PANAMA CITY — A woman convicted of a Callaway murder and sentenced to life in prison as a juvenile will be returning to Bay County courts to be resentenced, according to officials.
However, a date has yet to be set.
Rebecca Lee Falcon was convicted of first-degree murder and attempted armed robbery with a firearm more than 18 years ago. She was sentenced to life in prison at age 15 in connection with the shooting death of a Callaway taxi driver. Now 33, Falcon will be coming back to the Bay County court system for a new sentence following a Florida Supreme Court decision.
The court ordered new sentencing hearings in March for Falcon and three other people who committed felonies as juveniles in order to comply with U.S. Supreme Court rulings that say juveniles can’t be sent to prison for life if they haven’t killed someone and life-without-parole sentences are unconstitutional for juvenile murderers.
Falcon was a troubled high school student whose mother sent her from Leavenworth, Kansas, to Bay County to live with her grandparents. She got drunk and sneaked out of her grandparents’ house in November 1997 to meet up with 18-year-old Clifton Gilchrist. They flagged down a cab, forced the driver to go to a secluded area and then shot him in the head in an attempted robbery, according to court records.
“Asserting that she was trying ‘to fit in’ and act ‘brave’ to mask her ‘true feelings of insecurity,’ Falcon ‘agreed to the idea of a robbery,’ expecting to ‘get the money and go’ as she claimed she had seen in ‘the movies,’ ” according to a court document filed by a defense attorney. “However, when the robbery did not proceed as expected, she alleged that she ‘panicked’ and, though not ‘wanting to kill someone,’ ultimately participated. …”
Falcon was convicted and sentenced to life in prison without the chance for parole for the crime. She has since been repeatedly used as an example in the argument over whether child murderers should be locked away for life.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2012 in an Alabama case that juveniles can’t be sentenced to life without parole because, in part, their brains aren’t fully developed and there’s a better chance for reform than with adult offenders.
Falcon claimed she had low self-esteem and was desperate for the approval of others at the time of the shooting, and the court’s ruling was applied retroactively to her case.
Documents were filed March 25 in Bay County to quash the previous sentence and schedule a sentence hearing for Falcon sometime in the future. However, a date has not been set. Circuit Judge Brantley Clark is listed as the presiding judge in the case.
Falcon’s attorney has indicated that since Falcon already has served more than 15 years in prison, she will request a sentence review immediately following her resentencing, according to court documents.