THE 2016 HERBERT WECHSLER MOOT COURT COMPETITION PROBLEM In the Supreme Court of the United States No. 16-01. WYATT FORBES, III, Petitioner, v. TEXANSAS, Respondent.
999 U.S. 1 Supreme Court of the United States Wyatt FORBES, petitioner, v. TEXANSAS. No. 16-01. Jan. 1, 2016. Case below: 123 Texansas 1 (2015). Opinion Petition for writ of certiorari granted on the following questions: 1. Whether the Eighth Amendment prohibits sentencing a child to life imprisonment without possibility of parole; and 2. Whether the Eighth Amendment prohibits sentencing a child to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for a homicide offense, which does not require the prosecution to prove that the child intended to kill. 2
Cite as 123 Texansas 1 (2015) Wyatt FORBES, III, Petitioner v. TEXANSAS Supreme Court of Texansas December 1, 2015 This is an appeal from a denial for a writ of habeas corpus. Appellant Wyatt Trey Forbes, III, was convicted by a jury of murder in the second degree, along with kidnapping in the first degree and robbery in the first degree. After a further hearing regarding sentencing, the trial court sentenced Forbes to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. At the time of his sentencing, Forbes was fifteen years old. Following his conviction and sentence, Forbes filed a petition seeking a writ of habeas corpus in the Appellate Court of Texansas. The State moved to dismiss the petition. The State s motion was granted. In its order, the Appellate Court found that Forbes failed to demonstrate that his commitment was unconstitutional. This appeal followed. Forbes s argument on appeal is that the Appellate Court erred in denying his petition because his sentence was invalid on its face. He claims the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution prohibit the sentencing of infants to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. We, however, find no error in the Appellate Court s decision and therefore affirm. Facts of the Case The circumstances at the heart of this case were widely published in the state and national media. For the purposes of this appeal, we take the facts proved at trial as true. The following is a summary of those facts. Wyatt Trey Forbes, III, grew up in a prominent family in the wealthy Texansas City suburb of Eagle Heights. His grandfather, Wyatt Forbes, Sr., was a three-term Congressman from the District. His family owns an oil refinery in the area. Trey Forbes was well known to local law enforcement, with prior arrests for disorderly conduct and shoplifting. In both cases, due to his youth and family connections, he was released into the custody of his parents, with no charges filed. On the afternoon of October 1, 2014, Trey Forbes left Eagle Heights Middle School, where he was in the eighth grade, and met some friends at a local park. There, the youths ingested bath salts, the common name of synthetic cathinone, which Forbes had previously stolen from a nearby convenience store. Later, Forbes left the group to steal more of the product from the same store. He pulled the hood of his sweatshirt over his head as he entered the store, in an attempt to disguise himself. He also carried, in his backpack, a large screwdriver, which he had previously used to pry open vending 3
machines at the school, and a pair of nunchaku, or nunchuks, a Japanese martial arts weapon that he was trying to learn. 1 Forbes was recognized by the store clerk, despite his attempt at disguise. She chased him from the store, as she was aware of his predilection for shoplifting. Forbes, however, still evidently under the influence of the bath salts, remained in the area, hiding in an alley behind the store. 2 As Forbes did not testify at trial, his motivation for what happened next is unclear. At 8:30 p.m., a car, driven by Pamela Taylor, entered the parking lot of the convenience store. In the backseat of the car, a 2012 Toyota Corolla, Mrs. Taylor s daughter, Madison, was asleep in her car seat. 3 Mrs. Taylor left the car running while she went into the store to purchase diapers. 4 The car doors were unlocked. Forbes, who had apparently witnessed the car pull in, climbed into the vehicle and drove away. The store clerk, at the counter, saw the car with Forbes at the wheel. She immediately called the police. Eagle Heights Police Officer Michael Dudley responded to the call. He found the vehicle heading north on Main Street, a busy commercial street in the town. He turned on his flashing lights and siren to alert Forbes to stop the car. Forbes, however, accelerated the car, reaching a top speed in excess of 120 miles per hour. He lost control of the Corolla, struck an on-coming car, and rolled over several times. He was thrown from the vehicle, suffering a broken collarbone. Madison Taylor died as a result of her injuries. She was six-months old. Proceedings Below Due to the public outcry over the crime, Forbes was charged as an adult. He was convicted after a jury trial of first-degree robbery 5, first degree kidnapping 6, and murder 1 Forbes was given the nunchaku as a 14th birthday present by his parents. Under Texansas law, no one under the age of sixteen is allowed to purchase nunchaku or similar weapons. The statute is silent on possession. See Texansas Penal Law 100 (2016). 2 Surveillance footage showed Forbes pacing and muttering to himself in the alley for some time after he left the store. 3 According to her mother, Madison Taylor was a fussy sleeper who suffered from colic. Her mother frequently had to take her for drives in the neighborhood to get her to go to sleep at night. 4 Mrs. Taylor testified that she was afraid of waking her child by turning the ignition off and on. 5 A person is guilty of robbery in the first degree when he forcibly steals property and when, in the course of the commission the crime or of immediate flight therefrom, he [ ] causes serious physical injury to another person who is not a participant in the crime; or [ ] is armed with a deadly weapon. Texansas Penal Law 160 (2016). 6 A person is guilty of kidnapping in the first degree when he abducts another person and when [ ] the person abducted dies during the abduction[.] Texansas Penal Law 135 (2016). 4
in the second degree (Texansas s felony murder statute). 7 Prior to sentencing, the trial court heard testimony concerning the extenuating circumstances of Forbes s youth. 8 Subsequent to this hearing, Forbes was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Forbes petitioned the Appellate Court to overturn his sentence as facially invalid. The Appellate Court denied his petition. This appeal followed. Analysis Forbes claims that his sentence is unconstitutional because it violates the Eighth Amendment s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishments. He advances two arguments in support of this claim. We find neither argument persuasive. First, Forbes argues that the United States Supreme Court, in Miller v. Alabama, 132 S. Ct. 2455 (2012), effectively barred juveniles from being sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. He cites Justice Breyer s concurrence in that case, where the justice stated: there is no basis for imposing a sentence of life without parole upon a juvenile who did not himself kill or intend to kill. Id. at 2476 (Breyer, J., concurring). With all due respect to the esteemed Justice, we disagree with this notion. First, we agree with Justice Thomas that the Eighth Amendment prohibits cruel and unusual methods of punishment, such as torture, but not lengths of otherwise lawful punishments. See id. at 2483 (Thomas, J., dissenting). There is certainly nothing cruel or unusual about a prison term, albeit one for life. Further, we note that the Supreme Court, in Miller, specifically did not ban all life sentences for youthful offenders. Rather, the Court barred only mandatory life sentences. See id. at 2460. That was not the case here. The trial court conducted a post-verdict hearing and took testimony regarding the circumstances of Forbes s age, along with other considerations. Then, in accordance with the evidence produced, in its legitimate discretion, the court imposed a fit sentence for a crime of this nature. 9 Last, we note that Justice Breyer s language appears only in a concurrence and is therefore not binding on this Court. Forbes also argues that his sentence is cruel and unusual because his did not intend to harm Madison Taylor. To that extent, we agree with him. No evidence was proffered at 7 A person is guilty of murder in the second degree when [ ] he commits or attempts to commit robbery, burglary, [or] kidnapping [ ] and, in the course of and in furtherance of such crime or of immediate flight therefrom, he [ ] causes the death of a person other than one of the participants. Texansas Penal Law 125 (2016). 8 In addition to witnesses called by the defense, such as psychiatrists, psychologists, and school officials, the trial court heard victim impact testimony, offered by the state, from the parents of Madison Taylor. 9 Among the possible punishments enumerated for the crime of murder in the second degree are: death, life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, life imprisonment with the possibility of parole, [and] imprisonment for a term to be determined at the discretion of the sentencing authority. Texansas Penal Law 300 (2016). The sentencing authority has discretion to impose any enumerated sentence warranted by the circumstances of the case. Id. 5
trial that he harbored any malicious intent toward the infant. Nonetheless, the crime for which he was convicted murder in the second degree does not require intent as one its elements. As Texansas s felony murder statute, a person is guilty of murder in the second degree when someone dies during the commission of a predicate offense. Among those offenses are robbery in the first degree and kidnapping in the first degree, both of which Forbes does not and cannot dispute he was found guilty. While Forbes may have harbored no intent toward baby Madison, he did intend to steal the car she was in, and she did perish during the course of that kidnapping. Forbes, therefore, committed two of the predicate offenses of murder in the second degree. His punishment, one of those enumerated by statute, was within the trial court s discretion. For these reasons, we affirm the decision of the Appellate Court. IT IS ORDERED that the parties to this matter shall not read, review, consult, listen to, watch, or otherwise deliberately seek to obtain substantive knowledge of the contents of any materials that have been or that may hereafter be filed in this Court in connection with this case. This prohibition extends to any and all briefs, petitions, reply briefs, or other filings submitted to this Court by any party or amicus curiae, or by the United States, or by any other person or entity at any phase or stage of this Court s proceedings in this matter, including (but not limited to) any filings pertaining to the petitions for certiorari and any and all motions. IT IS ORDERED that the parties to this matter shall not read, review, consult, listen to, watch, or otherwise deliberately seek to obtain substantive knowledge of Jacobs v. Louisiana, Docket No. 15-5004, pending before the Supreme Court. IT IS ORDERED that the parties to this matter shall direct their written and oral arguments exclusively to the substance of the issues raised by the two questions identified above, this Court having conclusively determined that there are no constitutional, statutory, procedural, jurisdictional, or other obstacles to its consideration of the merits of those issues. IT IS FURTHER ORDERED THAT THE BRIEFS OF ALL PARTIES SHALL BE POSTMARKED AND ELECTRONICALLY SUBMITTED NO LATER THAN MARCH 14, 2016 AND THAT THE ABOVE-CAPTIONED CASE SHALL BE SET FOR ORAL ARGUMENT ON APRIL 9, 2016. 6