Over 22 Years Experience, Rated as a Top 100 Trial Lawyer
Over 23 Years Experience Rated as a Top 100 Trial Lawyer

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courtHaving a criminal record as a minor can adversely affect your future in every way. If you are a juvenile offender, you may be able to clear your record by having your court record expunged. Named a “Top 100 Criminal Defense Trial Lawyer” by the National Trial Lawyers Association, Chicago expungement attorney John D. Ioakimidis understands the nuances of this area of law and can help you understand your legal rights and options.

An expungement means that all records of your case are completely removed and destroyed from all files under the government’s control. In other words, expungement is like “wiping the slate clean.” In certain cases, minors may be eligible to have their records expunged. A juvenile record includes fingerprints, photographs, arrest reports, and computer entries connecting a person arrested prior to their 18th birthday with an arrest or juvenile criminal court case.

In Illinois, any case prosecuted in juvenile court other than first-degree murder and felony sex offenses may be expunged. Certain requirements, however, must be met to be eligible for a juvenile expungement. If you were placed under arrest prior to your 18th birthday, but the matter did not go to court, police departments are required to automatically expunge the record of your arrest if you have not been arrested since then, and one full year has gone past since you were arrested. The exception to this rule is if you were placed under arrest for a sex crime or any class 2 or higher felony.

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lawyerThere is no doubt that having a criminal record can adversely affect all areas of your life, including your job prospects, housing, and even your personal reputation. At Legal Defenders, our Chicago expungement attorneys represent clients who are seeking to clear their criminal record through expungement. With years of experience, we can thoroughly analyze the facts of your case and help you understand your legal rights and options.

Even if you were arrested and released without charges, or the charges were later dismissed, this information will be codified in a public record. In addition, if you received a sentence to Court Supervision for a misdemeanor or were placed on Probation for certain felonies, your case will remain a public record even after you finish your sentence.

Expungement refers to the court-ordered process through which the legal record of a person’s arrest or criminal conviction is erased in the eyes of the law and the public. The Illinois Criminal Identification Act allows persons in certain situations to clear arrests, charges, probation supervision, or even criminal convictions from their criminal records through expungement or sealing. With expungement, all or part of your record is physically destroyed so that not even law enforcement can discover it at a later time. A sealed record, on the other hand, is not physically destroyed but is made inaccessible to the general public (i.e., an employer), while it is still available for law enforcement to discover.

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Drug and TASC probation is a special kind of probation because the law allows you to avoid a criminal conviction and eventually expunge your arrest record. It is one of the few ways to avoid going to jail and avoiding a permanent criminal conviction.

Under “regular” probation, a felony conviction stays on your record forever unless the Governor issues a pardon – not very common.  Understanding the differences between drug, TASC and regular probation is important because it can mean the difference between having a clean record or being permanently labeled a convicted felon.

A further distinction is also necessary between drug probation and TASC probation.  For drug probation, you have been charged with possessing illegal drugs.  For TASC probation, the charge does not have to be drug-related, but rather, have to elect to be treated as a person with a drug problem.   For example, if you are charged with Residential Burglary, you would not be eligible for drug probation or regular probation, but may be eligible for TASC probation.

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babyIn a recent Illinois appellate case, a mother challenged a conviction for child endangerment. The case arose when a Chicago cop was patrolling at 1:00 a.m. and was flagged down by someone reporting a child was left alone inside a car. There was a six-month-old baby in the baby seat in the back of the car, and he’d been crying. The rear window was open, and the car wasn’t running. The fire department was contacted, and the baby was removed from the car.

The officer ran the plates and found the car was registered to the defendant, who lived about two blocks away. When the officer went to the address where the car was registered, he found the defendant sitting on the curb with a man. The cop smelled alcohol on the mom’s breath. He asked her if she knew where her child was, and the mom responded she’d gone to a party that night and drank alcohol, but she didn’t know why her car was parked on the other street. She’d forgotten her baby was inside.

She was put in custody. At trial, the officer testified that he’d asked her if she had the name of the primary suspect. He knew the car was registered to her, and a baby was in the car, so she was never free to go. The mom’s attorney asked for leave to file a motion to suppress the mother’s statements to the police because she never received Miranda warnings. The police reports included a summary of her statements to the police, given without Miranda warnings.

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laboratoryIn a recent Illinois appellate case, the defendant appealed his conviction for delivery of a controlled substance. On appeal, he argued that the prosecution hadn’t established a proper chain of custody for the drug, even though the parties had stipulated certain things about it, and that the fines, fee order, and mittimus had to be corrected accordingly.

The case arose when the defendant and his codefendant were indicted for delivering more than a gram of heroin under 720 ILCS 570/401(c). The defendant waived a jury trial. At the bench trial, two officers were called as witnesses. The first officer testified he was assigned to the narcotics division of the bureau of organized crime. He was the surveillance officer on the date of the transaction in question, and he sometimes used binoculars to observe what was happening. The second officer was undercover, buying the heroin.

The first officer testified he saw the undercover officer talking to the codefendant and saw the codefendant get into the passenger seat of the undercover vehicle. He followed the undercover vehicle to a residential neighborhood, where it was parked on a corner, and the codefendant got out of the car. The codefendant met the defendant, who was standing on the sidewalk.

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gunIn a recent Illinois appellate decision, the defendant was convicted for being an armed habitual criminal and sentenced to eight years in prison. He appealed, arguing that he wasn’t proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt for the offense of armed habitual criminal, and the armed habitual criminal statute was not unconstitutional because it potentially criminalized totally innocent actions.

The case arose when two officers were patrolling. They heard a car alarm go off and found the car that was the source of the alarm. Nearby in another car, a couple was sitting in a parked car. The smell of marijuana was coming from the car. When he saw the officers come into the parking lot, the defendant left the front seat of the car and stood by it. The officer testified he’d left his own car and come up to the defendant. As he came closer, he saw that the woman driver was smoking what looked like a marijuana cigar. She put it down. A bottle of liquor was on the console.

In the interests of his own safety, the officer handcuffed the defendant. His partner came up to the driver and asked her to get out of the car. She said her identification was in the car, so the officer took the marijuana and liquor out of the car and searched for her ID. He saw her purse on the floor, and from it, a handgun was sticking out in plain view. He recovered the gun, which was a semiautomatic handgun that was loaded.

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522344117-1-300x200In a recent Illinois appellate case, the court considered a burglary conviction. The defendant was sentenced to an eight-year Class X sentence due to his criminal record. On appeal, he argued that he wasn’t proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt because the prosecution hadn’t established that he was not allowed to be in the building or that he planned to steal.

The case arose when a university employee who worked in the telephone operating department came to work early one morning. She worked in a building that had telecommunications equipment and was only accessible by using a key or key card. She used her key card to go inside the building, and only two other employees were there. Almost two hours after arriving, she saw on the video security monitor that the defendant was in the basement hallway. She knew he wasn’t an employee. He was checking to see if doorknobs were open and looking at equipment in boxes.

The employee asked a coworker to call the police, and she kept watching the monitor. The defendant disappeared from the monitor and then appeared on the other side of the divider from the employee. The employee told him to leave and asked what he was doing there. He said he was just looking. However, surveillance later showed that he’d been in the garage looking into the windows of different cars.

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Mental-HealthIn 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 Miranda rights, which she waived. Her interrogation was recorded. She told the police she and her 15-month-old daughter were living in the woman’s house in Joliet. The woman lived on the second floor, and her father lived on the first floor. The woman’s boyfriend (the man who was hiding and then discovered) and the man who was hiding elsewhere in the house were with the defendant and the woman at the woman’s house.

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garage-door-1205688-e1489524207300In a recent Illinois appellate case, the defendant was convicted of aggravated vehicular hijacking, armed robbery and attempted first degree murder. The case arose when the victim left work and drove home to Chicago. At midnight he stopped at a stop sign by his home, and saw someone there with a dog. He continued home and parked in his garage. When he heard a noise in the alley, he waited to make sure the garage door would close. However, the man with the dog was standing at the garage door and came in asking for help.

The victim told him to leave and called for his wife. The man stabbed him seven times and demanded his wallet, keys, and money. The victim gave him these things, and stayed on the ground. The man had trouble unlocking the door of the SUV so the victim told him what button to push. The man put the dog in the SUV and told the victim he’d leave the SUV near a hospital and to wait 10 minutes before doing anything.

Once the man left, the victim went inside and asked his wife to call 911. He was a doctor, so he provided his wife and her brother with instructions on how to perform first aid for himself while they waited for the paramedics. The police got a description of the man, but at trial the victim testified he hadn’t given the description the police had reported and that the attacker had a black nylon hair covering that was over his face when he stabbed him.

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drugsIn a recent Illinois appellate case, the defendant was convicted of unlawfully delivering heroin. An accountability theory was used to obtain the conviction, which resulted in a 3.5-year sentence of imprisonment in the Illinois Department of Corrections.

The case arose when a 29-year-old woman died due to a heroin overdose in 2014. The defendant’s roommate sold the heroin to the decedent. The defendant was charged with delivering a controlled substance on an accountability theory once it was discovered that the defendant had arranged the sale. The defendant pled not guilty and asked for a speedy trial. The prosecution subsequently charged the defendant with criminal drug conspiracy under 720 ILCS 570/405.1. The defendant said on the record that he would waive his right to trial by jury and also signed a waiver. The prosecution had agreed to dismiss the second count so that the trial occurred only on the first count.

The defendant admitted that his roommate sold the heroin to the decedent. All that was at issue was whether he was accountable for the delivery. Evidence submitted by the prosecutor included screen shots of Facebook conversations and text messages between the different parties, as well as a police interview. Among the Facebook conversations was one between the defendant and the decedent in which the decedent asked whether she could get pills. The defendant responded that he couldn’t get anything, based on two people who had responded to the request.

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