The East Central Illinois Criminal Law & DUI Weblog

Every criminal-defense lawyer has been asked how he or she can defend “those people.”  There are several good answers to this question.  Gideon, a public defender and a figment of the blawgosphere’s collective imagination, reminds us of one good answer in a recent post. That answer is that when a lawyer fights for an accused person, he or she also fights for the person’s family.  Gideon shares the following story:

I received a letter in the mail a few days ago. It was from a client. Nothing remarkable about it - 3 pages, handwritten, barely legible.

[ . . . ]

I flipped to the second page. The same handwriting - or so it seemed - except it was not from my client. It was from his daughter.

“Hello daddy”, she wrote, “when are you coming home? I’ve grown tall now - almost 4 feet! I also had to get glasses, but my little brother doesn’t have them.”

“We miss you daddy”, the letter concluded.

So, how can lawyers defend those people?  Sometimes they defend them because little Bobbi needs her dad at home and not in prison.

Jeremy Richey

Scott Greenfield, undoubtedly still in the Halloween spirit, donned some tights and a cape this morning in an effort to save the world of legal blogs (a/k/a/ the blawgosphere) from a prophesied death.  His post, while about much more than fighting spam, reminded me that I should explain how the comments work on this site.

First, here is some background for you.  This is not my first blog.  In previous blogging endeavors, I had to fight comment spam all the time.  And that irritated me.  At times, I also had to put up with abusive comments.  The most cruel comment I received wanted to know when I was going to die.  The commenter, of course, was not asking about my health — the commenter was saying that he or she wished I was dead.

When I started this blog, due to my previous experience with blog comments and a desire to keep a relatively professional tone on this blog, I initially did not have comments enabled.  After a while, this blog felt too isolated, so I revised my comment “policy.”  I decided to allow comments, but the comments would be approved by me before appearing on this blog.  I also decided that I would shut down the ability to comment on posts when they fell towards the bottom of the main page.  The reason for this was that I noticed, in the past, spammers would attack older posts, and if those posts didn’t have comments enabled, I would spend less time fighting the spammers.  I haven’t made any additional changes to how I handle comments, so moderated and closed comments are features of this blog.  For now, this is working for me and I have no plans to change the way I handle comments.  The bad part for readers is that it may be a while between the time a person submits a comment and the time it appears on the blog.   I am willing to pay this price for spam protection and quality control.

Jeremy Richey

This November, many judges across Illinois will find their names on election ballots.  Voters will decide if the judges get to keep their jobs.  Once elected, an Illinois judge never has to run against an opponent again — at the end of a term, the judge merely needs to convince enough voters to let the judge keep his or her job for another term.

What is the authority for this?  It is the Illinois Constitution.

Article VI, Section 12, Subsection (d) states, in part, as follows:

The names of Judges seeking retention shall be submitted to the electors, separately and without party designation, on the sole question whether each Judge shall be retained in office for another term. The retention elections shall be conducted at general elections in the appropriate Judicial District, for Supreme and Appellate Judges, and in the circuit for Circuit Judges. The affirmative vote of three-fifths of the electors voting on the question shall elect the Judge to the office for a term commencing on the first Monday in December following his election.

How long are the terms for judges? Article VI, Section 10 says terms are ten years for all appellate court judges (including judges on the Illinois Supreme Court) and six years for circuit judges.  Circuit judges are the trial judges in local courthouses.

Now that you know that judges will appear on your election ballot, you will undoubtedly want to make an informed vote.  The Illinois State Bar Association has published judicial evaluations on its website to help you do this.  Click here to view the evaluations.

Jeremy Richey

Have you seen this criminal?  He recently entered the home of an 85-year-old man where he destroyed the man’s personal property.  A law enforcement official attempted to apprehend the subject with a Taser, but it did not work on him.  The subject is considered to be dangerous but unarmed.  If you see him, immediately call your local law enforcement agency.

For more information, click here to read an Associated Press story about the incident.

Jeremy Richey

“Speaking and teaching are the master’s task; the disciple is to be silent and listen.” — The Rule of St. Benedict in English, Chapter 6

I am a simple guy.  When I speak, I typically say few words.  When I write, I am usually succinct.  And that’s OK.  It gives me more time to see what Bennett, Greenfield, Katz, Spence and a whole host of others have to say.

Jeremy Richey

Yesterday afternoon, I was at the courthouse in Coles County for an arraignment in a misdemeanor case. Before I got to the courtroom I needed to be in, a man approached me and asked if he could have more time to pay his court fines. He thought I was a prosecutor. His mistake was a reasonable one: I was a prosecutor up until May of this year and I had previously been in court many times for the State when this person’s cases had been up. This encounter made me think about some other encounters I have had with defendants. For your pleasure, I will include two other stories in this post.

Your Face Looks Familiar

A few weeks ago I went to a bowling alley with some friends. We went there to kill some time between a wedding and a reception. We were in the bar area throwing darts and the only other people in there were three guys who were more than a few sheets in the wind. The guys were obnoxious — they kept trying to hang out with us and buy alcohol for us. One of the guys looked familiar to me, but I couldn’t place him. I finally asked him where I knew him from. He said that I was his attorney. He wasn’t a client of mine, so I knew that I must have been his prosecutor at some point in time. He confirmed this when I followed up by asking him what he meant when he said that I was his attorney. At the end of my conversation with him, he said something to the effect that he was glad that I drink in bars. I smiled and changed the topic. I am a complete non-drinker. I am not against drinking, but I, myself, don’t drink.

Bad Service

When I was still a prosecutor, I was at a restaurant in Mattoon. I received terrible service from the waiter. The waiter looked familiar to me, but like the person in the previous story, I couldn’t place him. During the next misdemeanor cattle call I handled, the waiter was one of many people who had cases called that day. I now could place him. I wonder if he remembered me long before I remembered him and that is why I received terrible service from him?

Jeremy Richey

If you are charged with a crime and can’t afford to hire a lawyer, then you should ask that a public defender be appointed to represent you.  Below you will find step-by-step instructions for how to do this in Coles County.  The procedure may be different in your county and the best default advice I can give you is that on the date of your first court appearance you should arrive at the courthouse early and speak to a bailiff.  The bailiff will let you know what you need to do in order to request a public defender.

1. Go to court.  You will not be able to get a public defender prior to your first court appearance.  Your bond sheet, ticket, or summons will have a court date on it.  Go to court on that date and find the courtroom your case will be heard in.  If you need help finding your courtroom, ask a courthouse security officer on your way in.  You will know you are in the right courtroom if your name and case number is posted on the door of the courtroom.
2. Locate the bailiff.  The bailiff in your courtroom will give you an affidavit you will need to complete if you want the judge to consider your request for the public defender.  The bailiff will be wearing a jacket, tie, and a bailiff’s badge.  A courthouse security officer may also be serving as a bailiff.  These are uniformed police officers.
3. Fill out the affidavit.  Fill out the affidavit as completely as you are able to and then sign it.  The affidavit will have blanks for various personal and financial information.  The amount of money you earn each month is a key piece of information that the prosecutor and judge will want to know.  Coles County doesn’t place its court forms online, but Cook County does.  Click here (.pdf) to see a Cook County form that is similar to the form you will fill out in Coles County.
4. Return the affidavit to the bailiff.  The bailiff will give the affidavit to the prosecutor to review and then either the prosecutor or the bailiff will give the affidavit to the judge when your case is called.  If the prosecutor thinks that you make too much money and should not receive the public defender, the prosecutor will object to you receiving the public defender.
5. Go to the defendant’s table when your case is called.  This will be the empty table next to the table where the prosecutor is seated.  The judge will review your affidavit and ask you questions about the affidavit if he or she has any.  The judge will then appoint the public defender if he or she thinks you qualify for the public defender.
6. Receive the public defender.  If the public defender is present in the courtroom, he or she will join you at the table.  If the public defender is not present, then the Court will give you the public defender’s contact information and send the public defender notice that you are his or her client.

Jeremy Richey

In a new opinion by the Illinois Appellate Court, People v. Bonner (.pdf), the Court reversed Walter Bonner’s drug-delivery convictions and prison sentence because he was entrapped as a matter of law.

Bonner, a person with a low IQ and a high-school dropout, delivered cocaine to an undercover cop on multiple occasions.  The defendant’s unrebutted testimony was that Kara Vedros (a police informant) asked him multiple times to sell cocaine and he initially refused each request.  He eventually gave in after Vedros offered to sleep with him “if he sold cocaine to her or to one of her friends.”  Bonner and Vedros slept together and then Vedros introduced Bonner to the undercover cop that Bonner sold the cocaine to.

The Court concluded that the government, via Vedros its agent, induced Bonner to sell the cocaine and that he was not disposed to sell the cocaine before Vedros worked her charms on him.  Furthermore, it did not matter that there were multiple transactions — the Court could “identify no point at which the inducement might have lost its effect amid the cluster of transactions.”  Accordingly, as a matter of law, the government entrapped Bonner.

Jeremy Richey

According to an article by AP writer Don Babwin, the Chicago Police are mad at their new chief and are working less vigorously in order to stick it to the man.  The resulting brouhaha has given us some scary insight into the the thought process of some Chicago cops.  According to the Babwin article:

“If I see a crime happening, I take action,” said an officer who has more than 25 years on the force and spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. “But I don’t go out of my way to stop someone on a hunch or if they look suspicious. I don’t want to be accused of racial profiling and run afoul of this guy who we know won’t back us up.”

What? Is the officer saying that he will stop someone unlawfully if he has a hunch or a person looks suspicious? Here’s an idea: don’t stop someone unless you have a valid legal reason to do — please don’t stop someone  just because the person is suspicious looking or you ate a bad burrito.

Also, according to the Babwin article:

The mistrust [officers have for their bosses] grew after the department announced recently that every police car would be equipped with electronic tracking devices and officers would be asked to submit DNA samples at crime scenes.

Why worry about such intrusions if you’ve got nothing to hide, right?  No cop has ever said something like that to a citizen.  Why would the cops fear tracking devices? They fear them because lawyers likes Robert Deters want to use the devices to catch cops lying.

Jeremy Richey

It may come as a surprise to some that the public defender is not usually 100 percent free to poor defendants.  Typically, at the end of a criminal case, a judge will order a defendant to pay a small sum of money as a public-defender fee.  For example, in Coles County misdemeanor cases, the public-defender fee is usually somewhere between $50 and $100.

Is there a limit as to how much a judge can order a poor person to pay as a public defender fee?  Yes.  According to the Illinois Compiled Statutes, “Any sum ordered paid [. . .] may not exceed $500 for a defendant charged with a misdemeanor, $5,000 for a defendant charged with a felony, or $2,500 for a defendant who is appealing a conviction of any class offense.”  725 ILCS 5/113-3.1(b).

Jeremy Richey