The East Central Illinois Criminal Law & DUI Weblog

Lawyers put some thought-provoking quotes in their emails — often in a signature block.  Here are a few favorites of mine that I have seen.  I have not verified the accuracy of the attributed sources or the quotes, but I still like the ideas these quotes convey.

• “It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly, one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.” — Sherlock Holmes (A Scandal in Bohemia)
• “If you think hiring a professional is expensive, wait until you hire an amateur.” — Red Adair
• “If you want to converse with me, first define your terms.” — Voltaire
• “I [...] never could make a good impromptu speech without several hours to prepare it.” — Mark Twain

Jeremy Richey

To the uninitiated, the citation form for Illinois statutes can be mystifying. For example, the citation for the per se DUI offense in Illinois is 625 ILCS 5/11-501(a)(1).

But, after you understand the parts of the citation, it is easy to use the information in it to locate the statutory text on Illinois General Assembly website.

Let’s break down our example citation.

625: This is the chapter of the Illinois Compiled Statutes that we start looking in. Lawyers, police officers, and frequent speeders will recognize this chapter as the vehicle chapter.

ILCS: Illinois Compiled Statutes

5: This signifies Act 5 of the chapter. After we locate the proper chapter, we next look for the act that our statutory text resides in.  This particular act is also known as the Illinois Vehicle Code.

11:  This is the chapter of the act.  If you are wondering, this is the second time we have used the word “chapter.”  This is part of the citation is also called a chapter.  I wouldn’t worry about this label, however. We don’t really need to worry about it since it is also part of the section number (see below).

11-501. Section 11-501. This is the precise section of the text we are looking for.

(a): This is the subsection of the section where the per se law is located.

(1): This is the paragraph of the subsection. It is also the home of our per se DUI law.

So, if you are on the Illinois General Assembly website and trying to find the per se DUI law, you will click on the link for the Illinois Compiled Statutes and then use the numbers of the per se citation to navigate to the text that you are looking for.

Jeremy Richey

Today, while reading a police report in a DUI case, I tried to decide if the traffic stop preceding the DUI arrest was lawful. After some brief legal research, I jumped in my truck and took off down the road. I wanted to see the exact stretch of road that the police officer wrote about. It is common for me to do this. I do this because sometimes there is a big pay off by going out and investigating the actual scenes where things take place. But, doing this takes time. Which leads me to the point of this post. If you are lawyer shopping and have one or more free consultations scheduled, consider asking the lawyers you meet how often they go out to incident scenes. The question might shed light on the type of representation you will receive.

Jeremy Richey

What are the suspension periods for drivers under 21 who violate the zero-tolerance law?

1st failure of testing: 3 months

1st refusal: 6 months

2nd failure of testing: 1 year

2nd refusal: 2 years

Source: 625 ILCS 5/6-208.2

Jeremy Richey

Whenever possible, I recommend that defendants pay their fines and court costs by money order, cash, or check.  This is because substantial fees are charged for credit card payments.  But, it is better to pay via credit card rather than not pay at all.  If a person has no choice but to pay via credit card, the information to do that is below.  I scanned the following image from a handout I obtained from the Coles County Circuit Clerk’s Office.

Jeremy Richey

UPDATE: Court fines can now be paid online via judici.com.

Defendants often want to be excused from attending court. This might be, for example, because they must drive for hours (or even days) to reach the courthouse or they don’t want to miss work or school. It is up to the judiciary whether a person can be excused from court and policies vary by county and judge.

Some judges and counties require defendants to appear for every single court date unless specifically excused from attending court by a judge. When this is the case, defendants should plan to be present for every court appearance and should not ask a judge to be excused from court unless there is a compelling reason to do so.

Some judges will defer to the prosecutor and defense counsel on this issue to a certain degree; if both lawyers agree that the defendant may be excused from court, then the defendant will not need to appear. There will be no such agreement when the parties know a given court appearance is one where the defendant must be present (such as for a plea agreement) or it is one where the judge always requires the defendant to be present.

The defense attorney has no power to excuse a person’s presence from court. Ultimately, it is always up to a judge. If a judge allows the parties to reach an agreement as to this, defense counsel still must get the prosecutor’s agreement on the matter. The only thing the defense attorney can do is ask for permission. If the judge or the prosecutor denies that permission, then the defendant must be present. If the defendant fails to appear, he will likely receive a warrant for his arrest and risk forfeiture of the bond posted in his case.

Jeremy Richey

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads This blog is doing awesome!.

Crunchy numbers

The average container ship can carry about 4,500 containers. This blog was viewed about 20,000 times in 2010. If each view were a shipping container, your blog would have filled about 4 fully loaded ships.

In 2010, there were 24 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 146 posts. There were 3 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 325kb.

The busiest day of the year was March 1st with 131 views. The most popular post that day was How to Understand Material on Judici — Part 1.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were judici.com, jeremyrichey.com, Google Reader, blog.simplejustice.us, and google.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for judici, coles county courthouse, can a dui be expunged in illinois, beer can, and stack of money.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

How to Understand Material on Judici — Part 1 May 2008

How to Understand Material on Judici — Part 2 May 2008

How to Understand Material on Judici — Part 4 May 2008

Online Case Info Q&A March 2009

How to Understand Material on Judici — Part 3 May 2008

I get this question fairly often from clients.  When a client asks this question, he is not wanting a legal document filed in court (a Motion for Discovery), he is wanting the State’s response to the motion (police reports, videos, etc.).  For some reason, some clients refer to the police report and related materials as “my motion for discovery.”  I am not sure why this is, but it happens.  A motion for discovery is just a legal document asking for discovery; the response to the motion is something completely different.

Jeremy Richey

1.  Today, I presented material on petty traffic and DUI issues at the ISBA Solo and Small Firm Conference in Springfield, IL.  I very much enjoyed the experience and I am thankful to have been a part of it.

2.  I recently wrote a book review for The Champion.   My review is now online (click here).

Jeremy Richey

[Note: This post is mostly the same as last year's, but with updated information.]

Today, while crunching some numbers, I found out (approximately) what percentage of my practice is in the areas of criminal defense, DUI defense, traffic defense, and juvenile law. The following percentages are based on revenue, but I think that my time devoted to these areas closely follows the revenue percentages.

DUI Defense: 39%

Criminal Defense: 44%

Traffic Defense: 7%

Juvenile Delinquency/Juvenile Abuse: 5%

Other: 5%

Accordingly, approximately 95% of my practice is in the areas of criminal defense, DUI defense, traffic defense, and juvenile law.

Jeremy Richey