2aguy
Diamond Member
- Jul 19, 2014
- 111,968
- 52,237
- 2,290
This is out today.........Chicago has a new law that allows them to lock up violent gun criminals for longer sentences.....and for the 1st four months, not one violent gun criminal has been sentenced using the new law....
Number of longer sentences in Cook County under new get-tough gun law? Zero
The aim of the law was simple: Repeat gun offenders in Illinois would face tougher sentences.
But a Chicago Sun-Times review of sentences in Cook County since that new law took effect in January has found that no one is actually being hit with those stiffer sentences.
There hasn’t been a single case in Cook County in which a judge has meted out those extended sentences that Mayor Rahm Emanuel and police Supt. Eddie Johnson pushed for and that they and sponsor Sen. Kwame Raoul, D-Chicago, said would happen under the law.
That’s according to a Sun-Times examination of the first four months under the repeat gun-offender measure that Gov. Bruce Rauner signed into law last summer.
Thanks to the way the law was written, no one sentenced in that period even qualified for one of the tougher prison terms.
The law was proposed after the shooting death in 2013 of 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton, the Chicago honors student gunned down at a park on the South Side a week after performing as a majorette with her King College Prep classmates at President Barack Obama’s second inauguration. The measure didn’t go anywhere then because of concerns it was too harsh and would fill prisons with young, black men.
A compromise finally was enacted after the number of killings in Chicago shot up by about 50 percent in 2016 over the year before, hitting a nearly two-decade high.
-------
That change would target the repeat offenders Johnson said are the most likely to use a gun in a crime by boosting the minimum sentences for adults repeatedly convicted of illegal gun possession.
------------
Under the new law, the minimum sentence for aggravated unlawful use of a weapon — the legal name for illegal gun possession in Illinois — went up to six years from three. And the minimum sentence for being a felon in possession of a weapon rose to seven years from three.
Only those with a prior conviction for a violent crime, such as carjacking, or with a previous gun-possession conviction qualify to be sentenced under the new law.
Between Jan. 1 and May 1, 39 people in Cook County were sentenced in cases fitting those criteria. Every one of those defendants, whose average age was 22, pleaded guilty.
Fourteen men were sent to prison. Their sentences ranged from a low of one year in prison to a high of three years — all sharply below the minimums set out under the new law.
---------
Number of longer sentences in Cook County under new get-tough gun law? Zero
The aim of the law was simple: Repeat gun offenders in Illinois would face tougher sentences.
But a Chicago Sun-Times review of sentences in Cook County since that new law took effect in January has found that no one is actually being hit with those stiffer sentences.
There hasn’t been a single case in Cook County in which a judge has meted out those extended sentences that Mayor Rahm Emanuel and police Supt. Eddie Johnson pushed for and that they and sponsor Sen. Kwame Raoul, D-Chicago, said would happen under the law.
That’s according to a Sun-Times examination of the first four months under the repeat gun-offender measure that Gov. Bruce Rauner signed into law last summer.
Thanks to the way the law was written, no one sentenced in that period even qualified for one of the tougher prison terms.
The law was proposed after the shooting death in 2013 of 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton, the Chicago honors student gunned down at a park on the South Side a week after performing as a majorette with her King College Prep classmates at President Barack Obama’s second inauguration. The measure didn’t go anywhere then because of concerns it was too harsh and would fill prisons with young, black men.
A compromise finally was enacted after the number of killings in Chicago shot up by about 50 percent in 2016 over the year before, hitting a nearly two-decade high.
-------
That change would target the repeat offenders Johnson said are the most likely to use a gun in a crime by boosting the minimum sentences for adults repeatedly convicted of illegal gun possession.
------------
Under the new law, the minimum sentence for aggravated unlawful use of a weapon — the legal name for illegal gun possession in Illinois — went up to six years from three. And the minimum sentence for being a felon in possession of a weapon rose to seven years from three.
Only those with a prior conviction for a violent crime, such as carjacking, or with a previous gun-possession conviction qualify to be sentenced under the new law.
Between Jan. 1 and May 1, 39 people in Cook County were sentenced in cases fitting those criteria. Every one of those defendants, whose average age was 22, pleaded guilty.
Fourteen men were sent to prison. Their sentences ranged from a low of one year in prison to a high of three years — all sharply below the minimums set out under the new law.
---------
