United States Ex Rel. Griffith v. Hulick

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

ELAINE E. BUCKLO, District Judge.

Evan Griffith, a thirty-nine year old man who has served over twenty-three years of a natural life sentence for a crime he committed in 1985, two months after his sixteenth birthday, brings a petition for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254. Mr. Griffith is incarcerated at the Menard Correctional Center in Menard, Illinois, where Donald Hulick is the warden. For the reasons discussed below, I grant Mr. Griffith’s petition.

I

BACKGROUND

A. Facts

Because factual determinations made by state courts are presumed to be…