LITTLE ROCK -- A circuit court must reconsider the joint case of two inmates serving mandatory life terms in prison without parole for crimes they committed as juveniles, the Arkansas Supreme Court ruled Thursday.
In separate 5-2 majority rulings, the high court said the First Judicial Circuit Court improperly ordered resentencing last year for Aaron Hodge and James Grubbs before addressing probable cause by holding a hearing to determine that they were younger than 18 when they committed the crimes. The lower court had been considering whether they should receive new sentences in line with the U.S. Supreme Court's 2012 ruling that barred mandatory no-parole life sentences for juvenile offenders.
A hearing on age determination likely will happen this summer in the circuit court, according to Hodge's and Grubbs' attorney, Jeff Rosenzweig.
Hodge was convicted of capital murder in the 1995 shooting deaths of his stepfather, stepsister and mother. Grubbs was convicted of capital murder in the 1995 death of a classmate whose body was found bound, beaten and submerged in a creek.
The cases were heard in a joint oral argument before the state Supreme Court last month, but the justices issued separate opinions.
During the previous circuit court hearing, Rosenzweig said, the attorney general's counsel said it didn't dispute the men's ages, and Circuit Court Judge L. T. Simes took that as a concession that the men were the correct age when he ruled on retroactivity.
Judd Deere, a spokesman for Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge, said regardless of the inmates' ages, the office argued that the lower court erred because the hearing to verify the ages was not held.
Associate Justice Rhonda K. Wood argued in the dissenting opinions that the majority inappropriately based its ruling the court's Hobbs v. Gordon ruling.
In that case, the high court similarly sent inmate Ulonzo Gordon's retroactivity appeal back to circuit court for a probable cause hearing to determine age. Wood wrote there was a "legitimate dispute" because of an error in Gordon's records, but no such dispute exists for Grubbs or Hodge.
Rosenzweig, who also represents Gordon, said the lower court settled the age dispute in Gordon's favor.
"That (Gordon case) is in the basket at the (Arkansas) Supreme Court with the state appealing on the issue of retroactivity," he said, noting that the decision the court makes in that case would likely affect Grubbs, Hodge and the more than 50 other inmates serving similar sentences in Arkansas.
The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear a Louisiana case arguing in favor of retroactivity later this year.
State Desk on 05/15/2015