CHICAGO (CN) — An Illinois inmate convicted for murder in 2000 took his case before the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday, arguing he should benefit from a state parole reform enacted in 2019.
That reform, known as the 2019 Youthful Parole Law, creates parole opportunities for youth who committed criminal offenses while under 21 years old. It took effect June 1, 2019, but its terms do not include language for retroactivity.
This means the inmate, a man named Israel Ruiz, cannot benefit from it.
“In light of the Illinois General Assembly’s determination that the ‘diminished culpability’ of youth offenders requires a parole hearing, it is cruel and unusual to arbitrarily provide that protection to some but not such all youth offenders,” Ruiz wrote in his appellate brief.
Ruiz was 20 years old when he was convicted for first-degree murder in June 2000. He was sentenced to 40 years in prison without the possibility of parole. Democratic Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker signed the Youthful Parole Law a little under 19 years later. The law opens parole review eligibility to those convicted of first degree murder while under 21, but only after they serve 20 years of their sentence.
State lawmakers, at the time, noted the law reflected advances in neuroscience showing 20-year-olds’ brains had not yet fully matured. According to a 2013 study published in the National Library of Medicine, the brain does not finish developing until about age 25.
“There is no suggestion in the science that people’s brain development differs based on the effective date of their sentence,” Ruiz’s attorney Ann MacDonald said before the three-judge Seventh Circuit panel on Wednesday.
Ruiz also raised this neuroscientific point when he brought a federal lawsuit against Pritzker and Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul in December 2022 for violations of the Eighth and 14th Amendments. He argued it was unfair for those convicted as youth before June 1, 2019 to not get the same parole opportunities as youth convicted after that date.
“The act… creates two different parole systems for individuals convicted of similar or identical crimes based solely on the date of their sentencing,” he argued.
MacDonald also clarified Ruiz wasn’t challenging his sentence — only that the law in its current state still barred him from parole eligibility.
“We’re merely requesting that the statute and the parole opportunity as set forth in the parole law, be allowed to be retroactive,” MacDonald said.
Assistant Illinois Attorney General Caleb Rush responded that Ruiz’s request was “unprecedented” and butted up against the Illinois General Assembly’s authority.
“Parole laws are a matter of legislative discretion,” Rush said.
“Ruiz’s attempt to make this a constitutional question creates real risks of discouraging legislators from reforming or improving criminal laws in the future,” he added.
MacDonald countered by once again pointing to the science of the issue. She also pointed to the words of Illinois Senator Don Harmon — now state senate president — who in 2017 said “there is no judge on the planet” who can know whether or not a 19-year-old is the kind of person “who is never going to get out of prison.”
“What we are asking is for this court to use those principles … to look at this science and to say, ‘because we now understand that that judge is not able to evaluate an 18 year old and know whether or not they should spend their whole life in prison, that that person should have the opportunity to have a parole hearing where they can demonstrate they have been rehabilitated and they can contribute to life outside of prison,'” MacDonald argued.
After U.S. District Judge John Robert Blakey dismissed Ruiz’s case April 2024, Ruiz appealed asking the Seventh Circuit to reverse Blakey’s dismissal and remand the case for further proceedings.
Blakey’s following a March memo in which the judge shared the Sixth Circuit’s 2013 finding in the case United States v. Blewett that “the Eighth Amendment is not a ratchet that makes a harsher system of penalties unconstitutional the moment a more lenient one is adopted.”
Rush also echoed the Sixth Circuit’s determination in Blewett. The appellate majority in that case opined lawmakers would be discouraged from ever lowering criminal sentence laws, if harsher sentences were deemed unconstitutional upon the enactment of lighter ones.
The appellate panel of U.S. Circuit Judges Doris Pryor, Nancy Maldonado and Joshua Kolar — all Joe Biden appointees — took the case under advisement but did not say when they would return a ruling.