Posted on July 22, 2015 in Criminal Defense

In 1899, the nation’s first juvenile criminal court was established right here in Cook County, Illinois. The goal of the new system was to prevent the mistakes and poor choices of young people from evolving into a lifetime of bad decisions and criminal prosecution. The juvenile court was—and remains to this day—primarily focused on rehabilitating young offenders rather than severely punishing criminal activity. Once an individual turns 18, however, the situation changes dramatically, as juvenile-type behavior such as shoplifting or an after-school fight suddenly carry much more severe criminal penalties.

New Demographic Group

Perhaps, in past generations, 18 was a reasonable, albeit distinct, threshold between youth and adulthood. The evolution of society, however, seems to indicate that cultural concepts of an adult may be changing, and that the criminal justice system may need to evolve as well. That which was once considered a transitional stage has begun gaining recognition as a unique demographic age group. Developmental experts and scholars are now using the term “emerging adults” to describe people between 18 and 25 years old. Compared to 50 years ago, there is little question that emerging adults are less independent than in the past, and many have yet to settle into what most consider to be “adult roles.”

Continue Reading ››

 Posted on July 20, 2015 in Criminal Defense

The debate over the morality and constitutionality of the death penalty is one that has been ongoing for decades, if not longer. The most recent battleground, albeit indirectly, was none other than the United States Supreme Court, as a related case demonstrated the possibility that a full-scale attack on the legality of capital punishment could have rather interesting results. Although the death penalty was abolished in Illinois in 2011, the practice remains legal in 31 states and in federal prosecution of the most serious of criminal cases.

Glossip v. Gross

In late June, the nation’s High Court handed down its ruling on Glossip v. Gross, a case from Oklahoma that challenged the use of a particular sedative in the process of lethal injection. The drug in question had been linked to several controversial executions last year and three death row inmates sought to have its use barred. In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court allowed the continued use of the drug, but the dissenting Justices issued some thought-provoking opinions on the death penalty in general.

Continue Reading ››

 Posted on July 15, 2015 in Criminal Defense

The 2002 film Catch Me If You Can tells the dramatized story of Frank Abagnale Jr. who, over the course of several years, wrote thousands of dollars in bad checks while avoiding local and federal authorities. Abagnale eventually progressed into other types of confidence schemes, but they all began with passing bad checks. Although he was eventually caught and has since gone to work assisting the FBI in tracking and preventing crimes of fraud, his story often raises questions about how bad checks may be prosecuted.

Bad Checks

Most people realize that a check is a financial instrument containing an unconditional order for the signer’s bank to pay a specified sum to the listed payee. As a signed and dated document, a check represents a bill of exchange. Put in simple terms, when you write a check, you order to bank to pay the designated amount to the intended recipient if and when they present the check to the bank for payment.

Continue Reading ››

 Posted on July 08, 2015 in Drug Crimes

Researchers have found a new method determining whether an individual has used cocaine, and it does not require the collection of bodily fluids. A team of scientists from the University of Surrey in the United Kingdom have discovered that a single fingerprint may be enough to verify the presence of cocaine in a person’s system. In addition to being less invasive than blood or urine tests, a fingerprint analysis may also increase reliability as the identifying characteristics associated with fingerprints are not easily faked or compromised.

The testing process involves the collection of a single fingerprint and analysis utilizing a technology known as mass spectrometry. Mass spectrometry is used to detect chemical components in the residue left by a fingerprint and is able to isolate traces of metabolized cocaine. The presence of two compounds in particular, benzoylecgonine and methylecgonine, verify that an individual has ingested and metabolized cocaine rather than having just touched it.

Continue Reading ››

 Posted on July 06, 2015 in Criminal Defense

The criminal justice system in the United States is based on the ideals that only those proven to be guilty beyond reasonable doubt should be convicted of crime. In practice, however, the system is far from perfect, and every year, hundreds if not thousands of individuals are found guilty of crimes they did not commit. With the proliferation of DNA-based exonerations, the issue has been brought to the forefront in recent years, as some 2000 convictions have been overturned in the last several decades. Still, one wrongful conviction is too many, and if you or a loved one has suffered legal consequences for a crime you did not commit, a qualified lawyer may be able to help.

Earlier this year, a Washington, D.C., Superior Court ordered to the District of Columbia to pay more than $9 million in damages to man whose life had been ruined by a wrongful conviction. The man had spent more than 22 years behind bars for a rape and robbery that he did not commit, as proven by subsequent DNA evidence. The question is, though: how do these things happen? How does an innocent person get convicted of something he or she did not do?

Continue Reading ››

 Posted on June 24, 2015 in DUI

Consider a plausible scenario: you go out with friends for drinks after work one Friday afternoon. You stay for an hour or two, enjoy a few laughs and a couple beers, and then head home for a late dinner. While you are starting to feel the effects of the alcohol, you know you are going home to eat, and you did not have that much to drink. Two blocks from your house, you roll through a stop sign and get pulled over. The officer can smell beer on you and asks you to submit to a BAC test. You blow a 0.10 on the breathalyzer, and all of sudden, you have been arrested for driving under the influence. Such a situation could easily happen to anyone, and, fortunately, court supervision may offer individuals a way to recover from a relatively easy mistake.

While the Illinois Office of the Secretary of State handles the enforcement of administrative penalties, such as suspension of your driver’s license, you cannot be convicted without due process in criminal court. Depending on the severity of the case, including the circumstances of the DUI charge, injuries caused as a result, or serious property damage, many courts may opt to impose court supervision rather than full-fledged criminal penalties.

Continue Reading ››

 Posted on June 22, 2015 in Your Rights

One of the cornerstones of American criminal law and jurisprudence is the assumption that all citizens are innocent until proven guilty. This most basic principle is designed to guide the actions of law enforcement, prosecutors, defenders, and the rules of courtroom procedure to ensure that an accused individual is not treated as guilty until the facts clearly demonstrate such to be true.

Presumption of Innocence

The concept of innocent until proven guilty, to the surprise of many, is not explicitly addressed in the United States Constitution or the Bill of Rights. However, the Fifth Amendment states that no person can be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. For centuries “due process of law” in western culture, has included the basic tenet that an accused individual must be proven guilty.

Among the earliest legal citations for the idea can be found in Digesta seu Pendectae¸ or the Digest, compiled in the 6^th century by the Roman emperor Justinian I. The Digest represented part of the Corpus Juris Civilis or the “Body of Civil Law.” Among the writings contained the Digest was the general rule of evidence: Ei inumbit probatio qui dicit, non qui negat—“Proof lies on he who asserts, not on he who denies.”  The United States Supreme Court officially recognized the presumption in its 1895 decision in Coffin v. United States.

Continue Reading ››

 Posted on June 17, 2015 in Expungement

Have you ever wondered how the word “rap” came to mean “reputation?” Of course, it is almost always used in with a negative connotation, as someone with a shady past may be said to have a “bad rap.” Interestingly, it turns out that “rap” is not a colloquial shortening of “reputation,” but instead is an acronym taken from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, as the FBI established an interstate standard for criminal history record-keeping. An individual’s criminal history is known as a Record of Arrests and Prosecution, or RAP Sheet.

If you have a criminal history, it is very important to have clear understanding of what may be listed on your RAP Sheet. Criminal background checks are a fairly common practice for employment, volunteer work, and other applications, and reviewing your history first can help prevent problems. Obtaining a copy of your RAP Sheet can help you:

Continue Reading ››

 Posted on June 17, 2015 in Criminal Defense

The debate over drug detection dogs or drug-sniffing dogs has taken on life in recent months and years on several different fronts. There have been many concerns raised over the training methods used with such animals and the reliability of results that they produce. While the accuracy of drug-sniffing dogs is certainly a reasonable issue to discuss, more and more questions are being asked regarding the legality and constitutionality of using the dogs. Citizens are often left wondering if the employment of drug-sniffing dogs in certain situations constitutes a violation of Fourth Amendment Rights.

Florida v. Jardines

According to the United State Supreme Court, citizens may be justified in such concerns, and, in fact, ruled that a private home is protected from searches and investigations from police, including drug-sniffing dogs, without a warrant. The 2013 ruling on Florida v. Jardines, addressed a situation that occurred back in 2006, when police brought a drug-sniffing dog to a Miami man’s front porch, where the dog alerted law enforcement that he detected illegal drugs. Using the dog’s alert as probable cause, police obtained a warrant, searched the home, and found evidence of marijuana trafficking.

Continue Reading ››

 Posted on June 10, 2015 in Criminal Defense

In the wake of protests and civil unrest following police-related deaths in Ferguson, Missouri, and New York City, another high profile shooting death exploded into the public consciousness. Thanks largely to a bystander’s cell phone video, the police shooting of an African American man in North Charleston, South Carolina, captured headlines for several weeks beginning in early April. While the involved officer was fired and authorities promised an investigation, the future of the case was relatively uncertain until earlier this week when a grand jury officially indicted the former officer on a murder charge.

The indictment is related to a series of events on April 4^th that left a 50 year old man dead following what seemed to be a relatively routine traffic stop. The officer’s dashboard camera indicated that initial stop for broken taillight was conducted without incident. A few minutes later, however, the driver emerged from his vehicle and attempted to get away. A cell phone video shot by a passerby showed the officer and driver involved in a physical altercation, after which the driver broke free again and ran. The officer fired eight times at the driver, ultimately killing him.

Continue Reading ››