Recent Blog Posts
Withdrawing a Guilty Plea
The Chicago Tribune recently ran an article about a defendant who withdrew his guilty plea in connection with a murder charge. The 22-year-old man, from Aurora, had pled guilty to murdering a woman in October of 2005, when he was just 14 years old.
Appellate Court Decision
The hearing came in light of last year’s appellate court decision, which stated that the defendant’s 2009 guilty plea was invalid, as it provided for a 45-year minimum sentence, and not the 35-year sentence he should have received as the result of entering a plea to first-degree murder. The Illinois Supreme Court declined to hear the case when county prosecutors appealed the appellate court’s decision.
New Criminal Process
There was a short court hearing on February 11th, which served to reset the criminal process against the defendant in light of the appellate court opinion allowing him to withdraw his plea. It was the first court hearing since the decision.
Paul Pless’s Legal Troubles Continue
The News-Gazette recently reported on a story involving the latest legal woes with which former University of Illinois administrator Paul Pless is dealing. Just over two years ago, investigators discovered that Pless was altering the grades and test scores of law school applicants in his then position as the assistant dean of admissions at the University of Illinois College of Law (UI). Now, he is facing criminal charges for his alleged involvement in a prostitution ring.
Criminal Charges
The article reports that the McClean County State’s Attorney’s Office charged Pless with solicitation of a sexual act, graded as a Class A misdemeanor, after he was arrested on December 30th by police. He is expected to appear before a judge on February 19th for a hearing in connection with the charge.
Steps to take if your spouse is lying during divorce proceedings
The divorce process can be emotionally draining, no matter how amicable spouses are while navigating their split. However, some divorce proceedings are far more trying than others. For example, divorces that are marked by dishonesty can be far more difficult to cope with than those that are straightforward and involve full disclosure.
If you suspect or know that your spouse is lying about finances, behaviors that may affect your child custody case and other material matters, it is important that you react to your spouse's behavior with focused integrity on your part. Retaliating against your spouse for being dishonest will only make you look bad in the eyes of a judge.
Rather than taking matters into your own hands in a negative way, react to your spouse's dishonesty proactively and with dignity. Approach your attorney and inform him or her about the situation. He or she will likely encourage you to document any evidence you can acquire in regards to the situation being affected by the dishonesty. However, you must be careful to gather evidence in honest, legal ways. Please consult your attorney if you have any questions about how to successfully achieve this end.
Illinois Lawmakers take Aim at Revenge Porn
The increased and widespread use of technology and social media has brought up a whole new host of issues regarding conduct online. While we still struggle to define appropriate online behavior in some aspects, it can be argued that perhaps the law is struggling to keep up with actions that occur on the web. When discussing the damaging effects of online behavior, we often hear key words such as “cyber bullying” and “sexting,” but what it really comes down to may be described as harassment in the legal arena.
What is Revenge Porn?
Lawmakers in Illinois are taking notice and taking action to address these problems. According to an article recently published by the Chicago Tribune, the state is taking steps to give victims of revenge porn an outlet in court. For those who are unfamiliar with the term, revenge porn refers to the act of an individual posting an inappropriate photo or video of their ex-boyfriend or girlfriend online as a way to get back at them after the failure of the relationship.
Expungement in Illinois
Many people have likely made a poor decision or two at one point in their life. Unfortunately for some, these mistakes may have legal consequences. The good news is that in the state of Illinois, those charged with certain crimes may be able to get the charges expunged from their criminal records. As echoed in an article by World News Report, individuals in Illinois can obtain an expungement in order to avoid facing the consequences of their poor judgment for the rest of their lives.
What is an Expungement?
An expungement means that a person’s records will be sealed from public access, which means that these records will only be available to view with an order form the court.
The article further explains that in Illinois specifically, an expungement means that the records will be physically destroyed or returned to the person seeking the expungement. Further, the person’s name will be removed from any public record or index in which it may have appeared in connection with the associated charges.
Medical Marijuana Use in Illinois
The legal status of marijuana use has been a popular topic in the media in the recent past. In fact, many are pointing out the coincidence that the two teams who will be competing in this year’s NFL Superbowl are from the two states that have legalized marijuana use across the board. While other states have not made such a dramatic change in their laws regarding use of the drug, a number of states across the country have legalized marijuana for the limited purpose of medical use. Illinois is one such state.
Conditions to Legally Use Medical Marijuana in Illinois
Just because Illinois has legalized the use of marijuana for medical purposes does not mean that users are free to do so at their own discretion. According to an article recently published by Liberty Voice, an individual who seeks to use the drug for medical reasons may still have to pay a substantial fee, get a background check, be fingerprinted by law enforcement, and could be asked to surrender their firearms. Other costs associated with the legal use of marijuana for medical reasons can include a $150.00 fee for an identification card application and the cost of fingerprinting, which can range from $30.00 to $50.00.
Should Juveniles Serving Life without Parole be Revisited?
A United States Supreme Court opinion from 2012 stated that sentencing juvenile defendants to mandatory life without parole amounted to cruel and unusual punishment, and such sentences were therefore declared unconstitutional. A local Chicago media outlet recently published an article about the ruling and its effects on past juvenile offenders.
The Court’s opinion and the related sentence imposed does not equally affect all juvenile offenders. Illinois was just one of a number of states that, in the 1980s and 1990s, imposed harsher penalties on those juveniles who were found guilty of violent crimes. The old sentencing rules made the sentence mandatory, which meant that a judge had much less leeway in considering circumstantial factors in imposing a sentence. Now, in light of the Supreme Court decision, such life sentences are no longer mandatory, and while they are not completely prohibited, should rather be used only in extreme cases.
Backlog of Rape Kit Testing is a Problem Nationwide
The Chicago Tribune recently reported on a story covering the delay in processing and sometimes complete failure of rape kits to be tested by law enforcement and lab workers across the country. The fear of many is that as a result of this failure, victims would not get justice and their attackers would remain free to rape them and potential other victims, as long as they were not in prison. As a result, many concerned citizens are forming organizations and getting involved in groups aimed at eliminating the backlog and coming up with alternative ways of testing rape kits and tracking them.
Many advocates of the victims allege that the backlog in testing is attributed to the low priority that many sexual assault victims are given by law enforcement. Illinois was the first of four states to mandate the testing of rape kits, which it implemented in 2010. Now, the almost 4,100 kits that were untested at the time have been processed, some decades old. The completed kits were sent back to the appropriate local police departments for further action. The results made 927 matches in the national DNA database, giving law enforcement promising leads.
New Police Procedure to Battle Heroin Addiction in DuPage County
The popularity of TV shows involving illegal drugs as a central theme could be seen as an indication of the issue’s presence in the everyday lives of many Americans. While not all people suffer from or are necessarily predisposed to drug addiction, the fact is that the use and abuse of illegal substances also carries with it an indirect effect on those people around the user. Those people affected may include friends and family, and can even extend so far as law enforcement, as is evidenced in a change in their procedure recently reported by a media outlet.
It was announced this week that the DuPage County Sheriff’s Office will now be carrying Narcan (Naloxone), a drug known to prevent heroin overdoses, in their squad cars. In doing so, they will become the first sheriff’s office in the state of Illinois to do so. The Sheriff’s Office is just one of the DuPage County’s Law Enforcement Agencies participating in the new DuPage Narcan Program (DNP).
Illinois Court upholds stiff sentence in marijuana growing case
An Illinois appeals court recently upheld a tough sentence for a man who was convicted of marijuana manufacturing.
The defendant, Michael J. Hogan, was sentenced to a prison term of 15 years in prison plus a two year period of probation, in addition to fines, fees, and a concurrent sentence. Mr. Hogan appealed the sentence, citing its harshness.
Authorities searched Mr. Hogan's apartment after his landlord entered it and discovered various marijuana plants growing. Police searched Mr. Hogan's apartment and confiscated up to 5,000 grams (11 pounds) of marijuana.
He entered an open plea agreement to unlawful manufacture of cannabis and marijuana possession, for the dismissal of a charge of unlawful production of cannabis.
Prosecutors will often over-charge defendants in hopes of scaring a criminal defendant into a plea deal. In this case, Mr. Hogan pleaded guilty to two charges and appeared surprised when he was sentenced to the maximum term in prison.
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