Recent Blog Posts
Drivers' Rights during Traffic Stops
For many people, traffic stops are their most common interaction with law enforcement. This is understandable since an independent study commissioned by the Illinois Department of Transportation reports that there are almost 2.5 million traffic stops in Illinois every year. Yet, despite the common nature of these stops most people do not understand the rights they have in these interactions.
For instance, many people do not realize that they are protected from being pulled over for no reason. Police officers need to have probable cause in order to stop a car without a warrant. However, given the number of potential traffic violations that officers have available, this is usually not a high barrier to being pulled over. The more important protections come into play after the traffic stop starts, such as the right to remain silent, and the right to refuse searches. The Right to Remain Silent The first right drivers have is the right to not answer an officer's questions. People may refuse to answer almost any question an officer has for them. The exceptions to this are requests for drivers' licenses, registration, and proof of insurance, which people must provide. Yet, other questions, such as "Where are you coming from?" do not need to be answered. However, this right exists in the real world. Being needlessly uncooperative with police or being rude to them has the potential to make the traffic stop harder than it has to be. If a driver is coming home from a bar at 3 a.m., they should probably not volunteer the information. If the driver is coming home from church at 11 in the morning, it may be better to just say that. The Right to Refuse Searches The law also provides people with the right to refuse to consent to a search of their vehicle. The limits of this right are important to understand. The right to refuse to consent to a search is not the same as the right to not be searched. Police officers are allowed to search people's cars if they have probable cause to believe that they will find evidence of a crime, regardless of whether the person consents. However, consent eliminates the need for probable cause. If a person does not consent to the search, and the officer finds something, then a lawyer may be able to get that evidence thrown out of the case because it came from an improper search. A driver's consenting to a search eliminates that potential strategy. This can be important because in many instances the evidence that the police found in the car will be key to proving the prosecution's case. The law provides a variety of rights to citizens in order to limit the power of the police. If you are being charged with a crime and think your rights were violated, contact a Kane County criminal defense attorney today.
Understanding the Criminal Appeals Process
The criminal justice system is about seeking the truth, and in many ways its procedures are designed to give the defendant a fair trial. Unfortunately, mistakes do happen. Judges can make the wrong call about allowing a piece of evidence in, or they can misunderstand the legal standard for making a decision. When those problems arise and end up changing the outcome of a case, criminal defendants have an opportunity to set things right. They may choose to file a criminal appeal. Appeals are legal proceedings in front of a panel of new judges who have the authority to correct errors of law or fact that the lower court judge may have made.
The Criminal Appeals Process
Criminal appeals are a continuation of a person’s legal proceedings after a trial ends. People do not need to use their appeal, but each defendant has the right to one, provided that they follow the correct procedural rules, such as filing within 30 days of their sentencing. The entire proceeding focuses specifically on a potential error that the trial court judge may have made during the lower court proceedings. Defendants may choose to put forth multiple errors that the lower court judge made for correction, but there are time limits that usually prevent judges from considering more than two to three errors at most.
New Law Limits Felons Collecting Public Pensions
Toward the end of his tenure as governor, former Governor Pat Quinn signed into law a new measure designed to limit the rights of felons to collect on pension plans. The law gives the Attorney General the authority to bring a lawsuit in order to prevent public pensions from paying out to people convicted of felonies in certain circumstances. The change in the law arose after the Illinois Supreme Court handed down a decision holding that the Attorney General's office lacked that authority, despite the fact that the Illinois Pension Code already included provisions related to felons collecting public pensions.
The New Law
The new law is more of a procedural change than an actual substantive one. The Illinois Pension Code has had a provision related to felony convictions for decades. The law states that employees in public pension plans may not collect their pension benefits if they are convicted of a felony related to their public service. However, the law lacked an enforcement mechanism, meaning that it was up to the pension administrators to make sure the rule was properly adhered to.
Bail under Illinois Law
Being arrested can be a harrowing experience for people, especially if the person is going through it for the first time. After it happens, most people's initial concern is making sure that they are not held in jail until the time of their trial. In many circumstances that is possible, but it brings up the issue of bail. There are a variety of misconceptions about the purposes of bail, as well as the practical way that paying bail works. The basic idea behind making defendants post bail is as a deposit against their failing to show up for court.
What Bail Is
Bail is a sum of money that the court requires defendants to turn over to the court in exchange for being allowed to leave jail before their trial. The law requires the defendant to post 10 percent of the set bail, and the court then releases them. As long as the defendant makes all of their court dates, then they get their money back at the end of the process, minus an administrative fee.
How the Jury Selection Process Works
One of the most important stages of the trial is the jury selection process, commonly known as voir dire. This stage, often considered the beginning of the actual trial, sets the tone for the trial, and allows the lawyers to decide on who will actually be the group of people rendering the verdict. Naturally then, many defendants are curious about how the jury selection process works. Voir dire varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, but generally it is a procedure process managed by the judge and the attorneys in which the attorneys attempt to select an unbiased jury that they can both agree on.
The Jury Selection Process
The jury selection process begins with a group of potential jurors being brought into the courtroom. Normally, the judge, attorneys, and defendants will also already be in the room. The judge will then often give a small speech about the importance of the jury process and the procedure of the day. Then, the judge will likely explain the charges, and ask if anyone in the potential jury pool knows anyone involved in the case, including the attorneys and witnesses. Once those people are excluded, voir dire begins in earnest.
Drone Searches and Illinois Law
New technology is constantly revolutionizing the way that police do their jobs, and that means that the law has to keep up in order to protect people's civil rights. One of the most common places where new technology butts up against people's rights is in the area of searches. The Fourth Amendment provides citizens with protection from unreasonable searches and seizures, but it does not define unreasonable. Over the years, courts have had to deal with wiretaps, heat vision, and GPS trackers, just to name a few pieces of technology.
Now, a new technology is creating another future Fourth Amendment issue: police drones. Police have had access to aerial surveillance for decades, but drones are different. Ordinary aerial surveillance is expensive. It requires helicopters and officers and a good deal of time and money. Drones make those searches much easier and cheaper.
Drones and the Fourth Amendment
Illinois Expands Social Host Crimes in the State
In recent years, the law has attempted to take a tougher stance on underage drinking. One of the biggest ways that this has been done is through the increasing criminalization of providing alcohol to minors. One group that has been targeted especially heavily is parents. Parents' opinion on when their child is responsible enough to drink may differ from the state's.
This can make it difficult for the state to enforce their policies on underage drinking because parents can provide children with places to drink that the police can have difficulty entering, such as private homes. In order to deal with this, the state passed a law that criminalized being a "social host" for minors, which means that it is illegal to provide a place for minors to drink.
What Social Host Crimes Are
Social host crime is designed to prevent parents from giving their children a place to drink outside of the public eye. The law makes it a crime for any parent to knowingly allow their child or people whom their child invites over to drink alcohol on the premises if they are under the age of 21. The law applies to any property that the parent "controls," so that could be homes or other property that the parent has. Additionally, the use of controls rather than owns means that a parent who rents their home cannot shift their guilt onto the landlord.
Curfews and Protesters’ Rights in Illinois
Protesters and police have always had something of an uneasy relationship. On the one hand, protecting people's right to freedom of speech is a valuable. On the other, maintaining public order is also important, both for the safety of the people in the protests as well as other people in the area. A case involving the arrests of protesters comes down squarely on the side of the public order. The case involves numerous defendants who were arrested for a curfew violation in Grant Park, who were arguing that the enforcement of the curfew violated their First Amendment rights.
The Case
This case actually does not have to do with the recent wave of protests across the country, though it may have important implications for future cases surrounding them. Instead, this case goes back to 2011 and the Occupy protestors. On October 15, 2011, Occupy Chicago held a rally, that culminated in a march to Grant Park. Once the protesters reached grant park, they began putting up tents. The police issued warnings that the park closed at 11 p.m., and that people still in the park after that time may be arrested.
Cook County Board President Wants to Reform Automatic Transfers
Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle recently called for an end to the practice of automatically trying certain juvenile offenders as adults. The cause of that practice, known as automatic transfers, is a 1982 law that sets up part of Illinois' juvenile justice system, but exempts some types of crimes from juvenile prosecutions. While that law was seen as being tough on crime at the time, it takes discretion out of the hands of judges who are actually seeing the specific cases, it disparately impacts minority youths, and it contributes to the existence of an expensive prison population.
What Automatic Transfers Are
Automatic transfers are transfers of minors into adult court that happen outside of judicial discretion. In Illinois, children under the age of 17 are often tried in juvenile court rather than forcing them to defend themselves as though they were an adult. However, certain minors who are accused of certain crimes are moved directly into the adult justice system, regardless of whether that makes sense.
The Legal Definition of Theft in Illinois
Theft is one of the most common crimes in Illinois, but many people do not actually understand the law behind it. The law of theft is surprisingly complex because theft in Illinois is such a broad crime. It covers mugging, pickpocketing, and shoplifting among other types of theft. The legal framework used to cover this crime is found at 720 ILCS 5/16-1. That section of Illinois law lists the basic elements that make up theft, as well as the aggravating factors, which are specific circumstances that increase the severity of the crime in the eyes of the law.
Basic Theft in Illinois
At its core, the law defines theft as taking unauthorized control of another person's property. In the past, the law used to make distinctions about the methods used to take control. For instance, it considered taking by threat of force to be a different crime than taking something by deception. Some jurisdictions still operate under these rules, but for the most part Illinois has abolished them. In Illinois, theft is all the same, regardless of whether someone uses the threat of force, deception, or simply takes something.
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