Pushkin

Hey, it's Jake. Today we're continuing with the Ronnie Caroschio story. This is part two, so if you haven't listened to part one yet, you should definitely go back and do that now.

So, last episode we ended with Ronnie getting some good news or what seemed like it anyhow. The court basically told him, we think your sentence of 200 to 600 years may have violated a clause in the Illinois Constitution.

That clause, by the way, says quote, all penalties shall be determined both according to the seriousness of the offense and with the objective of restoring the offender to useful citizenship.

Bottom line, Ronnie could now be resensed. Well, maybe. Last June, there was yet another hearing to figure this all out. It took days.

Ronnie's lawyer, Michael Deutsch, brought in over a dozen witnesses to testify about who Ronnie was and is now about the type of man that Ronnie's become in prison.

One of those witnesses was Ali Pruitt, a lawyer and Chicago activist. She talked about Ronnie and the people he'd mentored or inspired.

What really has stuck out to me over the years is the positive impact he's left on not only folks who have been incarcerated, but folks who haven't.

He has this sort of positive influence and inspiring story and it's just such a motivator for so many people for his family, for his friends.

The state of Illinois head lawyers there arguing the other side.

It's always difficult in a post conviction proceeding to take what we know today and apply it to a trial proceeding that happened years and in this case decades ago.

The circumstances of the crime, the facts of the underlying crime, those have all been litigated and as counsel said, we're not here to re-litigate the facts of the case.

Basically, the state was saying, look, we're not here for a new trial. We're only here to determine if Ronnie Caroschio should be resensed.

Now, Ronnie claimed that his sentence was unfair and disproportionate to his crime, but the state then argues what really matters here is that Ronnie has a shot at release and as long as he does, well then, the sentence is fair.

And that is key to the decision and the key to the analysis here because Mr. Caroschio is eligible for parole.

In other words, perhaps 600 years sounds like a long time, but he's eligible for parole, so what's the problem?

And the judge basically agrees. What does this mean for Ronnie? Well, it means that he now has to place all of his hopes on getting parole.

There's just one problem. When it comes to the parole board, it seems that he can't escape the notoriety of his own story.

Ronnie's been in prison for nearly half a century and he's stuck in a convoluted legal system, a system that perhaps could be gained by an operator like Bob Cooley, but which was terrifying to a guy like Ronnie, who was trapped inside with no fixer to call.

And I gotta tell you, at times Ronnie's story felt a bit like a Franz Kafka novel. There's a guy and he's stuck trying to find his way out of one darkened labyrinth after another.

And every time it looks like there might be an exit, the lights flicker out.

I'm Jake Helper, and this is Deep Cover, Mobland.

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