People v. Merriweather

(Court opinion corrected 6/29/17.) Defendant was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to 70 years. Defendant filed a postconviction petition, which Court dismissed, and Appellate Court affirmed. Defendant then filed a motion for leave to file a successive postconviction petition, which Court denied. On appeal from his last motion, Defendant argued that his sentence is a de facto life sentence and unconstitutional as applied to him. Defendant forfeited his as-applied challenge to his sentence by raising it for the first time on appeal. Defendant may try to raise this claim again through a different proceeding. Defendant also argued that Court should have granted his motion for leave to file a successive postconviction petition, which raised a colorable claim of actual innocence supported by a newly discovered affidavit. Court failed to rule on Defendant’s motion to supplement the record with a new affidavit, which it must do on remand. (POPE and KNECHT, concurring.)