COA 369097 PEOPLE OF MI V KUMARA K HUBBERT Opinion - Per Curiam - Unpublished 12/4/2025

If this opinion indicates that it is “FOR PUBLICATION,” it is subject to
revision until final publication in the Michigan Appeals Reports.
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S T A T E O F M I C H I G A N
C O U R T O F A P P E A L S
PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
UNPUBLISHED
December 04, 2025
9:31 AM
v No. 369097
Wayne Circuit Court
KUMARA K. HUBBERT, LC No. 98-013443-02-FC
Defendant-Appellant.
Before: K. F. KELLY, P.J., and BORRELLO and CAMERON, JJ.
CAMERON, J. (concurring in part and dissenting in part).
The majority vacates defendant’s 40- to 60-year sentence for second-degree murder for
constitutional and non-constitutional reasons. Underlying the majority’s holdings is the
conclusion that the sentence imposed here is equivalent to an impermissible life sentence for a
juvenile offender. The majority reaches this conclusion by relying on two cases, People v Wines,
323 Mich App 343; 916 NW2d 855 (2018), rev’d on other grounds 506 Mich 954, and People v
Eads, ___ Mich App ___; ___ NW3d ___ (2025) (Docket No. 357332), for the bright-line rule
that a sentence of 39.3 years or more is an impermissible life sentence for a juvenile. In my view,
the majority’s reliance on these cases is problematic. As I will explain, the authority on which
Wines and Eads rely does not support the conclusion that a 39.3-year sentence is categorically a
life sentence for every offender, regardless of age. Thus, I write separately to highlight several
legal issues that I believe contributed to the Eads opinion and to explain why I believe the majority
is reading Eads far too broadly. That said, I recognize that this Court is bound by Eads, MCR
.7215(C)(2), and I agree that resentencing is necessary. I, therefore, dissent in part, and concur in
part.
I. JUVENILE SENTENCING LAW LEADING UP TO EADS
In Miller v Alabama, 567 US 460, 465, 470, 479; 132 S Ct 2455; 183 L Ed 2d 407 (2012),
the United States Supreme Court held that a mandatory life-without-parole sentence for a juvenile
convicted of a homicide offense constitutes a cruel and unusual punishment prohibited by the
Eighth Amendment. The ruling requires trial courts to consider several factors, commonly known
as the Miller factors, before sentencing a juvenile to life without parole. See Id. at 471-472. “A

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judge or a jury must have the opportunity to consider [these] mitigating circumstances before
imposing the harshest possible penalty for juveniles.” Id. at 489.
In response to Miller, our Legislature adopted MCL 769.25 and 769.25a, which provide
the statutory and procedural requirements for sentencing, or resentencing, an offender younger
than 18 convicted of first-degree murder. These statutes require that, if the prosecution seeks the
harshest possible penalty of life without the possibility of parole, the sentencing judge must hold
a hearing, and “shall consider the factors listed in Miller.” Unless the prosecution moves to seek
a life sentence, the sentencing court must impose a sentence with a minimum of 25 years, and no
more than 40 years, and a maximum of no more than 60 years. The Legislature did not require
application of the Miller factors when fashioning term-of-years sentences.
Michigan courts began to give Miller broader application starting with Wines. In Wines,
this Court held that sentencing courts must apply the Miller factors when imposing term-of-years
sentences for first-degree murder, despite the fact that neither the United States Constitution nor
our Legislature require it. The defendant in Wines was a juvenile who was sentenced to life without
parole. Id. at 347. After Miller, he was entitled to resentencing. Id. Because the prosecution did
not seek to uphold the defendant’s life sentence, there was no Miller hearing, and the sentencing
court resentenced the defendant to a term of 40 to 60 years, relying on well-established sentencing
considerations. Id. On appeal, the defendant argued that the “the Miller standards should govern
his sentencing even when the prosecution does not seek a life-without-parole sentence[.]” Id. at
349. The Wines Court rejected the defendant’s constitutional argument, but vacated the
defendant’s sentence, holding:
[T]here is no constitutional mandate requiring the trial court to specifically make
findings as to the [Miller] factors except in the context of a decision whether to
impose a sentence of life without parole. We further conclude that when sentencing
a minor convicted of first-degree murder, when the sentence of life imprisonment
without parole is not at issue, the court should be guided by a balancing of the Snow
objectives[1] and in that context is required to take into account the attributes of
youth such as those described in Miller. [Id. at 352.]
Wines’s rationale for extending the Miller factors to term-of-years sentences to first-degree
murder was based on its concern about the potential severity of the sentence that could be imposed
under these statues. Specifically, the Wines Court was troubled that these statutes lacked
guidelines to guide judicial discretion, and the “very substantial” range of permissible term-of-
years sentences could result in a juvenile being incarcerated until “he or she is a geriatric[.]” Id.
at 350-351. It also expressed concern with the possibility of a lengthy sentence because “inmate
life expectancy is statistically low[.]” Id. at 350.2 As a result, Wines held that “a failure to consider
the distinctive attributes of youth, such as those discussed in Miller, when sentencing a minor to a
1 The Snow objectives are: “(1) reformation of the offender, (2) protection of society, (3)
punishment of the offender, and (4) deterrence of others from committing like offenses.” Wines,
323 Mich App at 351.
2 Wines’s questionable support for this statement will be addressed below.

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term of years pursuant to MCL 769.25a so undermine[d] a sentencing judge’s exercise of his or
her discretion [that it] constitute[d] reversible error.” Id. at 352.
By its terms, Wines’s holding is firmly anchored in term-of-years sentences for first-degree
murder under the sentencing scheme set forth in MCL 769.25 and MCL 769.25a. Wines, 323 Mich
App at 352 (requiring consideration of youth when balancing the Snow objectives “when
sentencing a minor convicted of first-degree murder, when the sentence of life imprisonment
without parole is not at issue[.]”) (Emphasis added). Nevertheless, this Court has occasionally cut
Wines from its jurisprudential moorings and misapplied it well beyond its roots in first-degree
murder. One particularly relevant example of this Court’s misapplication of Wines is when it
vacated Hubert Marshall’s—defendant’s codefendant—term-of-years sentence for second-degree
murder involving the very same crime that underlies this appeal. People v Marshall, unpublished
per curiam opinion of the Court of Appeals, issued October 22, 2020 (Docket No. 345927).
In Marshall, the panel, while expressing no concerns about the sentence term actually
imposed, vacated Marshall’s second-degree murder conviction because the sentencing court failed
to consider the Snow factors in light of his “distinctive attributes of . . . youth” that Wines had
incorporated from Miller. Id. at 8. The Marshall panel failed to explain why Wines’s holding,
which was limited to term-of-years sentences for first-degree murder convictions, should be
extended to a different criminal offense—second-degree murder—that is subject to a different
sentencing scheme, and to which the sentencing guidelines applied.3
Since Wines, the Michigan Supreme Court has clarified some of the circumstances under
which “youth” must be considered at sentencing for certain youthful offenders in various contexts.
The most relevant of these decisions to this case is People v Stovall, 510 Mich 301; 987 NW2d 85
(2022). In Stovall, the defendant was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole for second-
degree murder, and argued that his sentence was cruel and/or unusual because he was “effectively
being denied a meaningful opportunity for release.” Id. at 308-309. Our Supreme Court held that
the defendant’s sentence was cruel or unusual under the Michigan Constitution, because (1)
juveniles convicted of second-degree murder were not entitled to the same procedural safeguards
as those convicted of first-degree murder, and (2) permitting a juvenile convicted of the less serious
offense (second-degree murder) to serve a sentence deemed impermissible for juveniles convicted
of the more serious offense (first-degree murder) was cruel or unusual. Id. at 315-317.
II. EADS
This background leads us to Eads, the case on which the majority relies to vacate
defendant’s sentence. The defendant in Eads was a juvenile offender sentenced to 50 to 75 years’
imprisonment for second-degree murder. Eads, ___ Mich App at ___; slip op at 1. He moved for
relief from judgment after Miller, which the trial court denied. Id. On appeal, this Court held that
3 By contrast, both before and after Marshall, this Court has also upheld juvenile term-of-years
sentences for second-degree murder convictions without even mentioning Wines, presumably in
recognition that it was inapplicable. See, e.g., People v Schwander, unpublished opinion of the
Court of Appeals, issued October 6, 2022 (Docket No. 354073); People v Brown, unpublished per
curiam opinion of the Court of Appeals, issued August 13, 2019 (Docket No. 344537).

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his sentence of 50 to 75 years violated the Michigan Constitution’s ban on cruel or unusual
punishment because the lengthy term was “effectively . . . a life sentence[,]” which was struck
down by our Supreme Court in Stovall. Id. Eads also held that the sentence “lack[ed] the requisite
proportionally[]” under People v Milbourn, 435 Mich 630; 461 NW2d 1 (1990), for this same
reason, and because the trial court failed to consider the Miller factors. Underlying both holdings
was Eads’s conclusion that the lengthy sentence imposed “would require him to outlive his life
expectancy before even becoming eligible for parole and would deny him a meaningful
opportunity to obtain release . . . .” Eads, ___ Mich App at ___; slip op at 14-15.
Relevant to this appeal, Eads’s constitutional and proportionality analyses relied on a
United States Sentencing Commission (USSC) report that “defined a life sentence as a period of
incarceration of 470 months (approximately 39 years) or more[.]” Id. at ___; slip op at 9. Eads
reasoned that the defendant’s sentence was an impermissible, de facto life sentence because the
USSC “defines a life sentence as a period of incarceration of 470 months (approximately 39 years)
or more—a period of incarceration well short of Eads’s 50-year minimum [sentence].” Id.
Applying this definition, the majority in Eads reasoned that the defendant, “despite his juvenile
status and all that has now been recognized to come with it,” nonetheless “received a sentence for
second-degree murder that would require him to outlive his life expectancy before even becoming
eligible for parole and would deny him a meaningful opportunity to obtain release based on
demonstrated maturity and rehabilitation.” Id. at ___; slip op at 14-15. Eads supported this finding
by quoting Wines’s claim that “a 2012 data report from the USSC ‘indicate[d] that a person held
in a general prison population has a life expectancy of about 64 years,’ although, as this Court has
previously acknowledged, ‘this estimate probably overstates the average life expectancy for
minors committed to prison for lengthy terms.’ ” Id., quoting Wines, 323 Mich App at 351 n 6.
I believe that there are several problems with Eads’s reliance on this USSC report. First,
there is no support in the report that the average life expectancy for federal prisoners is 64-years.
This unsubstantiated claim appears to have first been made by an Illinois appellate court that
opined: “The United States Sentencing Commission Preliminary Quarterly Data Report (through
June 30, 2012) indicates that a person held in a general prison population has a life expectancy of
about 64 years. This estimate probably overstates the average life expectancy for minors
committed to prison for lengthy terms.” People v Sanders, 2016 IL App (1st) 121732-b, ¶ 26; 56
NE3d 563 (2016). Wines, 323 Mich App at 351 n 6, cited and repeated these claims verbatim,
even though they are not in the 2012 report, nor do they seem to appear in any report published by
the USSC.
The USSC report Wines cites uses the phrase “average life expectancy” only in the context
of explaining that, for statistical reasons, federal life sentences were given a numeric value of 470
months, “a length consistent with the average life expectancy of federal criminal offenders given
the average age of federal offenders.”4 The phrase by the USSC links an unidentified average life
4 United States Sentencing Commission, Final Quarterly Data Report Fiscal Year 2012, Appendix
A, p 7, available at <https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research-and-

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expectancy to the then-average age of federal offenders. While this particular report did not
indicate the average age of federal offenders, according to the USSC, the average age of federal
prisoners as of January 28, 2023, is 41 years old.5 Given this statistic, I am not at all surprised that
the USSC considers 470-month sentences as having a length consistent with the average life
expectancy of federal criminal offenders in general. It goes without saying that the analysis is very
different for a 17-year-old juvenile offender.
In my opinion, Eads erroneously relied on this same language to support its reasoning.
Specifically quoting Wines, 323 Mich App at 351 n 6, Eads asserted that “a 2012 data report from
the USSC ‘indicates that a person held in a general prison population has a life expectancy of about
64 years,’ although, as this Court has previously acknowledged, ‘this estimate probably overstates
the average life expectancy for minors committed to prison for lengthy terms.’ ” Eads, ___ Mich
App at ___; slip op at 9 (brackets omitted). Eads used this unsubstantiated premise to conclude
that the defendant in that case was being required to “serve a term of years requiring him to surpass
his life expectancy before he may become even eligible for parole for the first time[,]” because he
would be almost 65 years old on the estimated date of his first parole eligibility, which was
“beyond even the average life expectancy of an individual who enter[ed] prison as an adult and
[was] thereafter held in a general prison population.” Eads, ___ Mich App at ___; slip op at 9-10,
10 n 15, citing Wines, 323 Mich App at 351 n 6.
Moreover, Eads did not recognize the limitations of the USSC’s life-sentence definition
when erroneously applying it to the defendant’s sentencing. Eads repeatedly referred to, and used,
this definition to support its conclusion that the defendant’s sentence was an impermissible, de
facto life sentence because the USSC’s de facto 470-month-or-more life sentence figure was “well
short of Eads’s 50-year minimum . . . .” Eads, ___ Mich App at ___; slip op at 9.
It is certainly true that the USSC defines a de facto life sentence as “a period of
incarceration of 470 months (39.3 years) or more.” But the 470-month figure is a statistical proxy
used to represent de facto life sentences in the federal system.6 Statistical proxies are defined as
“variable[s] used instead of the variable of interest when that variable of interest cannot be
measured directly.”7 Researchers at the USSC use the figure as a benchmark to interpret
publications/federal-sentencing-statistics/quarterly-sentencing-
updates/USSC_2012_Quarter_Report_Final.pdf> (emphasis added).
5 United States Sentencing Commission, Quick Facts: Federal Offenders in Prison, p 1, p 2 n 1,
available at <https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research-and-publications/quick-
facts/BOP_January2023.pdf>.
6 United States Sentencing Commission, Life Sentences in the Federal System, February 2015, p
10, available at <https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research-and-publications/research-
projects-and-surveys/miscellaneous/20150226_Life_Sentences.pdf>.
7 Oxford Reference, Proxy Variable,
<https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100351624>
(accessed December 4, 2025). See also, Scott & White Health Plan v Becerra, 693 F Supp 3d 1,

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sentencing data from across the federal judicial system. Importantly, this 470-months-or-more
benchmark does not adjust for the age of a particular offender. It is a one-size-fits-all tool that
does not differentiate between a 41-year-old offender8 and a 17-year-old offender who are both
sentenced to 470 months’ imprisonment even though the offenders’ respective ages and remaining
life expectancies at the time of sentencing are radically different. In my view, a definition used by
a federal policy-making agency provides poor guidance for how Michigan courts should construe
the Michigan Constitution and its related caselaw. This is especially true when the definition is,
in my view, misapplied to characterize a “life sentence” for a 17 year-old.
Setting these concerns aside, I respectfully dissent from the majority’s conclusion in this
case that Eads renders defendant’s sentence invalid. Here, we are considering a sentence of 40 to
60 years’ imprisonment for second-degree murder. This sentencing term is far less severe than the
50-to-75 years that Eads determined was invalid. I believe that the 10- and 15-year differential
between the two sentences is “substantial,”9 while the majority characterizes defendant’s sentence
as merely “slightly less” than the lengthy term vacated in Eads.
I am also not persuaded that a 40- to 60-year term of imprisonment, alone, leads to the
inescapable conclusion that defendant’s sentence is, as the majority contends, “still lengthy enough
to effectively be a life sentence.” The majority makes this finding by reading Eads as dictating a
numerical, bright-line rule that trial courts must mechanically apply to juvenile sentencing. But if
this is true, then Eads stands for the dubious proposition that sentencing courts violate the
Michigan Constitution’s prohibition against cruel or unusual punishment and Milbourn’s
proportionalty test when they sentence a juvenile convicted of second-degree murder to a
minimum sentence that is 39.3 years or more, the USSC’s benchmark for life sentences. Moreover,
if the majority is correct that a minimum sentence of 39.3 years or more is equivalent to a life
sentence that violates Michigan’s ban on cruel or unusual punishment, then trial courts may very
13 (D DC, 2023) (noting that a statistical proxy “by nature, will never achieve an exactly precise
measurement.”).
8 Further undermining the sweeping application of this benchmark to juveniles, the average age of
this group of offenders reported by the USSC has only gone up in recent years. A 2015 report
estimated the average age to be 37, while a 2022 report estimated that the average age had
increased to 39, and, as noted, the average age as of January 28, 2023 was 41. United States
Sentencing Commission, Life Sentences in the Federal System, February 2015, p 11, available at
<https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research-and-publications/research-projects-and-
surveys/miscellaneous/20150226_Life_Sentences.pdf>; United States Sentencing Commission,
Life Sentences in the Federal System, July 2022, p 11, available at
<https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research-and-publications/research-
publications/2022/20220726_Life.pdf>; United States Sentencing Commission, Quick Facts:
Federal Offenders in Prison, p 1, p 2 n 1, available at
<https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research-and-publications/quick-
facts/BOP_January2023.pdf>.
9 Notably, the “very substantial” range of potential minimums that caused the Wines panel such
concern was 15 years. Wines, 323 Mich App at 350.

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well be required to resentence all the juvenile offenders currently serving a term of years sentence
with a minimum set at 39.3 years or more.
I read Eads’s holdings to be narrower. Eads held that a 50-year minimum sentence for a
defendant convicted of second-degree murder as a juvenile is “cruel or unusual” punishment
because it is the constitutional equivalent to the parolable life sentence that our Supreme Court
struck down in Stovall. The Eads Court also held that the defendant’s sentence was
disproportionate because the sentencing court failed to consider the defendant’s youth as a
mitigating factor. In my opinion, the fact that Eads cited favorably to the USSC definition for de
facto life sentences in its reasoning does not make this federal statistical benchmark a permanent
feature of Michigan’s juvenile sentencing laws. I further believe that applying the majority’s rigid,
constitutionally-based 39.3-year cutoff is inconsistent with Michigan’s proportionality
jurisprudence, which requires individualized consideration of the circumstances of the offense and
the offender as recognized in Eads and Milbourn. People v Steanhouse, 500 Mich 453, 474; 902
NW2d 327 (2017).
But I also acknowledge that Eads, as binding precedent, requires us to remand for
resentencing in this case. While I do not believe Eads mandates the conclusion based on the actual
sentence, one of Eads’s holdings is that considerations of youth and its attendant characteristics
(which I interpret to be the Miller factors) must be considered by a sentencing court in its
proportionality analysis when sentencing a juvenile defendant for second-degree murder to a term
of years. Eads, ___ Mich App at ___; slip op at 14-15. Accordingly, because defendant’s youth
was not considered when he was initially sentenced, his sentence cannot be said to be proportional,
and he is entitled to resentencing.
That said, I remain uncertain about the scope of Eads’s proportionality holding. Does a
sentencing court err when it fails to consider youth only when the minimum sentence is in excess
of 39.3 months? Or must youth be considered by sentencing courts for all juvenile second-degree
murder sentences, regardless of term length? To that end, is Eads’s proportionally holding limited
to juveniles convicted of second-degree murder, or must it be more broadly applied to other
offenses? In my opinion, these questions will remain unresolved until our Supreme Court
addresses them. I remain hopeful that it will do so considering it has recently granted leave in
Eads.
/s/ Thomas C. Cameron

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