Chicago criminal lawyer

May 7, 2015

Defendant Found Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity, Sentenced to Mental Institution

by Law Offices of David L. Freidberg, P.C.

A DuPage County man who was charged with the attempted murder of his mother was declared not guilty by reason of insanity and sentenced to up to 30 years in a mental institution. A DuPage County judge found the defendant mentally unfit to stand trial for the 2011 stabbing and entered the ruling. But what level of competency is required to stand trial, and what does it mean to be found not guilty by reason of insanity?

Illinois Standard for Mental Fitness to Stand Trial

Under Illinois law each criminal defendant is presumed fit to stand trial. The criminal defense attorney has the burden of proving that, due either to mental or physical condition, the defendant is mentally unfit to stand trial because he does not “understand the nature and purpose of the proceedings” and is unable to assist in his defense.

Being mentally fit for trial does not mean that defendant will automatically be found not guilty by reason of insanity. Mental fitness to stand trial has to do with the defendant’s ability, at the moment of trial, to understand the purpose of the trial and assist in his defense. It has nothing to do with whether the defendant understands the nature of his alleged crime at the time of commission.

Mental fitness to stand trial can change over time. A defendant can be competent at the time of arrest but found incompetent – perhaps due to a subsequent injury unrelated to the charged crime – at the time of trial. Or a defendant can be mentally unfit when the crime was committed, such as if he suffers from a mental illness, but may be declared fit for trial once he is on a course of medication to keep his mental illness under control. It is not uncommon for prosecutors to seek a continuance of trial when a defendant is deemed mentally unfit to see if there is a possibility that he will regain the required competency to stand trial

Illinois “Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity” Verdict

In order for a defendant to be found not guilty by reason of insanity in Illinois, it must be proven that, at the time the crime was committed, the defendant lacked “substantial capacity to appreciate the criminality of his conduct” as a result of a mental disease or defect. In these cases, the defendant was unable to recognize that his actions were wrong.

Like proving the defendant is mentally unfit to stand trial, the burden is on the defense to prove, by clear and convincing evidence, that the defendant lacked substantial capacity to recognize that his actions were wrong, and should therefore be found not guilty by reason of insanity. The prosecution still bears the burden of proving the defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. If the jury finds the defendant committed the crime, it may then decide whether to find him insane. The issue of the defendant’s sanity cannot be considered unless the jury finds that he committed the crime.

As evidenced in the above case, being found not guilty by reason of insanity does not mean that the defendant walks free. Criminal defendants who have been found insane can be committed to mental institutions, sometimes for a pre-determined sentence, and in other cases until the defendant can be cured of the mental defect.

April 10, 2015

ACLU Report Finds Chicago Leads Nation in Stop and Frisks

by Law Offices of David L. Freidberg, P.C.

A startling new report released by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) found that Chicago police conduct more stop and frisks than any other police department in the nation. In 2014, the Chicago police conducted more than 250,000 stop and frisks that did not result in arrest, making the possibility very real that a vast number of them were unreasonable searches and seizures.

Stop and Frisk in Chicago

The ACLU report indicates that 93 out of every 1,000 Chicagoans were stopped by a Chicago police officer in 2014. More alarming than their frequent use are the targets – 72% of all stops were of African-Americans, even though African-Americans comprise only 32% of the city’s population. They are more likely to be stopped in predominantly white neighborhoods as well. In the Near North District, which has only a 9.1% African-American population, they made up 57% of all stops.

I have discussed stop and frisks frequently on this blog, as they are one of the prime areas of police abuse and at the root of most unreasonable search and seizures. Under the 1968 U.S. Supreme Court Case Terry v. Ohio, the court ruled that law enforcement may stop any person on the street, provided the officer has a reasonable suspicion that the person has either committed, is in the process of committing, or is about to commit, a crime. Once the stop is complete, the officer may frisk the person only if he believes the person is dangerous or has a weapon.

While the courts over the years have carved out narrow exceptions regarding what constitutes “reasonable suspicion” – for example, loitering on a street corner does not generally rise to the level of suspicion necessary to justify a frisk, but officers can take into consideration the area when determining whether a person may be engaged in criminal activity – the rules are clear. While a person can be stopped for any reason, he cannot be frisked because he’s black walking through a white area. He cannot be frisked because he “looks” dangerous. He cannot be frisked because a crime was just committed in the immediate area, unless the person stopped matches the description of the suspect.

“Contact cards” filled out by police following such stops show that police are abusing their right to stop individuals. Chicago police officers complete contact cards for every stop that did not result in an arrest or charge, noting information about the person and the reason stopped. Information pulled from the cards shows that police are stopping individuals for dubious, if not completely unwarranted, purposes. And the fact that the cards are not completed if the stop did not lead to arrest or charges makes it impossible to accurately determine how many stops are of innocent Chicagoans.

The completed contact cards that were reviewed during the ACLU’s study show that many Chicago police officers have a poor understanding of what they are legally allowed to do during stop and frisk. This reinforces the fact that if you are stopped and subsequently arrested by police, even if they find illegal contraband during a frisk, you should not answer any question or make any statement until you have a lawyer by your side. Law enforcement is required to follow specific procedures in regard to search and seizures, and failure to adhere to those procedures can result in evidence against you being inadmissible at trial. But confess to committing a crime, even when the results of the frisk are later deemed inadmissible, and you will severely hinder the defense attorney’s ability to get the charges against you dismissed or win an acquittal at trial.

April 8, 2015

Cook County Home Invasion

by Law Offices of David L. Freidberg, P.C.

An Indian Head Park man was arrested and charged with home invasion after allegedly gaining access to the victim’s home by impersonating a police officer and assaulting the man.

Home Invasion: Separate Offense from Residential Burglary

While home invasion and residential burglary have similar elements – both involve unlawfully gaining entry into the home of another – they are two distinct crimes. Home invasion has the added element of unlawful entry of another person’s home knowing that at least one person is present in the home at the time of the invasion, or gaining entry by falsely representing himself to be someone else, with the intent to cause injury to the resident.

Like burglary, home invasion is a specific intent crime. The intent required for the crime applies to several different elements. In order to gain a conviction, the prosecution must prove that the defendant knowingly:

Entered another person’s home;
Entered the home knowing that one or more people were present, and;
Intended to cause harm.

In defending against a specific intent crime such as home invasion, the defense strategy is to raise as much doubt as possible regarding whether the defendant had the necessary intent for each element of the crime. The defense would therefore examine all of the circumstances surrounding the case to find any evidence that would tend to disprove intent. Such evidence may include:

Whether the home subject to the invasion was in the vicinity of the defendant’s home. If so, we would want to examine whether the defendant was intoxicated or under the influence of drugs, so that perhaps he mistakenly believed he was entering his own home, which is not a far stretch given some of today’s cookie cutter houses. If the defendant believed, even mistakenly due to his drunken state, that he entered his own home, his assault of the homeowner could not be considered intentional, since he would have believed he was protecting himself from a burglar.

Whether the defendant and the alleged victim knew each other and had any prior altercations. Is there any evidence to suggest that the two had had a verbal or physical altercation earlier that evening, and the fight continued in the victim’s home?

Whether the alleged victim assaulted the defendant first, prompting the defendant to retaliate in self-defense. The victim alleged that the defendant claimed he was a police officer to gain entry into the home. An examination of the victim’s history may show that he had outstanding warrants for his arrest, or past run-ins with law enforcement, so that his first reaction was to assault the “officer.”

Whether the defendant actually entered the home. If the assault is true, it cannot be a home invasion if the defendant did not knowingly enter the home. The defense would need to examine whether the initial assault took place on the front step of the victim’s home, and the defendant was pulled inside the home during the ensuing altercation. This would result in the charges being reduced, most likely to battery.