New sentencing hearing set for convicted murderer now serving life term

Mark Gibbs has spent more than 26 years behind bars for killing his parents in their Southern Illinois home in 1992.

He was sentenced to life in prison. But at age 44, Gibbs could end up with a lesser sentence because of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that mandatory life sentences for juveniles without the possibility of parole are unconstitutional.

A new sentencing hearing for Gibbs is scheduled for Friday at the Union County Courthouse in Jonesboro, Illinois.

The U.S. Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision in 2012 found such punishment violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishments.

Justice Elena Kagan wrote for the majority of the court that “mandatory life without parole for a juvenile precludes consideration of his chronological age and its hallmark features — among them, immaturity, impetuosity, and failure to appreciate risks and consequences.”

Two years later, the Illinois Supreme Court unanimously held the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision applied retroactively to sentences imposed before 2012, according to Rollie Hawk, public information officer for the Union County State’s Attorney’s Office.

“This voids the original sentence and entitles Mr. Gibbs to a new sentencing hearing,” Hawk wrote in an email to the Southeast Missourian.

Shobha Mahadev, clinical associate professor with the Northwestern Pritzker School of Law in Chicago, said the judge presiding over the resentencing hearing for Gibbs could reduce his sentence.

A standard sentence for first-degree murder today in Illinois can range from 20 to 60 years, according to Mahadev.

The judge can take into account whether the crime resulted from immaturity and whether the individual has “changed” over time, said Mahadev, who has studied the resentencing issue.

A prosecutor could still ask for a life sentence, but based on Supreme Court decisions, such sentences should be applied only in rare cases, Mahadev said.

She said at one time there were 103 individuals serving life terms in prison in Illinois for crimes committed as juveniles.

Many of those cases have now gone through resentencing hearings, she said.

The victims’ relatives want Gibbs to remain in prison for the rest of his life, a family friend said recently.

Gibbs has been in the state prison system since February 1995. He is being held at the maximum security prison in Pontiac, Illinois, according to the state’s corrections department website.

Gibbs was 17 when he shot his parents in their rural home near Reynoldsville, Illinois, on Jan. 6, 1992.

His father, Richard Gibbs, 36, died at the scene from a single gunshot wound to the head. His mother, Betty Gibbs, was shot twice in the head with the same .22-caliber pistol, which was later found in a creek.

She was transported to Southeast Hospital in Cape Girardeau where she died days later.

Gibbs fought to suppress confessions he had made and other evidence for three years before pleading guilty to two, first-degree murder charges Feb. 27, 1995, according to Southeast Missourian archives.

Police said in March 1995 that Gibbs shot his parents because he was worried his parents might withdraw his driving and hunting privileges over a bad report card, the newspaper reported.

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