Michigan’s New Cruel-or-Unusual-Punishment Framework for Pre-Aaron Felony Murder: Burden-Shifting Review of Mandatory LWOP and Parole-Eligibility Remedy

I. Introduction

People of Michigan v. Edwin Lamar Langston (Mich Sup Ct, July 28, 2026) addresses a narrow but consequential class of cases: defendants convicted of first-degree felony murder before People v Aaron, 409 Mich 672; 299 NW2d 304 (1980), when Michigan juries were not necessarily required to find “malice” in the modern Aaron sense.

Langston was convicted in 1976 on an aiding-and-abetting theory arising from an armed robbery in which a codefendant fatally shot a grocery store owner. He received the then-mandatory sentence of life without the possibility of parole (LWOP). Although the Court of Appeals initially reversed for flawed mens rea instructions, this Court reinstated the conviction after Aaron limited its own rule to prospective application. Decades later, Langston sought postconviction relief, arguing (1) Aaron-malice was never proven and (2) mandatory LWOP is unconstitutional under Michigan’s “cruel or unusual” clause when no jury found Aaron-defined malice.

The Supreme Court declined to revisit Aaron’s prospective-only limitation as to convictions, but it did address whether Michigan’s Constitution permits mandatory LWOP sentences for pre-Aaron felony-murder convictions obtained without an Aaron-malice instruction.

II. Summary of the Opinion

The Court (Justice BOLDEN, joined by Justices BERNSTEIN, WELCH, and HOOD) held that mandatory LWOP for pre-Aaron felony-murder convictions can be “cruel or unusual” punishment under Const 1963, art 1, § 16, where two conditions are met:

  1. The defendant proves the jury was not instructed on malice as defined by Aaron (intent to kill, intent to cause great bodily harm, or wanton and willful disregard of the likelihood that the natural tendency of one’s behavior is to cause death or great bodily harm).
  2. If that showing is made, the burden shifts to the prosecution to prove beyond a reasonable doubt, on the basis of the trial record, that a jury would have found Aaron-malice had it been properly instructed.

If the prosecution cannot meet this burden, the remedy is not resentencing to a term of years or to a lesser offense. Instead, the Court orders a statutory “minimal rewrite” remedy: strike the no-parole feature—leaving a life sentence with parole eligibility.

Applying that framework, the Court found Langston satisfied step one (the instructions did not require Aaron-malice), but remanded to give the prosecution the first opportunity to attempt to satisfy step two.

III. Analysis

A. Precedents Cited (and How They Shape the Decision)

1. Substantive felony-murder mens rea: People v Aaron and its post-Aaron lineage

People v Aaron, 409 Mich 672; 299 NW2d 304 (1980), is the doctrinal hinge. Aaron abolished the common-law approach that permitted malice to be inferred from intent to commit the underlying felony alone, and announced the modern definition of malice (intent to kill, intent to cause great bodily harm, or wanton and willful disregard). Yet Aaron limited the applicability of its change to “trials in progress and those occurring after” its decision.

The majority in Langston does not overturn Aaron’s prospective-only limitation (it expressly denies leave on that issue), but it uses Aaron’s malice concept as the measuring stick for proportionality when evaluating punishment severity for those convicted under pre-Aaron instructions.

The Court also uses post-Aaron felony-murder cases to confirm the continuing centrality of malice: People v Nowack, 462 Mich 392; 614 NW2d 78 (2000) (elements of felony murder), People v Mendoza, 468 Mich 527; 664 NW2d 685 (2003) (malice distinguishes murder from manslaughter), and People v Riley (After Remand), 468 Mich 135; 659 NW2d 611 (2003) (state’s burden to prove malice beyond a reasonable doubt).

2. Michigan’s proportionality framework: People v Lorentzen and People v Bullock

The constitutional analysis is grounded in Michigan’s distinctive “cruel or unusual” clause and its proportionality test: People v Lorentzen, 387 Mich 167; 194 NW2d 827 (1972), and People v Bullock, 440 Mich 15; 485 NW2d 866 (1992). Langston reaffirms that these cases supply the four-factor inquiry: (1) severity vs. gravity, (2) intra-jurisdictional comparison, (3) inter-jurisdictional comparison, and (4) rehabilitation.

Bullock is also the remedy template. In Bullock, the Court struck the no-parole component of an unconstitutional mandatory LWOP scheme. Langston adopts that remedy logic for this pre-Aaron felony-murder subset.

3. The “good cause” gatekeeping for collateral review: People v Reed and Murray v Carrier

Because Langston proceeds via postconviction motion practice, the Court must pass through MCR Subchapter 6.500’s procedural restrictions. For “good cause” under MCR 6.508(D)(3)(a), the Court relies on People v Reed, 449 Mich 375; 535 NW2d 496 (1995), and the federal formulation quoted in Reed from Murray v Carrier, 477 US 478; 106 S Ct 2639; 91 L Ed 2d 397 (1986): good cause may exist where the legal basis was not reasonably available earlier.

The Court finds “good cause” in a modern sentencing trend that did not exist during Langston’s direct appeal period.

4. Modern LWOP limitations as the “trend” supporting good cause and proportionality: Graham, Miller, Montgomery, Parks, Taylor

Although Langston was an adult (23), the Court treats the juvenile and late-adolescent LWOP line as the key jurisprudential shift that made the constitutional sentencing argument realistically available: Graham v Florida, 560 US 48 (2010); Miller v Alabama, 567 US 460 (2012); Montgomery v Louisiana, 577 US 190 (2016); Michigan’s expansions in People v Parks, 510 Mich 225; 987 NW2d 161 (2022); and People v Taylor, ___ Mich ___ (April 10, 2025) (Docket No. 166428).

The majority uses these cases not to extend youth-based protections to adults, but to support two propositions: (1) Michigan constitutional sentencing doctrine has moved away from mandatory LWOP untethered to individualized moral culpability; and (2) that movement supplies “good cause” for late-raised proportionality challenges.

5. Harmless-error analogy and the prosecution’s burden: People v Kowalski, Neder v United States, People v Miller

The Court’s new burden-shifting test is explicitly analogized to instructional-error review: People v Kowalski, 489 Mich 488; 803 NW2d 200 (2011) and Neder v United States, 527 US 1 (1999), for the proposition that omission of an element can be harmless if the prosecution shows beyond a reasonable doubt a rational jury would have found it. For preserved constitutional errors, the Court cites People v Miller, 482 Mich 540; 759 NW2d 850 (2008), to anchor the “beyond a reasonable doubt” harmlessness burden.

This analogy is central: it supplies the procedural architecture for converting a historical instructional deficit into a modern proportionality screen for punishment.

6. Capital proportionality as support for record-based culpability sorting: Enmund v Florida and Tison v Arizona

To justify treating trial evidence of intent as relevant to the constitutionality of the harshest penalty, the Court invokes felony-murder capital cases: Enmund v Florida, 458 US 782 (1982) and Tison v Arizona, 481 US 137 (1987). These cases stand for the proposition that the harshest punishments must track individual culpability, and that record-based findings about intent/participation can matter.

Langston uses them by analogy: LWOP is Michigan’s harshest penalty, and the Constitution demands a culpability-sensitive check where historical doctrine allowed severe punishment without Aaron-malice.

7. Sixth Amendment avoidance: People v Skinner and the Apprendi line

Responding to the argument that judges cannot do this record-based “would the jury have found malice” inquiry, the Court relies on People v Skinner, 502 Mich 89; 917 NW2d 292 (2018), and distinguishes the Apprendi v New Jersey, 530 US 466 (2000) / Ring v Arizona, 536 US 584 (2002) / Cunningham v California, 549 US 270 (2007) principle.

The key move: because the original jury verdict already authorized mandatory LWOP under then-law, judicial fact-finding here can only reduce punishment (by striking no-parole), not increase it. Under Skinner’s framing, the Sixth Amendment is not violated by fact-finding that reduces a sentence.

8. The Court’s treatment of People v Hall

The trial court believed People v Hall, 396 Mich 650; 242 NW2d 377 (1976), foreclosed relief because Hall upheld mandatory LWOP for felony murder under the Lorentzen proportionality test. The Supreme Court declines to overrule Hall formally, but limits its practical reach: Hall remains “undisturbed” for defendants at least 21 and not within the narrow class defined by this new framework (pre-Aaron conviction plus no Aaron-malice instruction plus prosecution fails its burden).

B. Legal Reasoning

1. Reframing the problem: not retroactivity of Aaron, but proportionality of the sentence

The opinion’s central structural choice is to avoid revisiting the validity of pre-Aaron felony-murder convictions (and Aaron’s prospective-only limitation), while still permitting relief from mandatory LWOP in a subset of those cases. This is not merely procedural; it is a theory of constitutional injury: the conviction stands, but the punishment can become unconstitutional when it is imposed without a culpability finding that, in the Court’s view, is essential to justify the harshest penalty.

2. Applying Lorentzen-Bullock: why mandatory LWOP can be grossly disproportionate in this subset

  • Severity vs gravity: LWOP is Michigan’s harshest penalty. The Court reasons it is grossly disproportionate to impose it where the jury made no Aaron-malice finding and the record cannot support beyond a reasonable doubt that malice would have been found. The Court emphasizes aiding-and-abetting and “unforeseen or accidental death” scenarios as archetypal disproportionality cases.
  • Sentences for other Michigan offenses: Mandatory LWOP is reserved for a small set of crimes generally requiring high culpability (intent akin to malice). This contrasts with pre-Aaron felony murder where one could be sentenced as if a fully malicious murderer without a malice finding.
  • Other jurisdictions: The Court characterizes Michigan as among a small group of states mandating LWOP for felony murder, reinforcing the “unusual” and outlier nature of the penalty.
  • Rehabilitation: Mandatory LWOP forecloses rehabilitation by design, and Michigan’s proportionality tradition treats rehabilitation as constitutionally salient.

3. The new two-step, burden-shifting test

The Court’s test is both substantive and procedural:

  1. Defendant’s threshold showing: the trial instructions did not require Aaron-malice (thus no jury finding). This is designed to separate cases where trial courts may already have given Aaron-like instructions even before Aaron, due to then-existing Court of Appeals splits (e.g., People v Fountain, 71 Mich App 491; 248 NW2d 589 (1976); People v Wright, 80 Mich App 172; 262 NW2d 917 (1977); contrasted with People v Till, 80 Mich App 16; 263 NW2d 586 (1977), and People v Butts, 85 Mich App 435; 271 NW2d 265 (1978)).
  2. Prosecution’s beyond-a-reasonable-doubt showing: on the trial record, a rational jury would have found Aaron-malice if properly instructed. This imports harmless-error logic (Neder/Kowalski) and capital proportionality ideas (Enmund/Tison) into a Michigan proportionality remedy.

4. Remedy choice: striking “no parole” rather than full resentencing

The Court rejects resentencing to manslaughter or armed robbery because it does not disturb the murder conviction. It also rejects a free-floating term-of-years resentencing as administratively and legally unmoored for pre-guidelines eras. Instead, borrowing from People v Bullock, it adopts a narrow severance-style remedy: strike the no-parole aspect so the sentence becomes parole-eligible life.

C. Impact

1. A new postconviction pathway for a defined historical cohort

The decision creates a targeted mechanism for pre-Aaron felony-murder prisoners (often decades into their sentences) to seek parole eligibility—without undoing convictions. The threshold inquiry will be heavily record-dependent: jury instructions, theories of aiding/abetting, and the nature of proof of intent at the original trial.

2. Doctrinal significance: proportionality becomes a surrogate for lost mens rea findings

Langston is significant because it uses Michigan’s “cruel or unusual” proportionality doctrine to address a structural mismatch between (a) historical felony-murder liability rules and (b) the modern view that the harshest punishments must reflect individualized moral culpability. Even while Aaron remains prospective for convictions, its malice concept now indirectly constrains punishment for some pre-Aaron convictions.

3. Institutional and litigation effects

  • Trial courts: will conduct “Neder-like” record reviews decades later—raising evidentiary, preservation, and practicality disputes (highlighted in Justice ZAHRA’s finality-centered dissent).
  • Prosecutors: bear a high burden (“beyond a reasonable doubt”) on a cold record, incentivizing disputes over what inferences a rational jury could draw.
  • Defense counsel: will focus on instruction language and on contestable intent evidence, while also litigating procedural bars under MCR 6.508(D).
  • Parole system: the remedy channels relief into parole consideration rather than resentencing—shifting the “individualization” function downstream to the Parole Board.

4. Tension points likely to recur

  • Finality vs fairness: Justice ZAHRA frames the decision as a functional end-run around Aaron’s prospective limitation and MCR 6.508 barriers, emphasizing finality as a core criminal-law value.
  • Remedy design: Chief Justice CAVANAGH agrees on unconstitutionality but rejects the prosecution’s second-step opportunity, advocating an automatic Bullock-style strike of no-parole once no malice instruction is shown.
  • Sixth Amendment questions: while Skinner is used to defend the judge’s role, future litigants may attempt to recharacterize the second step as effectively preserving LWOP by judge-found facts, especially where the “default” remedy is contested or where parole-eligibility rules evolve.

IV. Complex Concepts Simplified

  • “Felony murder” (Michigan): first-degree murder when a killing with malice occurs during an enumerated felony (e.g., robbery). Before Aaron, malice could effectively ride on the intent to commit the felony; after Aaron, malice must be independently proved (intent to kill/GBH, or wanton-and-willful disregard).
  • “Malice” (post-Aaron): not “ill will,” but a culpable mental state—intent to kill, intent to cause great bodily harm, or reckless/wanton disregard of a deadly risk.
  • “Cruel or unusual” (Michigan): broader than the federal “cruel and unusual,” and includes sentences that are “grossly disproportionate” under the Lorentzen-Bullock factors.
  • “Good cause” / “actual prejudice” (MCR 6.508(D)(3)): to raise an issue late, a defendant must show a good reason it wasn’t raised earlier and that the error matters—here, that the sentence is constitutionally invalid.
  • “Harmless error beyond a reasonable doubt” (Neder): even if something important was missing (like an element instruction), the conviction/sentence can stand if it is clear beyond a reasonable doubt a rational jury would have found the missing point anyway.
  • “Strike the no-parole aspect”: the conviction and life sentence remain, but the prisoner becomes eligible to be considered for parole (not guaranteed release).

V. Conclusion

People v Langston establishes a new Michigan constitutional rule for a historically bounded group: mandatory LWOP for pre-Aaron felony murder is “cruel or unusual” when the jury was not instructed on Aaron-defined malice, unless the prosecution can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that malice would have been found on the trial record.

The opinion’s significance lies in its hybrid design—preserving conviction finality while using proportionality to recalibrate punishment severity—and in its remedy: parole eligibility through striking the no-parole feature, rather than broad resentencing. The concurring/dissenting and dissenting opinions highlight the case’s fault lines: whether the Court’s framework unfairly replicates harmless-error review decades later, and whether the decision undermines finality by functionally revisiting the consequences of Aaron’s prospective limitation.