When David Biro was 16, he shot and killed Nancy and Richard Langert in their Winnetka home.
But Nancy also was pregnant, and on Thursday, a Cook County prosecutor and Biro’s attorney argued over whether the death of that unborn child also should be considered when Biro is re-sentenced for the 1990 crime.
Assistant State’s Attorney Alan Spellberg argued that Biro shouldn’t be resentenced for the unborn child. Spellberg called the 1990 murder of Winnetka couple “cold and calculating.”
Meanwhile, Biro’s attorney, Thomas Brandstrader, asked Judge Mary Margaret Brosnahan to resentence Biro for the unborn child.
Biro did not attend Thursday’s hearing.
Brandstrader also noted that when Biro was sentenced to life in prison without parole when he was 18, no mitigating factors were presented. The word “youth” may have been mentioned once when he was sentenced by Judge Shelvin Singer, Brandstrader also said.
Brosnahan will rule on the matter Dec. 3.
Biro, now 42, was a junior at New Trier High School when he shot the Langerts.
Under an Illinois Supreme Court ruling last year, Biro and others who are serving life in prison for murders they committed when they were under the age of 18 are eligible for new sentencing hearings.
That finding was built on a 2012 U.S. Supreme Court case that declared mandatory life sentences “cruel and unusual” when issued to convicts who were children when they committed their crimes.
Defense attorney Thomas Thomas Brandstrater, left, and assistant prosecutors Jane Sack, from right, Alan Spellberg and Celeste Stack attend a motion hearing at the Leighton Criminal Court Building in Chicago on Thursday for the upcoming resentencing of convicted felon David Biro. | Pool photo/John J. Kim/Chicago Tribune
