plead in oral argument would you please step forward to the podium and introduce yourselves please call the case i'll be responding to the arguments regarding the constitutionality of shares in for a life sentence ok very well welcome to our court we appreciate the all the briefing that was filed in this matter be assured that the possibly date the defendant petitioner called williams they've also said they told that to the police i thought time of their arrest and they said that they told the police but showed a polaroid photograph of mr williams after his arrest but the police had arrested the wrong person secondly it took a long time to get that information out of mr we have sco defendants he tried for several years and it was not until two thousand and three oppressively six or seven years after his believe to beat you to believe that the code if it was credible was he came forward because he still hadn't been sentenced either the rest that's correct your life and in our case all these people's appeals have been over for many many years is that right that the court set out including the age of the offender the degree of participation in the crime and the likelihood of the offenders rehabilitation the court question because this apparent relaxation of it's holding with these words and these are very important words after all we have said i'm quoting here roper quailing i just decision that results should be reserved for the rare juvenile offender who's crying reflects irreparable corruption imprisonment without parole he was also convicted out of accountability theory and according to his confession which of course we've recent up questions about but even if that confession is accepted up he was not present when the burghers took place changes are intelligent exception should be understood to cover rules prohibiting a certain category of punishments for a class of defendants because of their status or effects well here we have a class of defendants those under eighteen years of age case five forty two us three forty eight as the follows following the surface that narrow the scope of a criminal statute such rules apply retroactively because they necessarily kelly a significant risk but a defendant faces a punishment that iraq cannot impose on him well isn't that what's going on here the supreme court has said that by life imprisonment sentence without possibility of parole cannot be impose point out written davis on the panel we wrote at the time it is the opinion of this panel of the appellate court that if there was ever a case it should be applied to cases and collateral review even though it does not meet the requirements of t people them that's fine that's what i hear we should be about it seems to me that this case cries out for a hearing where the contest of truth and not truth are placed before the you know before the may please the court there are so many reasons that the friendster petition was correctly dispensed and they're all set forth in our brief this morning i would just like to address my comments toward the bottom line and that is defendant does not make a substantial showing on actual innocence or any of the other claims in the third petition every single one of his claims is positively rebutted by the record defendants i fiance state that defendant has the wrong carl but we know we have the right karl because defendant confessed twice after being advised of his miranda rights he made an oral statements to say graps as that will later reduced to a ten page written confession defendant signed every the conclusion or did not i said this third post conviction to be considered on its merits what do we do with ignore no we don't ignore it but we place it in the context of the question that was raised before that court and the question was this is prior to or ts did defendant the argument was did he mean did he make us because he already raised a claim of actual innocence could he proceed again and a claim of actual innocence when it was possibly barred by race judicata basically whether the cause and prejudice test apply and the pollack and the court found we don't have to apply the cousin prejudiced test because we we're looking at whether a defendant can advance that clip whether that claim can be considered at all ok but that's the only only thing that well that was the quote the question was where where this this posture of the petition was the petition wasn't filed court wasn't considering whether defendant made a substantial showing of the actual innocence to go to an evidentiary hearing it was whether there was a claim sufficient enough to proceed past the denial of leave to file pointed a call from the stand and said and that's the guy that was with me when we did these horrible acts or we hear kalman playing the finger at himself because his statements were voluntarily given there was a finding of that that he has repeatedly jurisprudence that people who falsely say that they did terrible acts when they're lying about you know it happens a lot i sense it start it happens and the question in this case is this one of those cases no absolutely not and you can look at the record rate saying this is what we were doing hamlin was going we know how we know the area where he lives and hamlin is going around finding people and then they find another witness who who the police showed me a picture of this car william and i said that's the wrong powell that's not the car it was with me that night what in their record contradicts their state or the circumstances not not that i know that nothing in the record because that wasn't raised till later but what you have prior to that and night which which we believe robots those claims is they were cooperating they provided a physical description that matches break right on the actual innocence claim not that if you read the decision they weren't really reaching all the brady the probable cause came on the actual innocence claim but again the we're from the heart right i agree and also i mean i'm a position would be then you know the reason law the case for the actual innocence doesn't apply is because the question presented is different it's not the same issue that w completely he doesn't stay where he got the information just as it was mentioned that the that the car was the six one six three and and him and hamlin actually says i agreed with detective turner who told me that was a description but then in their second affidavit they state that oh no they told the the detectives that of this description of another offender and does that make a substantial showing our position is that it doesn't go for this these reasons and  did occur in that case but you cannot read anything into that because importantly if you read the opinion carefully of miller vs alabama you will see that the arkansas authorities did not argue in any way shape or form any question of retroactivity prohibited the imposition of the death penalty for people under eighteen but in miller the court was extraordinarily clear that they were not imposing a categorical decision in what they said in particulars our decision does  penalty for a class of offenders or a type of crime as for example as we did in roper or graham instead of mandates only that a sentence or follow a certain process considering offenders youth and attendance circumstances before imposing particular penalty the court stated that in the opinion to one of should we allowed those our system allow us to go backwards and redo from the start because we've now taken a new view of the way certain procedure should be applied what's the argument against it so now that we have a new view maybe you know like you said what's wrong resources the limited resources are available we can't think it's improper to go back and say well maybe we could have done this better if we used the modern view maybe this if you have any idea how many prisoners are sitting now that would qualify it's not entirely clear in a big part of the reason why it's not clear is because under the prior people versus leonor decision which addressed juvenile defendants who were subject to unmake transfer this decision applies everyone who is under eighteen and so here in illinois you know we've always treated people who are seventeen like this defendant to be adults so they were not tracked in the same way it's our best estimate as of this point that within the state of illinois there's about one hundred or so hundred five maybe but we're not entirely certain on that point names i think if perpetrate one of these people and decide well they deserve their natural life or not without putting too much of a burden and understanding i don't mean to me quite a bit because the victims families will have to either again for all of this the defendant's say mean those were the policy decisions that were made by the united states supreme court that were made by the owners from court when they drafted the t framework those policy decisions say that any new rule of criminal procedure can only be  two teeth standards what about the second the second syriana is it is clipped certainly that's the only one that could be applied here because the first one would be a rule of substance which is this and fall under the second standard is the us supreme court has identified in the onus from court has agreed is limited to those watershed type rules of criminal procedure those rules which alter our fundamental understanding of the criminal process and the quintessential example in fact the only example to have ever been identified as being appropriate under that is gideon versus wainwright in the reason why th suit signal decision is because gideon by allowing by ensuring that defendants have a need to counsel here and see that the entire process from start to finish was proper an attorney can help his client prior to arra arraignment all the way through sentencing the evidence an attorney during those stages renders the entire proceedings unfair and incomplete this is a very different scenario this is a scenario where the certain evidence was n rise to that level but you certainly are new to us but the reason why it doesn't rise to the level is because the united states supreme court in death penalty cases has said that similar rules don't rise that level one of the cases that i know we've cited is beer versus banks where the in be there was a question as to whether not a prior ruling regarding the availability of presenting certain mitigating evidence to present to preclude the death penalty whether or not there should be applied retroactively because under the the state law at the time certain evidence was not available in the united said that it had to be presented and then in beer they were faced with should they construe their decision retroactively and what the court said was no it's not a good eon type case it doesn't reach that level simply because it's an eighth amendment basis simply because it makes the imposition of the death penalty more fair isn't enough to say that it should be applied retroactively in so again it's quite similar to what we have here because the u s supreme court in miller said we can still impose natural life sentences upon  just has to provide additional mitigating evidence the opportunity for additional mitigating evidence certainly that will make sentencing hearings going forward more fair but it doesn't mean that the prior ones were inherently unfair or unlawful or unconstitutional b b l s they're right the ones going forward with this additional hearing more fair than the ones without it will be less than your honor and i would say that's exactly the same argument was made in  which extended his sentence sometimes always an extra life to be decided by the trier of fact at the trial or simply by under reasonable doubt standard or by the judge at the sentencing under really no of an entry standard at all in what the what be deemed retroactive i would also point to the united states supreme court decision decision in shear over someone with my point of reference still there was a decision whether or not ring versus arizona whether or not the decision to find a defendant eligible for the death penalty had to be made by the jury as opposed to the judge and that was what the united states report said was no ring versus arizona was not retroactively political even though if those death penalties which had been impos obviously we treat seventeen year olds as adults understand that for me a contract though who are voting for many other things and it's eighteen years of age i guess so but we will allow someone seventeen years of age to be convicted without consideration of their age talking about the sentence i think i understand you're saying no but you know the the case law that existed prior to miller versus alabama in fact in this case itself head up held the validity of the of the sense that there was nothing unconstitutional about imposing a mandatory natural to me and i think the court should consider that thank you very much very much appreciated by the court will be consider this matter is now placed under advisement