In a recent Illinois appellate case, the defendant was convicted of first-degree murder under 720 ILCS 5/9-1(a)(1) and sentenced to natural life imprisonment. The defendant and several others were charged with six counts of first-degree murder in connection with the strangulation deaths of two men. The case arose when the defendant’s father called the police to report two dead people in a residence occupied by a woman and her father. When the police came, the woman said there were two people hiding in the house. A cop found one of the hiding men upstairs with the bodies, which were face down with plastic bags over their heads. The man who was found said he’d killed one man, and the other man who was hiding had killed the other one. The defendant wasn’t at the residence but was driving elsewhere. She was stopped and taken into custody, and she told the officer she wanted to talk and wanted to know how much time she’d have to serve as an accessory to murder. She was read her Mira...

In a recent Illinois appellate case, the defendant appealed after being convicted of armed robbery, which is a Class X felony.  He was sentenced to 21 years in prison, which is the six-year minimum plus a 15-year enhancement for using firearms.  He was indicted based on a theory of accountability.  Prosecutors claimed he knowingly took money from the victim’s person by threatening the use of force while carrying a firearm. The defendant was separately charged with attempted armed robbery, and he pled guilty to that charge. He was admonished of his right to a jury trial, and he agreed to waive his right. The case at hand was set for a jury trial, but a few months before the trial, the defense attorney told the court that sentencing in the attempted armed robbery case was supposed to occur on the same day. The defendant’s attorney also said at that point that the current case would be a bench trial, and they’d waived a jury trial. There was no written jury waiver. Subsequently, t...