Medical cannabis is now legally available in Illinois, but patients should still take extra care in interactions with law enforcement. It is especially important for patients to remember that neither prescribing physicians, nor registered dispensaries nor the Illinois...
It is difficult enough to be arrested and charged with a crime, but the stress is even worse if you do not understand what the charges are. There are times when police and attorneys use legal terms that make no sense to someone who has been detained or that sound like...
The FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting Program provides an easy framework for discussing different types of crime. The UCR program assigns each type of crime to one of three categories: crimes against property, crimes against the person and crimes against society. For...
Halloween is on a Saturday this year, and that generally means that both children and adults will be out in force. Trick-or-treating may last longer or start a little later, because it's not a school night. The same may be true for grown-up Halloween celebrations....
In the past 10 years, the U.S. Supreme Court has tackled juvenile offender sentencing questions a few times. Each decision has been a step away from imposing the harshest sentences available on minors who have been convicted of the most serious crimes. This week, the...
Imagine you live in Detroit but you have taken a few days off to visit Chicago. One afternoon your house sitter texts you that two Detroit police officers had been looking for you. They had a warrant for your arrest: You are sure this has something to do with a large...
When a person is accused of committing a robbery here in Illinois, one thing that can matter considerably in their case is whether or not they are accused of having had a gun or other dangerous weapon on them during the alleged robbery. This is because being accused...
After years of deliberation, negotiation and stagnation, a bipartisan group of U.S. Senators has crafted a bill that favors rehabilitation over incarceration for nonviolent drug offenders. Always conscious of costs, the authors, including Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin,...
We have been discussing the Illinois approach to overturning wrongful convictions. It's important to remember that a conviction is only wrongful if the man or woman did not commit the crime. In Illinois, though, being pardoned is not the same thing as establishing...
We are returning to wrongful convictions and certificates of innocence, picking up where we left off in our Aug. 26 post. It is important to remember that convictions are overturned or set aside for a number of reasons. There may have been procedural errors during the...
