that his life sentence without the possibility of parole violates the only constitution his sentence was imposed on march th two thousand and eleven by former governor planned when he commuted all the life sentences are all the any mitigating factors specific to him or the possibility for rehabilitation requires him well the whole thing in miller read the united states supreme court says that when you are imposing a life sentence without any discretion that that sentence is unconstitutional as it applies to is unconstitutional for juvenile offenders because young offenders are different in terms of culpability as well as capability for change and rehabilitation and so in the illinois appellate court the st district took that holding in miller and applied it to a young offender who was over the age of eighteen finding that there was no great line rule which the court could say somebody had which receipt had reached maturity so it's under miller as well as how those that we are serving this argument that he should have been able to consider the individual factor without limitation when he's imposing exactly when he's imposing or issuing a pregnancy order he needs to follow the law and he can't impose an unconstitutional sentence we know from maga that in act haste the defendant challenge the life sentence that had been imposed by the former governor ryan and in that case the state also argue that the governor's authorit said that a life sentence without the possibility of parole is for individuals who will never be fit to reenter society and that is not the case with mr ramsey he had turned eighteen just three months before these offenses occurred so if this had taken place three months earlier he would be entitled to a new sentencing hearing under miller and when you look at disorder he had been a social outcast a child he had dysfunctional a dysfunctional family life and that he believed that his mother he believed that his he found out that his sister was actually h biological mother and that the people who believe the worst parents were actually his biological grandparents and those parents repeatedly refused him access to counseling that the school another counselor said would help mystery and see with his deficiencies additionally the crimes here were the product of extreme emotional distress which we know from the language in house which looks at recent studies and neurobiology and psychology that an individual's brain does not makes young offender more volatile emotionally charged situations and that was that was the case here and additionally under the person penalties clause we do have to look at whether or not there is that ramsey could be rehabilitated and there is evidence in this record that he absolutely could be when he was young in place in different juvenile facilities he would break the rules you would act out however now it's these new charge and illinois department of corrections he has followed every rule and has had only one minor infraction for leaving a toilet tree accidentally in the shower and that's the kind of evidence that m and we want to remind the court that over the past few years we've seen this evolving standard it decency when it comes to sentencing in offenders the statutes a change so that the miller factor is as they been that for offenders under twenty one so young adults who commit murder after serving twenty years of their sentence are eligible for parole and that statute demonstrates the changes that courts  it thank you ron yours may please the court counsel my name is lee a gun from the illinois attorney general's office on behalf of the people of the state of illinois this court should affirm the judgment of the hancock county circuit court which  petitioners post conviction petition at the nd stage because petitioner is natural life sentence for some hope crimes committed as an eighteen year old does not violate the th amendment of the federal constitution or the state constitution it appears my challenge the standard for state constitutional purposes whether the sentence imposed is quote cruel degrading or so wholly disproportionate to the offenses as to shark a moral sense of the community the circuit courts here listed several offenses it ultimately rejecting this claim on the merits the court noted that petitioner had raped his sixteen year old friend oh he taped her head from her eyebrows to her a chance that she could not breathe he fa shot her and dumped her in the green then he then went to a gas station called the sloop prost hole to tell a lie and lure the adults from the household he approached the house stand with wire cutters to cut telephone lines armed with a gun when he entered without authority he spoke to his seventeen year old ex girlfriend and not happy with the results of the conversation he shot her in the head although she survived her twelve year old sister was asleep on the couch at the time and he shot her in the head and killed her he then went upstairs and encountered two toddlers and shot both of them and the had her neck he shot three year old cody in the neck damaging his soph against and his nerves and he shot two year old courtney in the head destroying her eye it's remarkable that all of these fire victims that were shot in the head or neck that only two of them are killed he is the sole principal of surrender he has never disputed that he was the offender he pled guilty for his crimes and yes he went through a very detailed and extensive capital sentencing hearing at that sentencing hearing he was given the opportunity to develop and offer mitigating evidence including a few psychiatry's as my opponent acknowledged this was two thousand and seven which was after the key u supreme court case of roper which is the st in the line of cases in that room there were over graham and miller line that st highlighted this brain science evidence and juvenile development and rehabilitation and maturity despite that he didn't offer any evidence of specifically his personal brain development but did put forth extensive evidence about his mental disorders about his family background about his limited prior criminal history in my  points out that this evidence is just the sort of evidence that miller said it should be considered by the censor and in fact that was considered by a jury here in illinois during the capital sentencing hearing and when given the choice between a capital sentence and a natural life sentence when comparing all of that mitigating evidence against the facts of these crimes the jury chose to impose the death sentence now of course and i just said we no longer are really looking at the economic claim but it's relevant to know that when montgomery versus louisiana explained miller and said that it's important for the sentence or to consider youth in attendance circumstances to determine before imposing a life sentence whether the offender was acting with a permit encourage delivering a rare offender or was simply and choosing to impose a death sentence that is a message saying we do not believe that this is a crime there can be rehabilitated as a result he's didn't have the opportunity to present this evidence there is no reason for this court to be troubled about the fact that this petition was dismissed at the nd stage he has had that opportunity to present this mitigating evidence and given that the standard for state constitutional purposes is whether the moral sense of the community is shocked by these signs it by the senses imposed in light of  offenses the fact that that jury that's twelve members of the community that heard this evidence and chose to impose a death sentence which is a good indication that the fact that he now stands under a life sentence does not shock the moral sense of  community and as your honor pointed out it is now true that he is under an executive sentence rather than a judicially imposed sentence that has an extra layer of difficulty for petitioner to get any relief for his arguments today because  knew the case up right after the several connotations governor ryan imposed in the early two thousand the illinois supreme court made clear that virtually all sentencing challenges are rendered moot by executive commutation now my really because if it were valid she would have faced a maximum sixty year sentence which would have been less than even the life sentence that she received through commutation that is why that claim is still viable that is not the situation we have here it is not the sort of thing under this case law that is not subject to get official review because it is an executive with imposed sentence so turning back then though to the merits not only do you know that the moral sense of the community would not be shocked by the sentences here in light of the crimes committed we do have a handful of cases that provide the interpretation of the state constitutional analysis it's important to note that the only supreme court has only provided human decisions in this area  e there is of course leon miller which is a two thousand and two case so it preceded miller b alabama and there the court struck down a natural life sentence as violating the state constitution but the facts were very different than what we have here leon bill it was a fifteen year old he was convicted under an accountability theory he was not armed and he had only moments to decide to agree to act as a lookout for other co defendants he never went to the actual crime scene he never fired a weapon and so under these circumstances the court found that his mandatory life sentence was disproportionate the other time the illinois supreme court has spoken is the case of adolfo davis now davis is after miller v alabama it's important to note that davis was fourteen at the time of his offenses and was similarly convicted under an accountability theory davis had raised a state constitutional challenge to his mandatory life sentence before miller b alabama which was rejected by the appellate court noting that davis had more cup ability than the miller court cited the fact that he had been armed that he had participated in the planning of a crime and he had actually gone through the crime scene although he was not the shooter this alone was enough additional culpability for the a life sentence to be upheld under the state constitution and he was a fourteen year old so he was it you feel at the time that's the only time  convicted under an accountability theory so what we have here we have an adult offender we have an adult under who was the principal the sole shooter who shot five victims two of whom died so compare this case instead to a of cases from the st district pittman thomas and the bar and all three cases the court essentially said we are not giving you relief under leon miller because all three of these are go young adult offenders were in the principal so again that is the key factor here that is also present in this case and of course my phone it now is citing house is another decision from the st district and valving in one thousand year old that he was convicted under an accountability theory now i don't say it's perhaps not absolute that that is that the arm or your principle are you an accomplice but even so it's certainly an important factor and houses importantly distinguishable on the ground we do know in people v oh i should say we should compare house to a case from this court the one time with their district has spoken in this area is a case of people being a key and that was a case involving an eighteen year old accomplice whose natural life sentence was upheld under a state constitutional challenge and in that case the defendant mickey had had a very tough background she was a crime victim herself she had mental disorders so she had mitigating evidence to  and she was an accomplice but this court noted that because she had participated in the planning of a crime because she had helped in the concealment of the crime afterwards and because she was aware that murder was a possible consequence of the robbery that was being planned that that was enough culpability to justify the natural life sentence that she got her accountability theory so again comparing those facts to a beehive here we do not have an accomplice we have the shooter a principal so after who shot five victi accomplices with some mitigating evidence who are adult young adult offenders sent it to the extent there irreconcilable while we're here in the rd district and under mickey it would be appropriate and consistent with mickey to affirm the circuit court's judgment here and to uphold the sentence a final point i'd like to make is about the legislature my opponent cited the recent parole statute i wanted to point out that there is a specific provision in that statute it's section five parole it exempts those who are subject to natural life sentences due to multiple murders so that is that what we have here we have a multiple murder case and the general assembly even in granting not only juveniles but those up to age twenty one the potential seeking parole they decided not to extend that new avenue for those who were convicted of multiple murder which is what we have in this case also as we know while there were but the general assembly when making that amanda did not change the rule that if you're eighteen or older and you're convicted of multiple murder that you are subject to the natural life so again because petitioner is an eighteen year old that's another way in which the general assembly has spoken in this maturity that happens in juvenile brains at this stage of their life but it now acknowledged that this line of eighteen isn't based principally on this brain science but is instead based on societal judgement for many purposes that very seriousness of the crimes compared to some of his handful of cases in the state constitutional area and hold that it's appropriate to affirm titian's natural life sentence whether on the merits or because it's not subject to judicial review because it's his family background his personal circumstances were certainly part of what was discussed at capital sentencing here so perhaps ramsey as he sat there at the table was no longer eighteen years old but they certainly discussed the fact that he was young at the time  so i would say that he was given ample opportunity post room for to know that he could if he was up to him to decide how much and the size that mitigating circumstance really the point is that he had the opportunity to emphasize that and to develop that as post conviction petition where he knew it was going to be amended because he was under got sense at the time he would have automatically advanced a nd stage and knew he was going to get counsel who would have filed a council's amended post conviction petition so the keeper is across a filing was t heard because it had been already had it danced automatically the nd stage because he had at least between october of two thousand and ten and march th levin when he was commuted he was under the death sentence and so that's the time the crimes were fueled by extreme emotional just stress and in these at the time mr ramsey was was so distraught that he actually did intend to kill himself there's evidence in the record that reiterate that that was in two thousand and seven in the us it was after grover but it was before this entire evolving standard of decency has really become something that the courts are looking at differently and that jury it would have benefited him anyway that jury only have the choice between death and life and really what we're looking at now is that life sentence because that's a sentence which stands and i do want to remind the court that it's not just the facts of the offense that's one factor in deciding whether or not a sentence is unconstitutional under the proportionate penalties you challenge it's there's no magic formula for winning hayes becomes unconstitutional because of the principle versus the accomplice or any of that we just need to look at each individual case as it comes and that's why it's an as applied challenge and in this case he had numerous mitigating factors in addition to the fact that he's capable of rehabilitation and really that's the piece here that the other he's the counsel cited don't have from this court none of those cases show any evidence of rehabilitation and here we have the benefit of knowing from the time he found his and it was commission position that he does has an adult in showing under montgomery that he could be he was more appropriate for post conviction position and not just reiterates that a court really has to look at the facts of each case before deciding whether or not a sentence is unconstitutional and that was h