In re: Wilson
Annotate this CaseIn 1995, Wilson, White and Carr, all age 17, approached a Pomona bank, wearing masks and carrying handguns. One of them fired at the security guard who stood outside the bank. The guard fled and alerted police. Inside the bank, they told the customers to “hit the deck.” Theresa Hernandez, a bank employee, was shot and killed during the robbery. The three fled in a car driven by Smith. Another car occupied by Brown also waited nearby. White later admitted to his girlfriend that he had shot Hernandez during the robbery because he thought she was activating an alarm. Brown was arrested. Wilson, Carr and White turned themselves into the police a few days after the robbery. Wilson, sentenced to life imprisonment without parole, sought habeas relief in 2013, asserting, that under the principles announced by the Supreme Court in Miller v. Alabama (2012) the sentence violated the Eighth Amendment prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment and that he is entitled to be resentenced based on the individual sentencing factors that the Miller Court directed trial courts to consider when sentencing a juvenile offender for a homicide conviction. The court of appeal vacated the sentence and remanded for resentencing.
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