here this morning on behalf of my testimony my friend is appealing from the sixty five year sentence that was imposed on him after his skittish and for post conviction relief was granted and he was given a new sentencing hearing because the original sentence he received a mandatory natural life imprisonment as a fifteen year old violated miller versus alabama we are asking them much has been given again in the sentencing hearing because the trial judge in this case imposed the sentence at the recent insane hearing and violation of both miller and the united states supreme court's subsequent decision in montgomery versus louisiana i would like to note that we had originally in the briefs raised the national argument argument no one asking that this case be sent back for an discretionary transfer hearing because of the change in the juvenile transfer laws that discretionary natural life sentence may offend and again in this case the state did not disputing that the sixty five year sentence that was imposed on a fifteen year old juvenile offender is a fact of life sentence so the question we have is whether the new sentencing hearing that was conducted by judge corey comported with the requirements that was set forth by the u s supreme court in the in montgomery and which people we homan has verified do apply to all juvenile offenders who are being sentenced for homicide not only the offender she age at the time of the offense but also the attendant characteristics of views and the record passed to support the conclusion that the trial judge really should make a finding but the support the conclusion that this is a fender who's being sentenced is among that very rare category of juvenile offenders whose crime reflects a record low corruption and basically a juvenile who is completely devoid of any rehabilitation potential and those are the characteristics that describe much as small we don't have any dispute that this was a very tragic event that led to the death of two people as a freakis that this was an offense that took place because his point of the gun has gotten the gun hit the post and the time discharged because his finger was on the trigger and as a result was one discharge of one shot two people ricky home james walker david stafford if you look at those individuals there is a reasonable conclusion you can draw from them that they maybe are irreparable and here they are corrupt  character all those defendants were seventeen at the time of the offenses martez was fifteen each of those offenses if you look at the underlying nature of those offenses were vicious and exhibited to crave character and broken to the home of a woman he actually knew to steal videotapes from her and when she confronted him caught him in the act he stamped her forty five different times he's now in here and actually said to her as she lay dying  remained at them for consideration in mind of its decision in the home because in those cases i don't think it could be said that the courts follow the dictates of montgomery and miller and they need that there needed to be a showing that the judges specifically considered the age of the individual the ten and characteristics of used and that the judge determined that these individuals were completely devoid of any relative potential i'd like to compare martez to these other individuals looking at the original time of the offense he was arrested shortly after the offense of this he gave a statement to the police admitted his involvement and at the end of the videotape statement when asked if he had anything more he wanted to say what he did was he apologized he said i'm sorry i never meant for this to happen he wrote a letter of apology to the victim's famil both at the time of the original sentencing hearing and at the time of the resentencing hearing he's always showed remorse he's always said i didn't mean for this to happen this was an accident it wasn't it was actually exhibit the what miller recognises that it was a stupid thing i was fifteen years old i wasn't thinking about it and i didn't realise this would happen with respect to his rehabilitative potential at the time of the original sentencing hearing he had to have a mandatory national life sentence because of student actions so that he is was it an abbreviated pre sentence report it was an abbreviated sentencing hearing act that time his age was irrelevant his rehabilitated potential was irrelevant even any circumstances surrounding his character and his attributes his recklessness his immaturity all that was irrelevant because natural life was mandatory but now at the new sentencing hearing it's been ten years and not only has merit has show that he has rehabilitative potential and that this offense wasn't evidence of the and corrupt character but he's actually moved toward becoming a productive citizen he's been in the department of corrections for ten years he has had no disciplinary infractions since he's been in the department of corrections he's completed several classes one of the classes he completed was a car class on the impact of crime victims so for him to better understand the effect of his behavior he completed a twelve week course  thinking for a change which addresses how to recognize negative patterns of behavior change in the particular he's completed a number of religious courses he was not able while he was in the d o c because of his security  clearance or security classification he could not take any classes and education classes when he got returned to the county to wait reset and seeing he's signed up for and begin taking the classes so facts i'd like to just close by talking about what my gum reverses louisiana told us about miller and what went down re said this is that miller did more than require a sentence or to court considers a child's age before sentencing him or her child life time in prison that sentence still violates the if amendment for a child whose crime reflects unfortunate yet trends and maturity so the matter of federal constitutional law sentencing a child to life without parole is excessive as one can resell for all but the rare juvenile offender who's crying reflects irreparable corruption in this case when judge jury sentenced mark has not only there's not that as the court actually noted in a similar case in the seventh circuit in the can we versus butler there is no indication in this record that judge perry considered his age or the circumstances of which used to have any relevance he said nothing about the circumstances of his youth he said nothing about whether it was in the polls over rocco said nothing about whether he was capable of rehabilitation or whether this defendant was it's interesting to ask the motion to reconsider sutton's when the defense attorney filed a motion to reconsider sentence brought up the the statute that had been passed effective shortly after effective january first of tw sixteen which as was sentenced in august of twenty fifteen and he said our legislature has now passed a statute requiring the sentencing judge to consider various factors when your sentence in an individual who is under the age of eighteen at the time of the defense the defense attorney said judge these factors i know they're not binding on you but they are persuasive the pack they are back and home and makes it clear a trial judge doesn't have to consider these knoller factors when sentencing an individual under the age of eighteen and again at the time of the motion reconsider satins george curry made no mention on simply said motion to reconsider tonight and i think that's evidence of the fact that he did not take into consideration things he's constitutionally required to consider in order to appropriately  statute that applies to him right the sentences for murder twenty to sixty years and within their range that sentence range only an abuse of discretion i the difficulty here is that sense is no different than what i have applied to in the juvenile based upon the murder statute and the consecutive s find that eighty years is a survivable average lifespan for any individual and now we're talking about a fifteen year old white male incarcerated in the department of corrections and i can't believe that anyone can find that a sixty five year sentence imposed on a fifteen year old in prison is not a fact of life sentence the state also said that judge curry gran this is a substantive substantive rule of law it must be applied retroactively and they sent that case fact for us in new sentencing hearing because that given only gotten a natural life sentence so i thin have to as a matter of constitutional law grant this post conviction petition the state also says that man has got a new sentencing hearing so that he would not be given a sentence of natural life sixty five years is a sentence of natural life and there's no indication the government and even decided when the sentencing hearing went forward so perhaps judge curry wasn't aware that he was mandated to consider that he had to look at not only as age but the circumstances of his use that how that affected his his behavior and that he also had to consider was martez moly one of those rarest as the u s supreme court is that rarest of juvenile offenders who's deserving of spending the rest of his life in prison and i don't see any possibility that some reasonable