A judge this week scheduled a January sentencing date for a man convicted of two murders, but whose mandatory life sentence in one was wiped out on appeal in 2013.
Michael Luciano, 42, has been in prison since 2008 on killings dating to the late 1980s in Aurora.
Sentencing rules call for a life term for anyone found guilty of more than one murder, but a 2013 U.S. Supreme Court decision deemed unconstitutional the portion of the Illinois law that mandated an automatic life sentence for a person convicted of two murders committed as a juvenile. That ruling, known as the Miller case, was the basis for the Second District Appellate Court’s move to send Luciano’s case back to Kane County for a new sentencing hearing.
Luciano had not yet turned 18 when he participated in two murders — the 1989 killing of Willie Arce and the 1990 shooting death of rival gang member Albert “Psycho” Gonzalez. He was not charged with either murder until 2007’s Operation First Degree Burn sweep by Aurora and federal officials, which resulted in arrests in several cold cases involving the Latin Kings street gang in Aurora.
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The appellate court denied his appeals of those convictions, and a Kane County judge also turned down a 2011 post-conviction petition claiming attorney error and that the Gonzalez murder charge violated double jeopardy rules.
Judge Susan Clancy Boles scheduled the new sentencing hearing for Jan. 4, with a pre-sentence status date planned for December. Luciano is serving a 38-year term for the Arce murder, which leaves him likely to spend the rest of his life in prison even if he receives a sentence at the low end of the allowable range in the Gonzalez case.
Dan Campana is a freelance writer for The Beacon-News.