Back in 2020, I questioned why the Illinois State Police (“ISP”) was providing flawed appeal guidance to individuals denied a FOID card due to a felony conviction. At that time, Illinois law no longer gave those with a felony conviction a right to go into court and ask a judge to order the ISP to issue them a FOID card. It wasn’t until 2021 that a convicted felon could once again ask a judge for such relief.
Read MoreI was first contacted by Jay (not his real name) in late 2018. He was interested in petitioning for clemency to get his gun rights reinstated. In 2012, Jay applied for a FOID card but his application was denied because of a 1992 non-violent felony conviction. He filed an appeal but never received a response from the Illinois State Police (“ISP”). In 2019, I filed Jay’s clemency petition. This was early in Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s first year in office -- too early to tell how he was going to exercise his clemency authority. Jay’s hearing before the Prisoner Review Board went well. I remained confident that Jay would receive a pardon and get his gun rights reinstated. It turned out I was only half right.
Read MoreUnlike his two predecessors, Gov. J.B. Pritzker has managed to defy being pigeon-holed with respect to his clemency authority use. During his first two years in office (which included the first year of the COVID pandemic), Gov. Pritzker’s clemency pardon grant numbers suggested he would exceed Gov. Pat Quinn’s grant rate of just over 30%.
Read MoreIna Silvergleid aims to use printmaking to improve criminal justice reform.
Silvergleid says she’s been practicing art longer than she’s been practicing the law. But it wasn’t until 2016 that she realized she could combine both passions to spark new conversations.
“Now that I do the work that I do, which is mostly addressing criminal justice issues, sometimes I just want to say something and I am hoping that somebody will see it and maybe think twice about whatever they believe they know about the criminal justice system,” Silvergleid says.
Read MoreRecently, for the first time I had to tell a prospective client that he couldn’t seal his felony conviction – and not because the offense he was convicted of was ineligible to seal. Rather, the individual could not seal his conviction because he’d previously sealed two felony convictions on his record.
Unlike misdemeanor offenses -- where there’s no limit on how often you can petition to seal -- there is a limit on how often you can seal a felony conviction in Illinois.
Read MoreLast year I alerted readers to the fact that the Cook County Circuit Court Clerk’s (Clerk’s) office failed to mail out an unknown number of expunge and sealing orders for processing by the Illinois State Police (ISP) and police. If you had a petition to expunge or seal granted in Cook County in 2020 or 2021 and never received letters from the ISP or police telling you that your court order was processed, the most likely explanation: the Clerk’s office never mailed out your order(s). That means your record(s) were never expunged or sealed.
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