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posted on 7/30/17

The Restorative Justice Community Court, with Judge Colleen Sheehan presiding, is scheduled to hear its first North Lawndale case in August 2017.

Victims, defendants, and all other interested parties will meet together under Judge Sheehan’s supervision to reach solutions to nonviolent crime, such as neighborhood drug dealing, theft, unauthorized use of a motor vehicle, and so on. “This is truly the people’s court,” Judge Sheehan announced. All parties will discuss restitution in a “peace circle” under the cloak of confidentiality, and defendants who successfully complete the agreed-upon program may be eligible for future expunction. Eligible defendants must live in North Lawndale, be between 18 and 26, have no violent criminal past, and admit responsibility for the offense. The RJCC will probably hear about 100 cases during its first year.

The community justice court operates under a two-year, $200,000 grant from the Department of Justice.

Quasi-Judicial Proceedings

While these types of proceedings are quite common in many administrative and civil environments, such as licensure matters, completely non-adversarial criminal courts which handle original proceedings are almost unheard of. That is probably why the community court will only hear about two cases a week, while the regular criminal courts seemingly handle about two cases a minute.

The most obvious concern with nontraditional courts is that defendants may not fully know about, or receive the full benefit of, their rights. For example, an attorney guarantees that the defendant understands both the nature of the charges and the nature of the state’s evidence, and based on these circumstances, the defendant and his/her attorney jointly decide how to approach a defense, whether that be fighting the case in court or agreeing to a plea bargain.

Attorneys may well fill this role, and others like it, in community courts, but it is simply too early to tell.

Sentencing and clemency hearings are non-adversarial to the extent that they involve little or no discovery, but that is because the facts have already been decided, and the only issue is the legal ramifications of the defendant’s act or omission.

Expungement

In Illinois, certain criminal case histories may be removed from a person’s record via expungement (the underlying records are completely destroyed) or sealing (the records remain, but they are hidden from public view).

Final convictions cannot be expunged, but they can be sealed in some cases. Generally, anything below a Class 3 felony is eligible for sealing, except DUI. Any criminal record can be expunged if the defendant meets eligibility requirements and the case was dismissed or otherwise disposed of (such as a not-guilty verdict) which indicates that the defendant was innocent.

Procedure varies by county, but in Cook County, most applicants do not need to appear in court unless the prosecutor objects to their petitions.

Contact Tenacious Attorneys

An experienced attorney is an essential partner before, during, and after a criminal proceeding. For a confidential consultation with an experienced criminal law attorney in Schaumburg, contact Glasgow & Olsson.

(image courtesy of Ferdinand Stöhr)