Is Illinois Ready for Criminal Sentencing Reform?

On July 15, 2021, Illinois enacted the Resentencing Task Force Act with the following mandate:

“[To] study innovative ways to reduce the prison population in Illinois” that will “advance the interest of justice and promote public safety.”

P.A. 102-0099.

I was unaware of the Illinois Sentencing Policy Advisory Council -- the official name of the task force -- until a couple of days ago. I have to thank my client for that. I cautioned him not to get his hopes up. The last task force convened in Illinois – to review the state’s sex registration rules -- did not result to any changes to the law. 

Last Chance to Share Your Thoughts on Sentence Reform

Illinois Sentencing Policy Advisory Council will hold its last on-line public hearing on September 29, 2022. Anyone interested may watch the hearing, submit written comments (due by September 26, at 5:00 pm CST) or sign up to speak for three minutes at the hearing.

My Thoughts on Sentence Reform   

For the past 10+ years I’ve worked tirelessly to help criminal justice-involved individuals overcome the stigma of having a criminal record. As much as I work to champion my clients’ rehabilitative journeys, as well as their personal and professional accomplishments, I don’t always succeed in obtaining a pardon or a sentence commutation for them, or get their conviction(s) sealed.

Unlike most advocates who do this work, I am neither a criminal defense attorney nor a former prosecutor. Before I found my “calling” I specialized in employment law. My unconventional background, along with my life experiences, gives me a unique perspective from which I draw on in advocating for my clients.  

I’d been filing clemency (pardon) petitions for a decade when, in 2020, I finally took on my first sentence commutation client in the early months of COVID. At that time, many inmates were looking for a “get-out-of-jail” card, fearful they would contract COVID and die in prison.

After much consideration, I agreed to represent Nate C. who, in 2001, was sentenced to 45 years for his participation in a 2000 felony-murder case. Had the crime taken place a few years earlier, Nate would have only been required to serve 50% of his sentence. But due to the enactment of the “Truth in Sentencing” law in 1998, Nate is not eligible for release until 2046. By then, he will be 72 years old.

Although COVID kept me from meeting Nate in person until after his petition for clemency was denied, his willingness to answer my written questions honestly and thoughtfully, gave me a chance to get to know him. Along the way, I also met his mom, his stepdad (who died several months later), his older brother, and the childhood friend who’d paid me to represent Nate.

I believed then (as I do now) that Nate is worthy of a sentence commutation. On the eve of his trial, the Winnebago State’s Attorney offered Nate an eight-year plea deal in exchange for pleading guilty to armed robbery. Nate would have served 85% of the sentence. It was clear that the State knew Nate was not the shooter.

Nate was one of three men charged with the victim’s death. The co-defendant responsible for the shooting was the only one to plead guilty -- presumably to avoid the death penalty. Nate and his other co-defendant went to trial. They both received longer prison sentences than the shooter – the penalty for going to trial.

Even though the State knew who shot the victim, as soon as Nate rejected the plea offer the State shamelessly placed the gun squarely in Nate’s hands when the case went to trial.

The most heartbreaking aspect to why Nate rejected the State’s plea offer is the reason why he turn it down.

Nate became a dad at 14. Nate’s parents raised his son until Nate was able to take care of his first born. By then, Nate’s son was 10 years old.

By the time Nate’s criminal case went to trial, he had fathered two more sons, who were toddlers. With a family to support, Nate couldn’t imagine spending a day in prison. How would he support his family if he got locked up? He sought his mom’s counsel. She “prayed” on it and told Nate to reject the plea offer.     

Today, Nate is 48 years old and has a bum knee. The doctor who examined him last year told Nate that he had the knee of an 80-year-old man. Even though Nate is in constant pain and his knee routinely gives out on him without warning, the Illinois Department of Corrections has yet to agree to let him undergo knee replacement surgery.

In my petition for clemency, I told the governor that if released, Nate had a place to live (his mom’s lovely three-bedroom house) and a job waiting for him (his older brother owns a company).

All this fell on deaf ears because the previous Winnebago State’s Attorney opposed the petition. It mattered little that her office had offered Nate an eight-year plea. As far as she was concerned, once Nate rejected the plea, it was as if no plea had ever been offered to him. The only thing that mattered was that Nate had been sentenced to 45 years and needed to do the time -- all of it.

The travesty of our legal system is that the United States is the only civilized nation that does not consider a 20-year prison sentence to be a “life” sentence.

In Illinois, I’ve seen defendants sentenced to 60 years, 80 years, and to life without parole. For what purpose? Do we really believe that in old age these individuals remain a genuine threat to the communities from which they came?

While I do not take the loss of a life lightly, I am also mindful that sending someone to prison for years and years will never bring a victim back to life. When my younger sister drowned due to the negligence of another, my parents never considered suing the institution that was responsible for keeping her safe. What would have been the point, I remember my father saying. A lawsuit wasn’t going to bring my sister back.

Good people make bad mistakes, especially teens and young adults who’ve had too much to drink or are under the influence of some other intoxicant.

If we believe human beings are capable of change, of redemption – as I do -- a 20-year prison sentence should be more than enough punishment in most cases.

What is the benefit of keeping people like Nate caged as they grow old and infirm? Nate can and wants to make a positive contribution to his community. There are many others like him languishing in prison.

The money that’s currently spent in Illinois to house these individuals could be better spent elsewhere – for education, more medical and mental health resources, more housing options, to name a few.

More than a year after Nate’s clemency petition was denied, I can’t shake the feeling that I failed Nate. Earlier this year, in a last-ditch effort to help Nate, I contacted the current Winnebago State’s Attorney to see if he would be willing to take a neutral position if I reapplied for clemency. Like his predecessor, he said he would object as well.    

I will never understand how keeping Nate in prison for another 20+ years is going to make the state, the county, or his community a safer place.

Nate is not a threat to anyone, and hasn’t been for some time. I only wish that those who have the power to change Illinois’s current criminal sentencing guidelines can see Nate for the person he is today – and not the rudderless young man he was in 2000. 

While I would like to believe members of the Illinois General Assembly are prepared to reimagine what just punishment looks like, it is much harder to predict if the public at large will support sentence reform when the task force finally gets around to releasing its recommendations. Timing, as you know, is everything.