Sent To Prison For Life At Age 14, Convict To Learn If Judge Will Reduce His Sentence
CHICAGO (CBS) -- A man sentenced to life in prison at the age of 14 could get his sentenced reduced Monday, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled juvenile offenders should not get automatic life sentences.
Attorneys for Adolfo Davis, now 38, have asked a Cook County judge to release him from prison, but prosecutors have said he deserves to spend the rest of his life behind bars for a double murder in 1990.
Davis helped fellow gang members rob a rival gang's drug house, killing two men and shooting two others.
He was originally sentenced to life in prison at the age of 14. He's being resentenced, because of a 2012 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that found automatic life sentences for juvenile defendants are unconstitutional.
Davis is believed to be the first Illinois inmate to get a resentencing hearing in the wake of that ruling. Approximately 80 other Illinois inmates who were sentenced to life in prison as juveniles also could be resentenced as a result of the high court's decision.
Last month, Davis appeared in court as Judge Angela Petrone listened to both sides.
Defense attorney Patricia Soung said the hearing isn't about whether Davis is innocent or guilty.
"The question today is about how much punishment is enough, and whether continuing to imprison Adolfo stands for any legitimate purpose," she said.
Prosecutors claimed Davis was not simply a naïve 14-year-old lookout.
"Make no mistake about it, judge, this defendant was a shooter. At the ripe old age of 14, this defendant was a shooter, an executioner," Cook County Assistant State's Atty. James McKay said.
Soung disputed witness accounts that Davis was the gunman, and said the jury also might have had doubts, based on a note to the judge in his trial.
"They asked whether Adolfo had to have personally shot anyone to be convicted of first-degree murder. The judge instructed no," she said.
Petrone said she would take the arguments under advisement, and rule on Monday.
