S-17-0539 State v. Sydney L. Thieszen (Appellant)
York County District Court, Judge James C. Stecker
Attorneys: Melissa R. Vincent (Attorney General’s Office) --- Jeffery A. Pickens (Nebraska Commission on Public Advocacy) (Appellant)
Criminal: 1st degree murder
Proceedings Below: In State v. Thiezen, 295 Neb. 293 (2016), The Nebraska Supreme Court affirmed the district court’s order vacating Appellant’s life sentence. Following a mitigation hearing, the district court sentenced Appellant to 70 years to life imprisonment.
Issues: The district court erred in 1) imposing an excessive sentence, 2) imposing a de facto sentence of life imprisonment without parole in the absence of a finding of irreparable corruption, in violation of Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. _, 132 S.Ct 2455 (2012), Montgomery v.
Louisiana, 577 U.S. __, 136 S.Ct 718 (2016), Tatum v. Arizona, _ U.S. _, 137 S.Ct 11
(2016), and the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, 3) imposing a disproportionate sentence in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, 4) allowing improper victim impact testimony at the sentencing
Hearing, and 5) failing to strike from the presentence report letters that were submitted by anonymous sources, which contained baseless information, and/or were intended to intimidate the judge and encourage him to impose an inappropriate sentence.