# Concepcion v. Alves

> District Court, D. Massachusetts · May 24, 2024

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/10202067

## Case

- **Court:** District Court, D. Massachusetts
- **Decided:** May 24, 2024
- **Opinion:** 100trialcourt
- **Cited by:** 0 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/10202067

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- holding Eighth Amendment bars death penalty for children
- holding Eighth Amendment prohibits life sentences without the possibility of parole for children who commit nonhomicide offenses

## Opinion text

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS

RAYMOND CONCEPCION, *
*
Petitioner, *
*
v. * Civil Action No. 1:22-cv-11703-IT
*
NELSON ALVES, et al., *
*
Respondents. *

MEMORANDUM & ORDER

May 24, 2024
TALWANI, D.J.
Petitioner Raymond Concepcion filed a Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus (“Petition”)
[Doc. No. 1] pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254 alleging that his sentence of life in prison with the
possibility of parole violated the Eight Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual
punishment because the sentencing court did not adequately consider his age or intellectual
disability in sentencing. For the reasons set forth below, the Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus
[Doc. No. 1] is DENIED.
I. Background1
A. The 2012 Incident and Arrest
In October 2012, an adult Mission Hill gang member told 15-year-old Raymond
Concepcion to retrieve a gun Concepcion had purchased months earlier and ride in a Nissan

1 Under 29 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(1), determinations of fact by the state court are presumed to be
correct, and the petitioner has “the burden of rebutting the presumption of correctness by clear
and convincing evidence.” See also Mastracchio v. Vose, 274 F.3d 590, 597-98 (1st Cir. 2001)
(“A habeas petitioner can overcome such findings only by demonstrating that they were ‘based
on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented.’” (quoting 28
U.S.C. § 2254(d)(2)). Accordingly, the facts recited here are based on the factual determinations
Maxima with two other adult members of the gang. Commonwealth v. Concepcion, 487 Mass.
77, 79 (2021). The two adults drove Concepcion to the victim, a former member of the same
gang who was in his car, and ordered Concepcion to “get him.” Id. at 79-80. Concepcion
believed that he would be allowed to leave the gang without being harmed or killed (and without

his family being harmed or killed) only if he shot the victim. Id. He fired four or five rounds into
the victim’s car. Id. at 80. Three bullets struck the victim, who did not survive. Id. Following the
shooting, Concepcion returned to the Maxima, and he and the others fled the scene. Id. Police
arrested Concepcion after a brief pursuit and Concepcion eventually confessed to shooting the
victim. Id.
B. Concepcion’s Indictment and Trial
In December 2012, a grand jury indicted Concepcion for murder in the first degree,
M.G.L. ch. 265, § 1, and carrying an unlicensed firearm, id. § 10(a). Id. Concepcion’s case was
transferred out of juvenile court pursuant to Section 74 of the Youthful Offender Act of 1996,
M.G.L. ch. 119 (“§ 74”).2

At trial in Superior Court, Concepcion did not deny shooting the victim, but argued that
his age, previous trauma, and intellectual disability precluded him from forming the intent
necessary to convict. Concepcion, 487 Mass. at 80. His mother testified that when Concepcion
was around 8 years old, his father was shot multiple times while he watched. Id. at 80-81. Later,
Concepcion also witnessed a violent robbery, saw his uncle accidentally shoot himself while

of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (“SJC”) in Commonwealth v. Concepcion, 487
Mass. 77 (2021).
2 Section 74 provides that “[t]he juvenile court shall not have jurisdiction over a person who had
at the time of the offense attained the age of fourteen but not yet attained the age of 18 who is
charged with committing murder in the first or second degree.”
cleaning a firearm, and saw a police officer shoot his brother. Id. at 81. His father, uncle and
brother all survived. Id.
Additionally, a clinician who was familiar with Concepcion through the Department of
Youth Services detention center where Concepcion was held testified that Concepcion was

emotionally immature, was prone to “temper tantrums,” and was easily influenced by his peers
and eager for their approval. Id. at 80. A psychologist who evaluated Concepcion further testified
that he “had an intelligence quotient of sixty-six, a limited capacity for abstraction or problem-
solving, and a limited capacity to form intent.” Id. at 81. The psychologist testified that
Concepcion suffered from a moderately severe global developmental delay, as well as post-
traumatic stress disorder and persistent depressive disorder; that he had a history of traumatic
brain injury and cognitive delay; and that because of those conditions and his previous
experience with firearm violence, Concepcion lacked the ability to understand the full meaning
of killing someone. Id.3
On March 16, 2016, the jury found Concepcion guilty of murder in the first degree based

on extreme atrocity or cruelty and guilty of the unlawful firearm possession. Id.
Under M.G.L. ch. 265, § 2(b), because Concepcion was found to have committed first
degree murder after his fourteenth birthday and before his eighteenth birthday, the Superior
Court judge was required to impose a life sentence with the possibility of parole.

3 The Commonwealth’s psychological expert disagreed and testified that Concepcion’s cognitive
ability was average and that he had no psychological, cognitive, or emotional disorders that
would impair his ability to form intent. Concepcion, 487 Mass. at 81. The Commonwealth
conceded on appeal, however, that Concepcion “‘had documented intellectual limitations.’” Id.
at 81 n.9.
The judge sentenced Concepcion to life with the possibility of parole after 20 years for
murder in the first degree based on extreme atrocity or cruelty and to a concurrent sentence of up
to five years for the firearm violation. Concepcion, 487 Mass. at 81-82.
C. Concepcion’s Appeal and the SJC’s Decision
Concepcion timely appealed his conviction. Id. at 82. Concepcion argued, inter alia, that

(1) the mandatory transfer scheme imposed by § 74 violates the Eighth Amendment by depriving
sentencing authorities the opportunity to exercise discretion in considering Concepcion’s
youthfulness and intellectual disability; and (2) a life sentence with the possibility of parole is a
disproportionate punishment under the Eighth Amendment where Concepcion is a juvenile
offender who is intellectually disabled. Id. at 83-84.
The SJC found that neither § 74 nor the sentence imposed on Concepcion violated the
Eighth Amendment. First, it concluded that § 74 “is a jurisdictional statute; it proscribes no
punishments, requiring only that a juvenile charged with murder must be tried in the Superior
Court.” Id. at 84. Further, the SJC noted that the question of whether a sentencing court could
exercise discretion at the transfer stage “overlooks the real issue: whether the underlying

punishment that could be imposed once the juvenile is transferred to adult court survives
constitutional scrutiny.” Id. (citing Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460, 487-89 (2012)).
“Consequently, if there is no disproportionality violation in the underlying punishment, then
there is no violation in [§ 74].” Id.
Second, the SJC held that the sentence imposed on Concepcion survives constitutional
scrutiny. Id. at 86-89. The SJC recognized that mandatory life without parole for juveniles
violates the Eight Amendment and that, under federal law, an individualized, youth-specific
hearing must be held prior to sentencing where a sentence is presumptively disproportionate. Id.
at 84, 89 n.19 (citing Miller, 567 U.S. at 479). The SJC found further that Article 26 of the
Massachusetts Declaration of Rights provides defendants greater protection than the Eighth
Amendment does. Id. at 86. The SJC noted that it had repeatedly held that mandatory life
sentences with the possibility of parole after a term of fifteen years are proportional for juveniles
convicted of murder in either the first or second degree, and that these sentences were consistent

with Miller. Id. at 87 and n.13. After reviewing its precedents on the proportionality of life
sentences for juvenile offenders, the SJC determined that, in Concepcion’s case, “[a]lthough the
defendant’s age and mental impairments are factors that weigh in his favor, they do not alone tip
the scales toward disproportionality.” Id. at 88. The SJC concluded that a mandatory life
sentence with the possibility of parole after twenty years “is not ‘so lengthy that it could be seen
as the functional equivalent of life without parole,’” and therefore did not offend Concepcion’s
Eighth Amendment rights as delineated by the Supreme Court. Id. at 89 (quoting Commonwealth
v. Brown, 466 Mass. 676 (2013)).
After rejecting these constitutional arguments, the SJC nonetheless exercised its
discretion to reduce the first-degree murder conviction “in exceptional and rare circumstances of

duress” under Mass. G.L. ch. 278, § 33E, and remanded the case to the Superior Court to enter a
verdict of guilty of murder in the second degree and for resentencing. Id. at 96.
On October 18, 2021, the Supreme Court denied Concepcion’s petition for writ of
certiorari. Concepcion v. Massachusetts, 142 S.Ct. 408 (2021) (No. 21-5498).
D. Concepcion’s Resentencing
Under M.G.L. ch. 265, § 2(c), the superior court judge was required to impose a life
sentence with the possibility of parole for the second degree murder charge. Pursuant to M.G.L.
ch. 279, § 24, and ch. 119, § 72B, the judge was also required to impose a parole term of not
more or less than 15 years.
On October 25, 2021, the Massachusetts Superior Court entered the second-degree
murder verdict and resentenced Concepcion to life in prison with the possibility of parole after
15 years. Resp.’s Answer to the Pet.’s Pet. for a Writ of Habeas Corpus ¶ 2(a) [Doc. No. 22].
E. The Habeas Petition Under 28 U.S.C. § 2254
Concepcion filed his Petition [Doc. No. 1] challenging his state conviction under 28

U.S.C. § 2254 on October 6, 2022. As in the state court, Concepcion contends (1) that the
mandatory transfer scheme imposed by § 74 violates the Eighth Amendment by depriving
sentencing authorities the opportunity to exercise discretion in considering Concepcion’s
youthfulness and intellectual disability; and (2) that a life sentence with the possibility of parole
is a disproportionate punishment under the Eighth Amendment where Concepcion is a juvenile
offender who is intellectually disabled.
II. Discussion
A. Standard of Review
Under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (“AEDPA”), a person in
custody pursuant to the judgment of a state court must have “exhausted the remedies available in

the courts of the State” prior to filing a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the federal court.
28 U.S.C. § 2254(b)(1)(A). After exhausting state remedies, an application for a writ of habeas
corpus brought by a state prisoner shall not be granted “with respect to any claim that was
adjudicated on the merits in State court proceedings” unless the adjudication of the claim
resulted in a decision that (1) “was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of,
clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court;” or (2) “was based on an
unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court
proceeding.” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d).4
A state court decision is “contrary to [the Supreme Court’s] clearly established precedent
if the state court applies a rule that contradicts the governing law set forth in [Supreme Court]

cases,” or “confronts a set of facts that are materially indistinguishable from a decision of [the
Supreme Court] and nevertheless arrives at a result different from [its] precedent.” Williams v.
Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 405-06 (2000).
A federal court may also grant the writ if the relevant state court decision “involved an
unreasonable application of . . . clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme
Court[.]” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1). A state court decision is an unreasonable application of clearly
Supreme Court precedent when it “correctly identifies the governing legal rule but applies that
rule unreasonably to the facts of a particular prisoner’s case[.]” White v. Woodall, 572 U.S. 415,
426 (2014) (citing Williams, 529 U.S. at 409). Importantly, a state court does not unreasonably
apply clearly established Supreme Court law by simply refusing to extend it to a context in

which the rule should have controlled. Id. at 425, 427. In other words, “a state prisoner must
show that the state court’s ruling on the claim being presented in federal court was so lacking in
justification that there was an error well understood and comprehended in existing law beyond
any possibility for fairminded disagreement.” Id. at 419-420 (quoting Harrington v. Richter, 562
U.S. 86, 103 (2011). “This is ‘meant to be’ a difficult standard to meet.” Virginia v. LeBlanc,
582 U.S. 91, 94 (2017) (quoting Harrington, 562 U.S. at 102).

4 Concepcion does not argue that the SJC decision was based on an unreasonable determination
of the facts under 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(2).
B. Exhaustion
Respondents contend that Concepcion’s claim that his sentence was disproportionate to
his conviction is unexhausted.5 Respondents argue that it is unclear whether Concepcion is
challenging the proportionality of his initial sentence following the first-degree murder

conviction, or his sentence after the verdict was reduced to second-degree murder. If the former,
Respondents argue, that argument is now moot because the conviction has been vacated; if the
latter, that claim is unexhausted because Concepcion never brought a disproportionality
challenge in the state court to that sentence.
Concepcion responds that his proportionality challenge has always been to the life
sentence portion of his sentence, not the time until the availability of parole, so the
proportionality challenge has been exhausted in state court.
The court finds that Concepcion has exhausted his federal claim. As the SJC reported,
“the defendant contends that the mandatory nature of the life sentence renders the punishment
unconstitutional.” Concepcion, 487 Mass. at 86. In raising this argument, Concepcion “fairly and

recognizably presented to the state courts the factual and legal bases of [his] federal claim,”
Adelson v. DiPaola, 131 F.3d 259, 262 (1st Cir. 1997), and did so “‘in such a way as to make it
probable that a reasonable jurist would have been alerted to the existence of the federal
question.’” Id. (quoting Scarpa v. Dubois, 38 F.3d 1, 6 (1st Cir. 1994)).
Nor did the remand to the Superior Court for entry of the second degree murder
conviction and related sentence create a new obligation on Concepcion to exhaust state court
remedies. The SJC’s decision thoroughly discussed life sentences with the possibility of parole

5 Respondents do not dispute that Concepcion’s claim regarding § 74’s mandatory jurisdictional
transfer has been exhausted.
after 15 years, noting that “we repeatedly have held that mandatory life sentences with the
possibility of parole after a term of years are proportional for juveniles convicted of murder in
either the first or second degree.” Concepcion, 487 Mass. at 87 (citing Commonwealth v. Lugo,
482 Mass. 94, 100 (2019) (upholding mandatory life sentence with possibility of parole after

fifteen years for juvenile convicted of murder in second degree.)). Moreover, given the statutory
framework detailed above, the SJC’s remand required not only the imposition of a life sentence
but also the exact term prior to consideration for parole entered by the Superior Court. In sum,
the court finds Petitioner’s claims fully exhausted.
C. Was the SJC’s Decision Contrary to or an Unreasonable Application of Clearly
Established Law
As explained below, the court finds that the SJC’s rejection of Concepcion’s claims was
neither contrary to nor an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law.
1. Section 74’s Mandatory Jurisdictional Transfer
Concepcion contends that § 74 is unconstitutional because his youth and intellectual
disability were ignored when he was mandatorily excluded from juvenile court and tried as an
adult, and that the SJC’s determination to the contrary involved an unreasonable application of
Supreme Court precedent, namely Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460, 470 (2012).
Under § 74, children aged 14 and older charged with murder are automatically transferred
to adult court rather than being tried in juvenile court. If they are convicted, the sentencing judge
may not choose from a range of sentences permitted under M.G.L. ch. 119, § 58, and instead

must impose a sentence of life with parole under M.G. L. ch. 265, § 2. Concepcion argues that
§ 74 “automatically subjected [him] to an adult trial and a mandatory life-with-parole sentence
without regard to his unique characteristics.” Pet.’s Mem. of Law ISO Pet. for Habeas Corpus
(“Pet.’s Mem.”) 11 [Doc. No. 10]. This, he argues, deprives the sentencing judge of the
opportunity to consider the individual characteristics of the alleged youth offender when
determining a sentence as harsh as life imprisonment, and thus violates clearly established
federal law as determined by the Supreme Court in Miller.
In Miller, two 14-year-old offenders were transferred from juvenile court and tried and

sentenced as adults, pursuant to their respective state laws, to mandatory terms of life
imprisonment without the possibility of parole. 567 U.S. at 465. The Court held that mandatory
life-without-parole sentences for juveniles violated the Eighth Amendment because “the
characteristics of youth, and the way they weaken rationales for punishment, can render a life-
without-parole sentence disproportionate,” and the mandatory sentencing scheme at issue in that
case prevented the sentencer from considering a defendant’s youth before sentencing them to life
without parole. Id. at 470.6
What Miller does not proscribe, however, is where a juvenile defendant must be tried.
Concepcion’s contention that the mandatory transfer itself is a violation of the Eighth
Amendment is thus not supported by Miller, and the SJC’s holding that § 74 is “jurisdictional”

did not contravene Miller. To the contrary, Miller supports the SJC’s conclusion that “focusing
on whether jurisdictional discretion was available at the transfer stage overlooks the real issue:
whether the underlying punishment that could be imposed once the juvenile is transferred to
adult court survives constitutional scrutiny.” Concepcion, 487 Mass. at 84.

6 The Court did not categorically foreclose life-without parole for juvenile offenders. Instead, the
Court required that an offender’s youth and attendant characteristics must be considered before a
juvenile offender is sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Miller, 567
U.S. at 480.
2. Concepcion’s Sentence
The remaining question is whether the SJC’s conclusion that Concepcion’s sentence did
not violate the Eighth Amendment was an unreasonable application of Supreme Court precedent.
Concepcion argues that it was unreasonable either because a mandatory sentencing scheme of

life with parole for juveniles is unconstitutional on its face, or because life with parole was
unconstitutional as applied to Concepcion’s particular circumstances. The court finds the SJC’s
conclusion was not an unreasonable application of Supreme Court precedent.
a. Mandatory Life in Prison with the Possibility of Parole for Juvenile Offenders
Concepcion argues that the mandatory imposition of life in prison with the possibility of
parole under M.G.L. ch. 265, § 2(b) for an intellectually disabled child is a violation of the Eight
Amendment.
The Supreme Court has consistently held that children are different from adults for
purposes of the most severe penalties because of juveniles’ lessened culpability and greater
capacity for change. See Miller, 567 U.S. at 465; Montgomery v. Louisiana, 577 U.S. 190, 207-
208 (2016) (summarizing Miller); see also Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551 (2005) (holding

Eighth Amendment bars death penalty for children); Graham v. Florida, 560 U.S. 48 (2010)
(holding Eighth Amendment prohibits life sentences without the possibility of parole for children
who commit nonhomicide offenses). “An offender’s age is relevant to the Eighth Amendment,”
Graham, 560 U.S. at 76, and the distinctive attributes of youth diminish the justification for
imposing the harshest sentences on juvenile offenders. Miller, 567 U.S. at 472.
Youth undoubtedly matters in sentencing, and “discretionary sentencing allows the
sentencer to consider the defendant’s youth.” Jones v. Mississippi, 593 U.S. 98, 111 (2021).
Nonetheless, Concepcion has not demonstrated that the SJC’s adjudication of his claim involved
an unreasonable application of clearly established Federal law, because Miller does not concern
sentencing schemes for juveniles that impose life sentences with the possibility of parole, only
those that mandatorily impose life without the possibility of parole. Miller, 567 U.S. at 479. This
is a distinction with a difference.
Importantly, Miller “does not categorically bar a penalty for a class of offenders or type

of crime. . . . Instead, it mandates only that a sentencer follow a certain process—considering an
offender’s youth and attendant characteristics—before imposing a particular penalty.” Miller,
567 U.S. at 483. The “particular penalty” specifically addressed in Miller was life imprisonment
without the possibility of parole. See Atkins v. Crowell, 945 F.3d 476, 478 (6th Cir. 2019)
(Miller “creates a legal rule about life-without-parole sentences”).
Concepcion asks this court, and asked the SJC, to find that Miller’s discretionary
sentencing requirement covers additional penalties, including life imprisonment with the
possibility of parole. The Miller Court, however, always included “without the possibility of
parole” when it discussed the sentence at issue. As the Sixth Circuit noted, “Miller emphasized
the ‘without parole’ component of its holding five times,” Atkins, 945 F.3d at 479, (citing Miller,

567 U.S. at 465, 470, 477, 479, 489), and “[a] ‘limitation thus emphasized is one the state courts
may honor, with relatively little fear of being found “objectively unreasonable” for doing so.’”
Id. (quoting Mendoza v. Berghuis, 544 F.3d 650, 655 (6th Cir. 2008)). Moreover, in considering
Miller’s retroactivity, the Supreme Court itself expressed that a “Miller violation” could be
remedied by “permitting juvenile homicide offenders to be considered for parole[.]”
Montgomery, 577 U.S. at 212.7 In sum, the court finds the SJC’s conclusion that there was no

7 Concepcion also points to Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304 (2002), where the Supreme Court
found offenders with intellectual disabilities categorically ineligible for the death penalty. But
the Supreme Court did not address in Atkins the constitutionality of life sentences for such
individuals, let alone life sentences with parole.
categorical Eighth Amendment violation in a mandatory life with parole sentence for an
intellectually disabled juvenile was not an unreasonable application of Supreme Court precedent.
b. Life in Prison with the Possibility of Parole as Applied to Concepcion
Concepcion also contends that the sentence imposed on him of life in prison with the

possibility of parole was disproportionate under the Eighth Amendment as applied to him, where
he is both a juvenile offender and intellectually disabled. He argues that “imposing a mandatory
life sentence on [an] intellectually disabled child is cruel and unusual punishment in violation of
the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against disproportionate punishment.” Pet.’s Mem. 18
[Doc. No. 10]. By way of analogy, Concepcion notes that “an intellectually disabled juvenile
should not be sentenced as harshly as other juveniles, just as a disabled adult is not subject to the
same maximum punishment as other adults.” Id. at 18-19.
Concepcion makes a series of arguments in support of his proportionality claim. First, he
contends that “both juvenile and intellectually disabled defendants have diminished culpability,”
Id. at 19, and cites Supreme Court precedent focused on the constitutional bounds of sentencing

certain classes of individual.
Second, Concepcion argues that it was proven at trial that he had intellectual disabilities.
Had his offense taken place in a death-penalty state, Concepcion argues, the Eighth Amendment
would have prevented the imposition of such a disproportionate punishment.
Finally, Concepcion argues that “because [he] was intellectually disabled and a child at
the time of the offense,” “his doubly diminished culpability warrants a lesser sentence than
mandatory life imprisonment.” Id. at 21. He also argues that the theoretical possibility of parole
that accompanied his life sentence does not exempt the sentence from Eighth Amendment
scrutiny.
The Supreme Court “relied entirely on the principle of proportionality when finding
mandatory life-without-parole sentences for juveniles unconstitutional” in Montgomery and
Miller. Ali, 950 F.3d at 575. Similarly, the Court has held that “because of their disabilities in
areas of reasoning, judgment, and control of their impulses,” intellectually disabled offenders

“do not act with the level of moral culpability that characterizes the most serious adult criminal
conduct,” Atkins, 536 U.S. at 321, and, because of this, the death penalty is a disproportionate
punishment.
Concepcion is correct that the proportionality inquiry animating the Court’s juvenile and
intellectual disability jurisprudence is not limited to capital cases or de facto life sentences. See
e.g., McKinley v. Butler, 809 F.3d 908, 911 (7th Cir. 2016). He is also correct that parole
eligibility does not guarantee a defendant’s release from prison. See Graham, 560 U.S. at 75.
Moreover, cases like Roper, Graham, Miller, and Atkins stand for the proposition that certain
punishments are disproportionate when applied to juveniles or intellectually disabled individuals
because the characteristics of both can render certain sentences disproportionate to the offense.

Based on this, Concepcion invites this court to conclude that a life sentence with the possibility
of parole is a disproportionate punishment under the Eighth Amendment for Concepcion, a
juvenile offender who is intellectually disabled.
The Supreme Court in Miller arrived at its holding by merging two strands of precedent:
(1) categorical bans on sentencing practices based on a mismatch between a defendant’s
culpability and the severity of the penalty; and (2) prohibitions on the mandatory imposition of
capital punishment. Miller, 567 U.S. at 470. Concepcion proposes a similar merged approach: he
highlights separate but related lines of jurisprudence governing the sentencing of juvenile and
intellectually disabled offenders to support the conclusion that defendants who sit at the
intersection—i.e., who are both juvenile and intellectually disabled— have “doubly diminished
culpability,” thus warranting a lesser sentence than mandatory life imprisonment. Pet.’s Mem.
20-22 [Doc. No. 10].
However, when confronted with Concepcion’s case, the SJC engaged in a straightforward

application of Miller, which squarely holds only that a sentence of life without parole for
juvenile offenders convicted of murder may be disproportionate under the Eight Amendment.
Miller, 567 U.S. at 473. Miller, Montgomery, and Atkins—the cases on which Concepcion
primarily relies—all confronted facts materially distinguishable from those here. In none of those
cases was the defendant sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole; Miller and
Montgomery involved mandatory life sentences without parole, and the defendant in Atkins had
been sentenced to death. Accordingly, the proportionality considerations in those cases were
different from those here, and the SJC was not required to arrive at the same result as these
precedents. See Thaler v. Haynes, 559 U.S. 43, 49 (2010) (reviewing courts must be careful not
to turn the Court’s context-specific holdings into “blanket rule[s]”); Brown v. Ruane, 630 F.3d

62, 69 (1st Cir. 2011) (courts should “look for Supreme Court precedent that either ‘squarely
addresses the issue’ in the case or that articulates legal principles that ‘clearly extend’ to the new
factual context” (quoting Wright v. Van Patten, 552 U.S. 120, 123, 125 (2008)).
Finding for Concepcion would require the court to extend Miller and Atkins, and the
Eighth Amendment disproportionate punishment reasoning underlying each. But the scope of
review under AEDPA does not allow the court to do so. Based on this court’s review of relevant
Supreme Court precedent, the court cannot find that the SJC “applie[d] a rule that contradicts the
governing law set forth [by the Supreme Court].” Williams, 529 U.S. at 405. Thus, the
adjudication of the claim did not result in a decision that was contrary to clearly established
federal law as required for relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2254.
III. Conclusion
For the foregoing reasons, Concepcion’s Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus [Doc. No. 1]

is DENIED.
IT IS SO ORDERED
May 24, 2024 /s/Indira Talwani
United States District Judge

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/10202067. Public record. Not legal advice.