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 ...

In 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 ge...

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...

In 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 dec...

The 4th amendment of the U. S. Consitution protects us from unreasonable searches and arrests. Searches and arrests without a warrant or probable cause are unconstitutional.  Evidence obtained by the police by an illegal search or arrest is not admissible in Court. Since no two people are alike and our perceptions of the world differ from person to person, the meaning of what constitutes a reasonable search or arrest varies from judge to judge. In a recent Illinois appellate case, the defendant appealed his criminal conviction. The jury convicted the defendant of possessing a controlled substance and possessing drug paraphernalia. The case arose in the middle of the night in July 2013 when the defendant was walking down the street. An officer was sent to respond to a possible burglary and saw him. He got out of his car and asked whether the defendant had seen anybody running. The defendant said he’d seen nothing and claimed he’d left a friend’s house. The officer knew the frien...

In a recent Illinois appellate decision, the defendant appealed after being convicted of aggravated participation in methamphetamine manufacturing. He was charged with seven counts related to methamphetamine manufacturing. At trial, the judge asked the jurors not to conduct independent research on the case. A prosecutor told the jury she anticipated testimony from a police officer that the offenses happened within 1,000 feet from a church. The prosecution put forward a police officer as a witness. He testified he was trying to serve a warrant on someone else in a nearby apartment building when he smelled a chemical odor that he thought might be connected to methamphetamine manufacturing. The church was nearby. The officer testified about how the defendant became a suspect and what they found when searching the premises. The house where the materials for manufacturing meth were found was right behind the church. A sheriff testified about how close the courthouse was to the area where...

A recent Illinois appeal involved a Domestic Battery. The defendant was acquitted of Aggravated Domestic Battery and unlawfully interfering with a report of Domestic Violence, but he was convicted of Domestic Battery under 720 ILCS 5/12-3.2(a)(1). The trial court denied his post-trial motion, and he was sentenced to 30 months in prison. He appealed on the grounds that the court had made a mistake in permitting the prosecution to impeach him with his felony Cannabis conviction. The case arose from allegations that the defendant knowingly caused harm to a woman by choking her after previously being convicted of a Domestic Battery. In addition to applying pressure to her throat, it was alleged that he stopped her normal breathing or blood circulation, and he knowingly stopped her from calling the police by taking her phone. Before trial, the defendant tried to stop the State from impeaching him by showing he had a prior Domestic Battery conviction and a felony Marijuana conviction. At ...

In a recent Illinois appellate case, the defendant was convicted of unlawful delivery of a controlled substance under 720 ILCS 570/401(a)(1)(D). He appealed on the grounds that the prosecution hadn’t proven beyond a reasonable doubt that he knowingly participated in the drug transaction. The detective testified that he’d investigated narcotics and money laundering cases in the past. Most of his cases involved surveillance. Often traffickers conduct heat runs to determine if police are watching. A heat run is an effort to take an out-of-the-way route to go to the transaction destination, such as making multiple turns or U-turns and going down back alleys. On the day in question, the detective found that a prior investigation target was stopped with more than $100,000 on him. The detective went to the address where the car was registered. There they saw a car registered to the defendant at a Texas address. They saw a woman and boy leave the house and drive away to breakfast at a resta...

On July 27 we reported that the DEA was considering reclassifying marijuana from a Class 1 Drug to something less.  Advocates for the legalization of marijuana were looking at this possibility as an important step to the possible legalization of marijuana.  On Wednesday the DEA made it’s decision public, and the decision did not make marijuana legalization advocates happy.  The DEA decided to keep marijuana in Class 1, which is the most serious classification of illegal drugs.  But what is especially troubling was the reason given by the DEA for denying the application to remove marijuana from the Class 1 category.  The DEA found that there is no accepted medical benefit for the use of marijuana and that it is highly vulnerable to abuse.  The DEA found that marijuana is not a safe and effective medicine.  This decision flies in the face of 42 states, and the District of Columbia, which allow for some form of medical marijuana use. Today, sources are reporting that as early as today,...

On Friday, Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner signed a bill into law which requires law enforcement officials to obtain a warrant before deploying a stingray device to intercept a person’s cell phone communications to determine their location. A stingray device is basically a cell phone simulator which intercepts the transmission from cell phones without anyone’s knowledge or consent.  In some cases the stingray can intercept actual phone calls and text messages.  The stingray tower will fool the cell phone into thinking it is communicating with the cell phone carrier’s cell phone tower when it is actually communicating with a tower that is being run and monitored by law enforcement agents.  The stingray tower doesn’t just target one device.  It will intercept the cell phone transmission of all the cell phones in a particular location.  Unknown to anyone, law enforcement officials are listening to the conversations and intercepting text messages and other data c...