A woman serving 40 years in prison for strangling her mother to death with electrical cords doesn’t deserve a new sentence, the Florida Supreme Court said Thursday in a ruling that could affect hundreds of inmates statewide, the Palm Beach Post reports. Linda Pedroza was 17 when she and her boyfriend killed her mother 20 years ago. She will be in her 50s when she is released from prison. Her ability to leave prison in middle age means the sentence is far from the “cruel and unusual punishment” the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed when it ruled that juvenile offenders must be treated differently because they don’t fully understand the consequences of their actions, the Florida court ruled.
As it did a month ago when it said former justices were wrong about the legality of the state’s death penalty, the high court said the court had been wrong about the effect of the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark rulings. Previous rulings were “in error,” Justice Alan Lawson wrote, striking down past decisions that offered hope that anyone who is serving more than 20 years in prison for crimes they committed as juveniles were entitled to be resentenced. The 5-1 ruling is the latest example of Florida’s changing legal landscape. The shift began last year when three justices retired and were replaced with far more conservative jurists. Given the shift, Pedroza’s attorney said he wasn’t surprised the court refused to toss out the 40-year sentence Pedroza received for strangling her mother and then bathing the body in acid in hopes of avoiding capture. In rewriting past rulings, Lawson said new sentences will be considered only for those serving life sentences or terms that are so long that it is all-but assured the inmate will die in prison.