part with separate opinion in which Massa, J., joins.
I respectfully dissent from the Court’s decision to reduce Taylor’s sentence from life without parole to a term of years. There can be no doubt that reducing Taylor’s sentence is within the Court’s power. But sometimes the better use of power is to withhold its exercise. I would affirm Taylor’s LWOP sentence because he does not satisfy our longstanding test for granting relief under Appellate Rule 7(B), which looks to both the nature of the offense and the character of the offender. On this record, Taylor fails both prongs.
Taylor’s offense was the lying-in-wait murder of another seventeen-year-old, J.W., whom Taylor gunned down by shooting him in the back as the victim tried to run away. It was, as the Court observed, a “tragic and senseless” crime. But it was more than that. It was also a depraved and heinous crime, perpetrated against an unarmed and vulnerable juvenile who was lured into a death trap, where Taylor ambushed him. His crime reflects an utter disregard for human life. …
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Although I disagree with the majority’s resolution of the LWOP issue, I am not unsympathetic to its concern with leaving intact a sentence that guarantees an offender will die in prison for acts committed as a juvenile. But Taylor is only the fifth juvenile in state history to receive an LWOP sentence. The infrequency with which these sentences are given to minors suggests that both prosecutors and juries take their responsibilities seriously and proceed cautiously before seeking and recommending what for juveniles is the ultimate punishment. …
The Court acknowledges that Taylor’s LWOP sentence was “lawful”, and that our 7(B) review of a sentence “boils down to [our] ‘collective sense of what is appropriate.’” I would affirm Taylor’s LWOP sentence both because it was lawful and because I prefer the jury’s “collective sense of what [sentence] is appropriate” to our own. From the Court’s decision to reduce Taylor’s sentence to a term of years, I respectfully dissent.
Massa, J., concurs.