Page:Harris v. State (2018 Ark. 179).pdf/2

 ineligible for the death penalty. See Thompson v. Oklahoma, 487 U.S. 815, 838 (1988) (plurality opinion) (holding that the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution prohibit the execution of a person who was under sixteen years of age at the time of his or her offense). Thus, he was sentenced to a mandatory term of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. See Harris v. State, 331 Ark. 353, 961 S.W.2d 737 (1998) (affirming conviction and sentence).

In 2012, the Supreme Court of the United States held that the Eighth Amendment prohibits a sentencing scheme that requires life in prison without the possibility of parole for juvenile offenders. Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460, 479 (2012). Harris petitioned for writ of habeas corpus under Miller, and the Jefferson County Circuit Court issued the writ in 2016. The circuit court vacated Harris's mandatory sentence of life without parole and remanded for resentencing. On remand, and pursuant to the FSMA, the Drew County Circuit Court summarily resentenced Harris to life imprisonment with the possibility of parole after thirty years.

Harris contends that the FSMA does not apply to him, and therefore, he is entitled to resentencing pursuant to this court's decisions in Jackson v. Norris, 2013 Ark. 175, 426 S.W.3d 906, and Kelley v. Gordon, 2015 Ark. 277, 465 S.W.3d 842. Further, he raises