Ex-Latin King loses bid to avoid life sentence

Former gang member was convicted in killings from 1995, when he was 18

NEW HAVEN — An ex-member of the Latin Kings, convicted of killing two New Haven men in 1995 when he had just turned 18, is again on track to spend the rest of his life in prison, as an appeals court overturned a judge’s decision to treat him as a juvenile.

The Second Circuit

Court of Appeals recently reversed a decision and re-sentencing done by Judge Janet C. Hall, which had vacated four life sentences, ruling instead that, as Luis Noel Cruz was 18 at the time of the slayings, he should be treated as a fullfledged adult and can serve the original sentence.

W. Theodore Koch, one of Cruz’s defense attorneys, said Friday he planned to appeal the case, first by seeking en banc review at the Second Circuit level

then, if necessary, by going to the Supreme Court.

Hall in 2018 re-sentenced Cruz to 35 years in prison, amended in 2019, citing the Supreme Court’s 2012 decision in Miller v. Alabama, in which the court found that imposing a life sentence on a juvenile convicted of murder violates the Eighth Amendment unless the adolescent’s crime represents “irreparable corruption.”

In the Miller case, the court noted evidence that the minds of juveniles have not fully developed — they are thus more susceptible to the pressures of their upbringing, less reasoned in their decision-making, and more capable of change.

Hall extended that line of thinking to Cruz, who was 20 weeks past his 18th birthday at the time of the slayings, and others of his age.

Family members of Tyler White, whom Cruz shot twice in the back of the head in May 1994, testified in 2019 to the pain that Cruz had caused them, as they urged Hall to stick to the established sentence.

However, as viewed through the Miller standard, Cruz’s case did not represent “irreparable” depravity, Hall ruled.

His capacity to be rehabilitated was proven, rather than an openended question, Hall said. He has been a model prisoner, earning just one disciplinary ticket and obtaining his paralegal certificate.

“No one can doubt that Mr. Cruz committed two vicious murders — vicious murders,” said Hall.

However, she said, “He’s indisputably matured.”

But Second Circuit Judges Ralph Winter, Reena Raggi and Denny Chin, in turn, pointed to the “bright line” the Supreme Court previously had established regarding the age of 18, as it has ruled that life sentences for people 18 and older do not violate Eighth Amendment prohibitions on cruel and unusual punishment.

The Second Circuit judges also noted the court’s ruling in 2018 in United States v. Sierra, in which it found that the life sentences of three defendants convicted of murder in aiding racketeering between the ages of 18 and 22 did not violate the Eighth Amendment.

“In light of our holding in Sierra, we conclude that the district court erred when it held that the Eighth Amendment forbids a mandatory life sentence for a defendant who was eighteen at the time of his offense,” Clerk Catherine O’Hagan Wolf wrote on behalf of the Second Circuit judges.

“Like the defendants in Sierra, Cruz was convicted of murders in aid of racketeering committed after he had turned eighteen, and he was subsequently sentenced to mandatory life terms,” Wolf wrote.

“Although Cruz committed his offense only five months after his eighteenth birthday, we noted in Sierra that the Supreme Court explicitly limited its holding in Miller to defendants ‘under the age of 18...’ and earlier Eighth Amendment jurisprudence also drew a categorical line at age eighteen between adults and juveniles,” Wolf wrote.

The judges vacated Hall’s decision and remanded the U.S. District Court to reimpose Cruz’s four concurrent life sentences.

Koch said he believed Cruz’s case differed from Sierra in notable ways. He noted that Cruz was just over 18 at the time of the murders, while the Sierra defendants ranged in age.

He also mentioned that, in Cruz’s case, Lawrence Steinberg, a Temple University professor and expert in adolescent brain development, testified that he considered 18-yearolds as children, which did not occur in Sierra.

Koch noted that Hall had only extended the line of reasoning in the Miller case to 18-year-olds, although he had sought to have her apply it to older individuals, as well.

In other aspects of society, including when purchasing alcohol or renting cars, 18-year-olds clearly are considered less than full-fledged adults, Koch said. Modern scientific thought backs that up, he said.

“I think it was an unfortunate decision. I don’t think they reviewed the facts in any great detail,” said Koch. “I think they failed to (consider) the moral urgency of locking up children for the rest of their lives.”

In 2019, Nancy White, Tyler White’s stepmother, spoke to the “unending anger, grief, emptiness and an overwhelming sorrow” that continues to affect their family to this day. She said that “every supposedly happy occasion” is colored by his absence; his father “rarely has a night of peace,” consumed by nightmares and the thought he failed to protect his son; White’s daughter grew up without him.

Cruz and his mother, Nitza, both apologized during the court proceeding, and asked for forgiveness from families of White and Arosmo “Rara” Diaz, whom Cruz held down while he was shot by another Latin King.

Cruz said he was no longer “that stupid, close-minded kid who hurt so many with his actions.”

He said, if released, he would seek to work with at-risk youths and become an attorney. In that way, he could strive to make up for some small fraction of the pain he caused, he said.

“I know that nothing I do is going to give back what I took,” said Cruz. “(M)y hope is that would become even the smallest consolation.”