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 Miranda r...

A recent Illinois appellate case involved first-degree murder and aggravated battery with a firearm conviction. The case arose when the defendant fatally shot one victim and tried to kill the other. He was charged with first-degree murder, aggravated battery with firearm, and attempted murder. Before trial, the prosecution filed two motions to admit evidence of other crimes by the defendant. One involved the defendant shooting someone in the back. The other motion said that the defendant had talked about a pending murder case with his cellmate, and the defendant approached the cellmate with a list of witnesses, asking the cellmate to take care of them. The cellmate thought this meant the defendant wanted them killed, and he gave the list to the sheriff. The investigator assigned an officer to pretend to be a hit-man and taped a phone call in which the defendant asked the undercover officer to come to the jail, where he asked the undercover officer to get rid of the witnesses. The pr...

Yesterday the United States Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal from the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals which upheld gun laws in New York and Connecticut which bans military assault style weapons, like the ones used in Sandy Hook in 2012, Santa Barbara a few months ago, and Orlando last week.  The gun laws in question were enacted by New York and Connecticut in 2012 after the school shooting in Sandy Hook Connecticut which took the lives of 20 young children and 6 teachers.  Gun rights advocates filed suit alleging that the prohibitions violated the 2nd Amendment and prior Supreme Court precedent which upheld the right of the public to own firearms for self protection. The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers New York and Connecticut, found in favor of the states and upheld the laws which enacted gun prohibitions.  The gun rights activists appealed to the United States Supreme Court.  Yesterday, the Supreme Court refused to hear the appeal, without comment, which h...