A SKOKIE CRIMINAL LAWYER EXPLAINS THE LAW 1-847-568-0160

Although courts are doing more in person, many court appearances still take place on zoom in the Skokie, Rolling Meadows, Daley Center and other courthouses. This can seem intimidating, but it’s really not that scary.

When you are arrested for a criminal, DUI or traffic offense, the officer will give you information on when and where to go for your first court appearance. Unfortunately, this does not usually include the zoom meeting and pass codes you will need to log into the courtroom. You will have to search the court’s website in the county where your case is located to find that information. If you hire an attorney, the attorney can provide this information to you.

In order to attend court, you will likely have to download the zoom app. Once you have done so, you can enter the virtual court at your scheduled time. Defendants logging into the courtroom will receive a message that the “meeting host will let you in soon.” This is normal and no cause for concern (unless you have the wrong meeting code information). Once the judge is ready, he or she will admit you. Be sure to turn on the video but mute your sound until the judge calls your name.

If you have an attorney, the attorney will answer on your behalf. At that point, the judge will look for you on the call. On your first court date, the attorney will enter his or her appearance and ask for copies of the evidence against you.

Although you are not appearing in person, you should dress and act as though you were physically in court. You should treat zoom court as though it were a business meeting for a job you really hope to get.

If you have been charged with a criminal, DUI or similar offense, contact an experienced attorney immediately. An attorney can review your case for your best possible defense as well as helping you navigate your way through the court system.

If you have questions about this or another related Illinois criminal or traffic matter, please contact Matt Keenan at 847-568-0160 or email matt@mattkeenanlaw.com.

(Besides Skokie, Matt Keenan also serves the communities of Arlington Heights, Chicago, Deerfield, Des Plaines, Evanston, Glenview, Morton Grove, Mount Prospect, Niles, Northbrook, Park Ridge, Rolling Meadows, Wilmette and Winnetka.)

The officer stopped you for DUI near your home. You tried to reason with him to let you go. When he didn’t, you drunkenly tried to hit him. You missed. But now you are charged with aggravated assault on top of your DUI.

Can they do that? What can you do?

In Illinois, you commit assault when, without lawful authority, you knowingly engage in conduct which places another in reasonable apprehension of receiving a battery. Normally, this is a relatively minor offense—a Class C misdemeanor punishable by up to 30 days in jail. See 720 ILCS 5/12-1. However, when you swiped at that officer, your offense became a Class 4 felony based on assaulting a peace officer or other emergency personnel, either while performing their official duties or because you wanted to stop them or retaliate against them for performing those duties. 720 ILCS 5/12-2(b)(4.1).

As with most crimes, the state must prove you guilty of all elements of the offense beyond a reasonable doubt. Did you act knowingly? Note that drunkenness is not a defense here. But what if you swung your arms without realizing the officer was behind you? Was the officer’s fear of battery reasonable? Was the officer performing official duties? What if the officer was not on duty and just came over to watch your arrest? An experienced attorney can raise doubts about the state’s case. If, however, the evidence is overwhelming against you, an attorney who is respected in the court house may be able to negotiate a more favorable plea agreement than you could on your own.

If you have questions about this or another related Illinois criminal or traffic matter, please contact Matt Keenan at 847-568-0160 or email matt@mattkeenanlaw.com.

(Besides Skokie, Matt Keenan also serves the communities of Arlington Heights, Chicago, Deerfield, Des Plaines, Evanston, Glenview, Morton Grove, Mount Prospect, Niles, Northbrook, Park Ridge, Rolling Meadows, Wilmette and Winnetka.)

Your cousin asked you to drive him to a convenience store. He ran in to pick up some lottery tickets, then came running out, jumped in your car and told you to take off. Later, you learned he’d committed an armed robbery inside the store. Can you be arrested when you had no idea what your cousin had been planning? The answer depends on whether the judge or jury believes in your lack of intent.

When two or more persons engage in a common criminal design, any acts to further that design committed by one party are considered to be the acts of all parties. All are thus equally responsible for the consequences. You would be accountable for your cousin’s crime if, either before or during the crime, you solicit, aid, abet, agree, or attempt to aid him in planning or committing the offense, and you had the intent to promote or facilitate that offense. See 720 ILCS 5/5-2(c). The State may prove your intent by showing either (1) that you shared the criminal intent of the principal, or (2) that there was a common criminal design. You are not guilty for the other’s offense unless you intended to aid in committing a crime. Participation must take place before or during the offense; after the fact is not sufficient.

Mere being at the scene of a crime does not make you accountable but your presence may be considered along with other circumstances by judge or jury.

Even if you were in on the plan, you are not accountable if (1) you are a victim of the offense committed; (2) the offense is so defined that whatever you did was inevitably incident to its commission; or (3) before the commission of the offense, you terminated your participation and either: (i) made your past efforts wholly ineffective, (ii) warned police, or (iii) otherwise made proper effort to prevent the offense.

In People v. Johnson, the defendant owned a taxi business. One evening, a man named Mason asked defendant for a ride, paying him $10. At a certain point, Mason told defendant to stop the car and started shooting an automatic weapon. Defendant then sped away in fear for his life. The trial judge convicted the defendant. However, the appellate court instead found the evidence too weak to uphold his conviction. Defendant was not a gang member, and there was no evidence that he knew of Mason’s intentions or that Mason even had a gun. Therefore, the state failed to prove all the elements of the offense beyond a reasonable doubt.

If you have been charged with a criminal offense, contact an experienced criminal law attorney immediately. As the case above illustrates, different judges see the same set of facts very differently. An attorney who is familiar with your particular judge may better present the facts of your particular case in their most favorable light.

If you have questions about this or another related Illinois criminal or traffic matter, please contact Matt Keenan at 847-568-0160 or email matt@mattkeenanlaw.com.

(Besides Skokie, Matt Keenan also serves the communities of Arlington Heights, Chicago, Deerfield, Des Plaines, Evanston, Glenview, Morton Grove, Mount Prospect, Niles, Northbrook, Park Ridge, Rolling Meadows, Wilmette and Winnetka.)

The answer is yes, if you knew the deceased had been murdered and you did something to conceal the death beyond simply withholding information.

Under 720 ILCS 5/9-3.4, you commit concealment of homicidal death when you knowingly conceal a death and you knew that the person died by homicidal means. To conceal the death, you must perform an act for the purpose of preventing or delaying discovery of the murder. Death by “homicidal means” includes any legal or illegal act that causes the death. If the evidence warrants, the state may also be able to charge you with the murder.

To convict you, the state must prove: (1) knowledge that a homicidal death has occurred and (2) an affirmative act concealing the death. These elements can at times to lead to a rather strange outcome. For example, in People v. Salinas, the defendant was convicted of concealing a homicidal death when he set fire to a car containing two gunshot victims. Later, the coroner determined that one victim was still alive at the time of the fire. Therefore, defendant’s conviction for concealing a homicidal death on that count had to be reversed.

Concealment of homicidal death is a Class 3 felony, punishable by 3 to 7 years in prison.

If you have been charged with a crime, contact an experienced criminal law attorney immediately. An attorney can review your case for your best possible defense. Did police follow legal procedures in obtaining any statements you may have made? Can the state prove you guilty of all elements of the offense beyond a reasonable doubt? Even if police acted lawfully and the evidence against you is overwhelming, an attorney who is respected in the court house may be able to negotiate a more favorable plea agreement than you could on your own.

If you have questions about this or another related Illinois criminal or traffic matter, please contact Matt Keenan at 847-568-0160 or email matt@mattkeenanlaw.com.

(Besides Skokie, Matt Keenan also serves the communities of Arlington Heights, Chicago, Deerfield, Des Plaines, Evanston, Glenview, Morton Grove, Mount Prospect, Niles, Northbrook, Park Ridge, Rolling Meadows, Wilmette and Winnetka.)

The answer is yes, provided the state can show the messages are genuine.

The state may prove you were the source of an email, text or other social media message through circumstantial evidence, including the message’s appearance, contents, and substance. The message’s reliability may be established when a witness testifies as to the message’s distinctive characteristics.

For example in People v. Brand, the State was able to show that certain Facebook Messenger messages from “Masetti Meech,” came from the defendant. The victim testified that while they were dating, defendant messaged her via Facebook messenger multiple times under that username. Further, at least one of the messages contained unique information not widely known to other persons, such as the location of the victim’s car, which defendant had taken.

If you have been charged with a criminal offense, contact an experienced attorney immediately. An attorney can review your case for your best possible defense. Did the police follow proper procedures in collecting evidence against you? Is it clear that any circumstantial evidence points to you? Is there more than one way to interpret any messages that you wrote? Even if the evidence against you is overwhelming, an attorney who is respected in the court house may be able to negotiate a more favorable plea agreement than you could on your own.

If you have questions about this or another related Illinois criminal or traffic matter, please contact Matt Keenan at 847-568-0160 or email matt@mattkeenanlaw.com.

(Besides Skokie, Matt Keenan also serves the communities of Arlington Heights, Chicago, Deerfield, Des Plaines, Evanston, Glenview, Morton Grove, Mount Prospect, Niles, Northbrook, Park Ridge, Rolling Meadows, Wilmette and Winnetka.)

In Illinois, felony murder is a type of first degree murder. You commit felony murder when you, by yourself or with another, commit or try to commit a forcible felony (such as armed robbery but not second degree murder) and in the course of your crime or attempted escape, you or your accomplice cause a death. See 720 ILCS 5/9-1(a)(3).

Felony murder does not require an intent to kill. If there is an intent to kill, you could be charged with another type of murder. Felony murder merely requires a death in the course of committing a forcible felony. As of July 1, 2021, the death must be caused by you or another participant in the crime. In other words, you can no longer be charged with felony murder if a victim kills a third party while shooting in self defense.

To determine whether the underlying felony qualifies as “forcible,” the court examines whether you contemplated that violence might be necessary to carry out your purpose. For example, in People v. Schmidt, the defendant’s drunken theft of a van and excessive speeding in escaping was not a forcible felony even though he killed a pedestrian as a result. The court held that while this behavior could support a conviction for reckless homicide, the defendant had not contemplated that the use of force against an individual might be necessary to accomplish his escape.

On the other hand, in People v Figueroa, the aggravated discharge of a firearm was considered a forcible felony where the defendant shot at a rival gang member but killed an innocent bystander. And in People v. Phillips, aggravated arson was a forcible felony where the defendant set a fire that killed three people even though the defendant set the fire out of frustration and not out of any desire to kill.

If you are charged with felony murder or another criminal offense, contact an experienced criminal lawyer immediately. An attorney can review your case for your best possible defense. Was the underlying crime a forcible felony? Was the use of violence contemplated as part of the underlying offense? The answer can be very fact specific and different judges may view the facts completely differently. An attorney who is familiar with your courthouse may be able to present your situation in its most favorable light.

If you have questions about this or another related Illinois criminal or traffic matter, please contact Matt Keenan at 847-568-0160 or email matt@mattkeenanlaw.com.

(Besides Skokie, Matt Keenan also serves the communities of Arlington Heights, Chicago, Deerfield, Des Plaines, Evanston, Glenview, Morton Grove, Mount Prospect, Niles, Northbrook, Park Ridge, Rolling Meadows, Wilmette and Winnetka.)