the illinois department of corrections age of twenty to serve a seven year sentence it's now seventeen years later anthony is thirty seven and faces spending the rest of his life in jail without possibility of release today this court has the opportunity to examine whether something went wrong in either or system or system of corrections where manifestations of mental illness which were treated internally as disciplinary infractions became twenty one separate criminal charges were two ways of thirty four months were used to gain tactical advantage in prosecuting those charges and where anthony seven year sentence has become one hundred eight years all of which to be served almost all of  circuit court can decide whether the conditions of his incarceration have led to his due compensating and whether is actions during the ten months at a correctional center can be linked to his mental illness second in light of the florida and atkins v virginia record can determine whether the additional ninety seven years of incarceration was unconstitutional in light of the nature of the offenses the culpability of the offender and the harshness of the p one of the things that that strikes me about this case is the very fact that we're still having a conversation about whether or not mr gay suffers from mental illness if anything again we believe that's why this matter should be sent other cases and counsel was then sort of acting beyond the scope of this current representation to request a fitness hearing multiple actions without the n c a a being able to actually object to it for that  considerations one can have severe mental illness and still be fit to stand trial i think that there is taking a step back is there a larger question is whether or not he should have been able to represent himself on these seventeen plus not there's there's something fundamentally questionable about oh you know secrecy where again really you know we see time and time again why this was against his interest but assuming that the court delays everything for over a year before the clock actually starts running actually give it to waited for a year and then it wasn't for another four months beyond that until these they finally impose sentence on that first so specifically in terms of this safety net question i mean i think it's it's time that we actually start to look at whether or not the definitions from graham definitions from atkins should be extended to embrace individuals with severe mental illness and we're not just looking at that as a simple statement of what they got or classes it's situations where the severe mental illness for inmates with severe mental illness whose conditions of confinement leave two additional convictions based on conduct that symptomatic of that oh yes that's the specific question that and because of the mental illness that they may already have or mental illness that this instance we feel most specific we exacerbated by the condition of the hands by the conditions segregation on here that  moment that this is well not assuming this clearly is unusual may well be and maybe the prop may be over how how do we reach it in this context in the sense that what is there in the record and what is there in the record that we can actually look at short of taking some sort of judicial notice of everything that's ever happened to  well that that shows that he's mentally you know and if the record shows that he's mentally ill the record in turn would cause the trial judge tha behavior and say not only that you're something wrong that you know and persuade us that we know precisely what's wrong well obviously i think that i would be going to say evidentiary hearing and a post conviction petition you will be able to address the question of whether what that traffic court used the discretion because it did not consider him guilty but mentally ill well not specifically that question but i think that because we're not at the end of the day with specifically speaking to the violation we're not specifically challenging  individual convictions here an individual patient what we're what we are looking to is the cumulative impact when these convictions which which we believe are directly attributable to manifestations symptomatic behavior of severe mental illness when when that occurs within the correctional center when these convictions are spurred by it's it's a horrible vicious cycle where someone who's who is an animal illness prevents them from from you know according to the cells in a manner the same rational individual would do in that situation we're placing him in a situation where they cannot succeed where they are are are doomed towards failure and so we then criminalize this these mental illnesses as opposed to looking to a question or a manner in which we can provide treatment that is directly related to the offense i understand sort of along with response to what you're saying but i think that evidentiary hearing we can be beginning to have we can we can be making that showing that because these convictions are linked to the diminished capacity because these convictions are manifestations of severe mental illness when the cumulative impact what's this individual situation  here it's the p c setting is uniquely situated because we believe you can take that step back and actually look at everything that has happened in this series of cases and sort of with with finale try to provide a clear determination as to whether or not this you know this mall subset of individuals with correctional center this is not in any way i think the floodgates or this is realistic view as to whether or not that's where the evidentiary hearing will allow to answer these questions whether or not this behavior was actually a manifestation of mental illness that's been exasperated exasperat comport himself because he was he was receiving the treatment that he needed it was then when he was placed back in public where the services were not provided that the mental illness again was was brought to the fore and then through this ten months we somehow have twenty one separate criminal prosecutions there's this instinct i think we've put in these cases to sort of throw your hands what we do you know  but but i don't think that we have to simply step back and allow this to occur and i think that graham has provided the opening that we can now begin to question whether or not severe mental illness should substantial showing that his second filing to the a limit probation against cruel and unusual punishment at this at the second stage off actual allegations that are not positively provided by the record warrant a second state or third stage review defendant argues that graham should be extended to him as he is seriously mentally ill however the wreck refute says and this is not a case in which to extend graham apply to graham addressed the issue of life without parole as it applied to juvenile offenders graham has not been extended beyond the age category and not a nine death cases  i would argue that age is black and white mental health depends on the individual and varies in degree instance anti social behavior in prison is a result of this mental illness also these articles were not introduced at the trial level and refuted by the record which shows that defendant manipulated the system to achieve his goals not that his was the result of a mental illness or his conditions  all of defendants cases in the court order to fit his hearing in one it was going to wide all the chocolate probably exercises to its discretion in ordering this fitness exam the court was able to see and evaluate  are there any other questions i think again the notion of manipulation should not be the end of the conversation many prisoners suffer from serious mental illness and feel a need to manipulate in order to get the treatment but maybe there's a vicious cycle that's going on there the more insufficient the mental health services are within a facility and when you look to the numbers of inmates in segregation of pontiac in the us that's our long term segregation receive that attention to receive the therapeutic setting i think is easily understood it doesn't end the conversation is whether or not this is mentally ill because again there's a rational way to to try to receive this behavior or perceive this freedom and then there's that he even announced or indicated the reasons he was doing these various things were trying to get transferred their hands so what did the evaluator say that r there is a manner in which that level of anti social personality disorder can be elevated to an axis one and i think that's one of the reasons and evidentiary hearing could be beneficial here because there's a disincentive to