IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE NINETEENTH JUDICIAL CIRCUIT IN AND FOR MARTIN COUNTY, FLORIDA STATE OF FLORIDA Case No. 1980CF430 -VS-. BROOKS BELLAY Defendant RESENTEN CIN ORDER THIS CAUSE came before the Court for a resentencing pursuant to Miller v. Alabama, 132 S. Ct. 2455 (2012) and its progeny. In Miller, the United States Supreme Court held that mandatory life imprisonment without parole for those offenders who were under the age of eighteen at the time of their homicide crimes violates the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishments. Miller requires that before sentencing a juvenile to life without parole, the sentencing judge must take into account how children are different, and how those differences counsel against irrevocably sentencing them to a lifetime in prison. In doing so, the Court acknowledged that a sentencing court might encounter the ?rare juvenile offender? for whom rehabilitation is impossible and life without parole is justified. Further, even if a court considers a child?s age before sentencing him or her to a lifetime in prison, that sentence still violates the Eighth Amendment for a child whose crime re?ects ?unfortunate yet transient immaturity.? Life without parole should only be imposed on juvenile offenders whose crimes re?ect permanent STAMP Ill IAEK OF PAGE 17 PM 2301?: incorrigibility and irreparable corruption. In Atwell v. State, 197 So. 3d 1040, 1042 (Fla. 2016), reh'g denied, 2016 WL 4440673 (Fla. Aug. 23, 2016), the Florida Supreme Court applied the Miller rule even to cases like the present case involving a life with parole sentence, because the Florida Supreme Court has found that Florida?s parole system is inadequate for purposes of the Miller decision. Effectively, in Arwell, the court held that a life sentence with parole in Florida resembles a mandatorily imposed life without parole sentence. Pursuant to the United States Supreme Court?s ruling, the Florida legislature has created statutory sentencing procedures and factors to be considered by a sentencing judge-in these cases. Pursuant to the findings herein, the court has considered all those factors in deciding this case. The Defendant was fourteen years old when he committed what is routinely described by persons involved in this case as a ?horri?c crime.? Facts of particular crimes are particularly important because a person?s ability to commit speci?c acts very often re?ects a deep-seeded character. However, sometimes a crime is an aberration of a person?s character, never to be repeated. To'say this crime is horri?c is an understatement. It is one of the most heinous crimes that has ever occurred in the history of this jurisdiction, the Nineteenth Judicial Circuit. The court has considered the excellent pre?sentence investigation by Michael Finger of the Department of Corrections that was done in this case at the time of the 2 original sentencing. As the presentence investigation report states, before the offense, the Defendant told a friend, Leroy Christ, that he was plotting to get money by abducting a little girl, Angel Halstead, who was a neighbor. He said his plan involved extorting money for the girl?s return, but killing her regardless. Approximately ten days after making these statements, the little girl disappeared from her home. This case never involved any request for ransom, so the Defendant?s statement seems to have been a form of deranged bravado re?ecting a deep-seeded desire by the Defendant to commit the murder of the little girl. The mother of the child reported the girl?s disappearance. During the mother?s report to the police regarding her missing child, the Defendant interj ected and volunteered-a description of the victim?s clothing to police. He reported that she was wearing pink shorts. Little Angel Halstead was last seen playing with a kitten. During the search time period, the Defendant was observed by police conspicuously petting a little kitten. The Defendant again inserted himself into the investigation by volunteering to search. The police and hundreds of others searched for the victim. The community was, and still is, deeply disturbed by this crime. Retired police Detective Sergeant David Everett Carter testified at the resentencing that during the time of the search, the Defendant became a prime suspect because he had asked police, ?Did you look by a well?? and, ?Can you take ?ngerprints from dead bodies?? More signi?cantly, police learned that he told a 3 neighbor, ?There is no need looking for her, she is dead, she has been raped, she is over by the well.? Indeed, the little girl was found naked, dead and partially covered in blood in a wooded area .near her home, and also near a well. Thick brush surrounded the area, secreting her partially decomposed body. Her clothing was found on palmetto fronds near her body. She had been beaten to death. Close to the area was a tree on which women?s underwear were resting: ?fteen to twenty pairs. Autopsy revealed the cause of death to be blunt trauma to the abdomen leading to exsanguination. The four year old child had a lacerated liver, fractured ribs, and a contusion to her sternal area. Very signi?cant force produced these injuries. After lying to the police, the Defendant ultimately admitted to police to raping and killing the young girl. Inter alia, the Defendant said that the little four year old girl voluntary took off her clothes, tried to approach him and touch his privates. Her sexual advances allegedly angered him to violence. The sexual battery charge was not prosecuted because of problems regarding corpus delicti; meaning physical evidence supporting his confession to that particularly crime. The lack of corpus delicti for sexual battery may have been due to the state of decomposition, the nature of the sexual misconduct or that there was no actual sexual battery committed. Additionally, this investigation predated forensic DNA investigation as part of the normal criminal investigatory process. To be absolutely clear though, this court is not concluding that the Defendant did in fact rape the Victim. Again, to be 4 absolutely clear, the court is not sentencing the Defendant as a rapist and a murder; the court is considering him just as a murderer of a little girl found naked and beaten to death. However, the fact that a boy of the Defendant?s age, in the context of the particular facts of this case, when speaking of his act of murder of a young girl, referenced sexual conduct is disturbingly re?ective of a corrupt, wicked character, regardless of Whether he in fact committed a sexual battery in addition to murder. This is true, even in light of his later denial of sexual battery to Dr. Ri?dn. For even in that denial, he claimed that the little four year old girl, of her own volition, took off her clothes and told him, ?F-ck me.?i The Defendant, Brooks Bellay, was a fourteen year old brawny young boy when he committed murder of a little girl. There is no credible, signi?cant evidence to show or believe that immaturity, impulsivity, intellectual capacity or mental or emotional health had anything to do with the Defendant?s commission of the crime. The Defendant?s intellectual capacity was properly described by his own expert, Dr. Ri?dn, as being average or above average. Additionally, there were no indications of a mental illness or thought disorder. It is signi?cant to the court that prior to the commission of this offense the Defendant had already been characterized as ?ungovernable,? and was known to be a ?cold,? bully, who was described by his own expert, Dr. Ri?dn, as consistently being ?all too ready to break rules; explosively violent at times; and disappointed i See page 2 of Dr. Rifkin?s June 19th, 1980 report. when his fantasies are not ful?lled.? Dr. Ri?