Articles Posted in Criminal Defense

“Second chance probation” is a sentence in Illinois that allows certain offenders to clear a conviction from their record after serving at least two-years of probation (730 ILCS 5/5-6-3.4). This law, which became effective January 1, 2014, allows the court to sentence the defendant to probation without entering a judgement. Those who have previously been convicted (i.e. probation or conditional discharge) of any felony offense are not eligible for this sentence. In addition, this sentence is not available for violent offenders or defendants who have previously plead guilty or who have been found guilty of a violent offense. Second Chance Probation may be offered to defendants charged with certain probationable felony offenses such as possession of a controlled substance, possession of cannabis, theft, retail theft, and criminal damage to property.

When a defendant is sentenced to Second Chance Probation, the court will order a minimum period of 24-months probation and defer any further proceedings. Defendants sentenced to Second Chance Probation, in addition to other conditions, may not violate any criminal statute, may not possess a firearm, must make restitution if required, must obtain or attempt to obtain employment, must pay fines and costs, must attend educational courses, must submit to periodic drug testing, and must perform a minimum of 30 hours of community service.

If successful, the court will discharge the defendant and dismiss the proceedings. The defendant may be eligible for expungement of the arrest after 5 years.

Kim Foxx will be the democratic candidate for Cook County State’s Attorney, defeating current State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez. Alvarez came under fire after waiting a year to file murder charges against an officer accused of shooting teenager Laquan McDonald 16 times. Charges were pressed only after a judge ordered the squad-car video be released to the public. Many accused Alvarez of a “cover-up.”

Foxx previously worked as chief aide to the Cook County Board President and worked in the juvenile division of the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office for years. In November, Kim Foxx will face-off against Republican nominee Christopher Pfannkuche.

Dorothy Brown, who is serving her 4^th term as Cook County Circuit Court Clerk, will be the democratic nominee in the upcoming election despite the federal probe into her office. While Brown did not have a majority of the vote (48 percent), she dominated over the other candidates, Michelle Harris and Jacob Meister had 31 percent and 22 percent, respectively. In October of last year, the Democratic Party announced they would no longer endorse Dorothy Brown, but would instead endorse Harris. Brown will challenge Republican nominee Diane Shapiro, who ran unopposed.

According to jail guards at the Lake County Jail, unsafe jail conditions are causing very dangerous situations. A letter to the Chicago Tribune from Cass Casper, senior staff attorney for the union local, states that there is a “substantial risk of the safety of the officers” due to broken elevators and radio systems. The letter alleges nine instances in which the radios or elevators failed from November to January.

Jail guards allege they have been stuck in elevators without the ability to use their radios due to radio “dead zones.” Wait times up to 25 minutes and rescues by ladders have been reported. An officer reported that the response time to an attack in which another officer was grabbed by the throat and thrown to the floor was “severely delayed due to one of the two elevators being nonoperational.”

According to jail officials, the main elevator has been fixed and the radio system will be replaced. Lake County plans to spend more than $7 million to buy a more advanced radio system that should be up and running by April.

A federal lawsuit filed on Monday on behalf of six African-American men contends that the Chicago Police Department’s stop-and-frisk policy has violated their constitutional rights. The lawsuit alleges “suspicionless” street stops led to unlawful searches and seizures as well as the use of excessive force by the police department. The suit is seeking class-action status, alleging that the constitutional rights of mostly African-Americans have been violated. The named defendants are the Chicago Police Department, superintendent Garry McCarthy as well as 14 unnamed police officers.

The U.S. Supreme Court decision in Terry v. Ohio permits police to make a stop when there is reasonable suspicion that a person has committed or is about to commit a crime and there is a reasonable belief that the individual is armed and imminently dangerous. In these cases, a brief patdown of the individual’s outer clothing in search for weapons is permitted.

Gregory Davis, 58, is a plaintiff in the case. He alleges that in July 2014, he was waiting in his vehicle for a family member to come out of Walgreens when officers asked him why he was sitting there and demanded his driver’s license and insurance information. The allegations further state after looking into his vehicle, the officers allowed him to return to his home without issuing a citation. Davis was stopped again three months later as he drove through an alley in his neighborhood. He alleges that there was no probable cause for the stop and officers took his license and registration, making him wait 20 minutes while they ran his information. Again, there was no charges or citations issued.

Orangelo Payne, 35, has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the FBI, Chicago police, the Cook County probation department, an FBI agent as well as individual police and probation officers. He alleges that while he was on probation for a drug offense in 2013, his home was illegally searched by an FBI agent and probation officers, who found an antique shotgun. This led to 16 months in jail for Payne, before the gun charges were eventually dropped.

The lawsuit alleges that there were improper partnerships between probation officers and law enforcement agencies. Payne alleges that the probation department did not investigate or discipline these probation officers, thereby encouraging misconduct.

Less than a year ago, the Tribune ran a story alleging that the probation department’s gang unit improperly worked with the FBI and other agencies to conduct warrantless and possibly illegal searches. The former Deputy Chief of the gang unit is one of the defendants in Payne’s case.

Angel Gonzalez, of Waukegan, spent 20 years behind bars before being formally exonerated of rape and abduction charges on Monday. The basis of the exoneration was DNA. While bodily fluids implicate two different men in the crime, neither DNA sample matched that of Gonzalez.

Gonzalez appeared in a Lake County courtroom, shackled at the ankles, as Judge Victoria Rossetti vacated the conviction. While the excitement was evident, Gonzalez was then sent back to prison for a 1997 charge of criminal damage to property for allegedly damaging a sink while in solitary confinement.

On Tuesday, Gonzalez’s attorneys asked a Livingston County judge to vacate the charge because there was no interpreter present when Gonzalez, who speaks little English, pled guilty. Judge Jennifer Bauknecht agreed to vacate the conviction and the prosecutors then agreed to drop the charges.

A former Northwestern professor, a private investigator and a lawyer are accused of conspiring to frame Alstory Simon, who spent 15 years in prison, for a 1982 double-homicide in Chicago. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Simon, and seeks $40 million dollars in damages, alleging unethical conduct on the part of Northwestern University and professor David Protess. Protess founded both the Medill Innocence Project and the Chicago Innocence project, which are organizations that investigate what they believe to be wrongful convictions.

The suit alleges that Simon was framed in order to free Anthony Porter, who was on death row for the murders. Manufacturing evidence, coercing false statements from witnesses and intimidating Simon into confessing are among the allegations. The suit claims that students working with Protess gave witnesses money for drugs, lied about their identities and flirted with witnesses. Also alleged is that Simon was set up with a lawyer who coached him to plead guilty. The lawsuit claims that Simon was under duress and the influence of narcotics when he confessed.

Investigator Paul Ciolino who is implicated in the case said in a written statement that Porter was indeed unjustly convicted and denied a coerced confession by Simon. The suit accuses Ciolino of impersonating a police officer, confronting Simon while armed and showing Simon a video of an actor falsely claiming to have witnessed the killing. The lawsuit also alleges that Ciolino told Simon he could avoid the death penalty if confessed that the victims were shot in self-defense and promised Simon legal representation and large sums of money from book and movie deals if he gave the statement.