Illinois Supreme Court
QUINCY — The Illinois Supreme Court has suspended the law license of Robert Adrian for two years and until further order of the court. The announcement was made Thursday by the Supreme Court, which suspended seven other people as part of a monthly listing of attorney disciplinary orders. Adrian, who was licensed to practice law…
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QUINCY — The Illinois Supreme Court ruled on Jan. 29 to deny a petition by Tim Bliefnick, a Quincy man convicted of murdering his estranged wife in February 2023, for leave to appeal the Nov. 8 judgment of the Appellate Court, Fourth Judicial District. Bliefnick’s appeal was one of 153 cases that were on the…
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QUINCY — Attorneys representing Tim Bliefnick, a Quincy man convicted of murdering his estranged wife in Feb. 2023, have petitioned the Illinois Supreme Court for leave to appeal the Nov. 8 judgment of the Appellate Court, Fourth Judicial District. A three-judge panel from the Illinois Appellate Court Fourth District — Raylene Grischow from Sangamon County,…
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SPRINGFIELD – The Illinois Supreme Court last week vacated a lower court ruling and reinstated a statute that authorizes the state to revoke a person’s Firearm Owners Identification card once they’ve been charged with a felony, even if they haven’t yet been convicted. The case involved Aaron and Charles Davis, a father and son who were charged…
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SPRINGFIELD – A law banning political parties from waiting until after the primary election to place a state legislative candidate on the general election ballot won’t keep any Republicans from running this November. The Illinois Supreme Court and State Board of Elections each made rulings Friday ensuring that a law rushed through by Democrats in…
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SPRINGFIELD – Lawmakers passed more than 200 bills this week ahead of their scheduled May 24 adjournment. Many of the measures will soon head to Gov. JB Pritzker, including a bill that changes how damages accrue under Illinois’ first-in-the-nation biometric data privacy law. The Illinois House on Thursday approved Senate Bill 2979 with several Republicans joining supermajority…
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SPRINGFIELD – While Cortez Turner was in a hospital room being treated for a gunshot wound to his leg in 2016, police took his clothes. Now, the Illinois Supreme Court is weighing whether that action violated Turner’s expectation of privacy under the Fourth Amendment. The arguments in the case were among several heard by the…
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QUINCY — Illinois Supreme Court Justice Lisa Holder White has started the application process for an at-large circuit judge vacancy in the Eighth Judicial Circuit that resulted from the removal of Judge Robert Adrian on Feb. 23. Under the Illinois Constitution, judicial vacancies are filled by Supreme Court appointment. The application process will lead to…
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SPRINGFIELD – A Cook County judge on Wednesday ordered former President Donald Trump’s name to be removed from the March 19 Republican primary ballot but stayed her order until Friday to give time for an appeal to the Illinois Supreme Court. In a lengthy decision, Judge Tracie Porter said the Illinois State Board of Elections…
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Nearly a year ago, the Illinois Supreme Court asked the General Assembly to clarify a 15-year-old law that’s led to hundreds of lawsuits and several high-dollar settlements with companies alleged to have illegally collected Illinoisans’ biometric data. Now, Democratic leaders in the legislature appear ready to revive talks to reform the state’s Biometric Information Privacy…
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Staffing agencies – a fast-growing industry that employs nearly a million Illinoisans – are not exempt from the state’s antitrust law, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled late last week. The decision comes 3 ½ years after Attorney General Kwame Raoul sued a trio of staffing agencies, alleging they used their mutual client to coordinate no-poach…
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SPRINGFIELD – The Illinois Supreme Court on Friday unanimously upheld a 2019 law that consolidated nearly 650 municipal police and firefighter pension funds, rejecting arguments from pension fund members that their voting power was diluted unconstitutionally. The law, which Gov. JB Pritzker signed soon after it passed with overwhelming bipartisan majorities in the General Assembly, combined 649…
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The Illinois Supreme Court heard arguments Wednesday as to whether the smell of cannabis alone is grounds for police officers to search a vehicle, marking a test of the state’s 2020 recreational marijuana legalization law. The court heard two consolidated cases of individuals who were in vehicles that were searched after an officer used the…
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SPRINGFIELD – The Illinois Supreme Court ruled Thursday that automobile insurance policies must cover people against uninsured motorists and hit-and-run accidents, even if the person covered by the policy is not in a vehicle at the time of the accident. The case involved a 14-year-old Chicago boy, Cristopher Guiracocha, who was struck by a hit-and-run…
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SPRINGFIELD – The Illinois Supreme Court ruled Thursday that people may obtain records about their own Firearm Owners Identification cards, but they may not use the state’s Freedom of Information Act to do so. In a 7-0 ruling, the court said the Illinois State Police acted properly when it denied FOIA requests from individuals who…
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The Illinois Supreme Court on Thursday ruled the state’s strongest-in-the-nation biometric information privacy law does have an exemption: health care workers who use fingerprints or similar scans to access things like medication, materials or patient health information. The nurses alleged their hospitals’ use of these medicine cabinets violated Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act by not…
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The Illinois Supreme Court on Tuesday heard arguments in a case alleging the state’s 2019 law that consolidated nearly 650 individual police and firefighter pension funds actually hurt retirees by diluting their voting power. The nearly three-dozen pensioners and 17 individual pension funds that sued over the law have already lost twice in lower court.…
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SPRINGFIELD – In 1946, the Illinois Supreme Court heard a case that would eventually become a landmark in American legal history. The public school district in Champaign, like many other districts in Illinois at the time, allowed a group of local religious leaders to use their schools to teach elective classes in religion and openly…
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SPRINGFIELD – The state’s ban on high-powered weapons and high-capacity magazines passed a state constitutional test Friday as it awaits a potentially more daunting challenge on the federal stage. In a split decision, the Democratically controlled Illinois Supreme Court ruled 4-3 that the law characterizing dozens of firearms as “assault weapons” and preventing their manufacture…
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SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Illinois is set to become the first state in the nation to eliminate cash bail after the state Supreme Court justices ruled Tuesday that a landmark criminal justice reform law did not violate the state’s constitution.
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SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Justice Lisa Holder White has announce she is running for a full term on the Supreme Court of Illinois. The Supreme Court appointed Holder White on July 7, 2022, to fill the vacancy created by the retirement of Justice Rita B. Garman. Holder White was sworn in as an Associate Judge for…
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SPRINGFIELD – The Illinois Supreme Court is now deciding whether the state’s recently enacted assault weapons ban violates certain provisions of the Illinois Constitution. In March, a circuit court judge in Macon County sided with a group of plaintiffs led by state Rep. Dan Caulkins, R-Decatur, and declared the law unconstitutional. The state appealed directly…
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CHICAGO — In 2007, Reginald Lane shot and killed Jwonda Thurston, his pregnant girlfriend. For the murder, he was sentenced to life in prison, following state statute for someone who is found guilty of killing “more than one victim.” On Thursday, the Illinois Supreme Court heard arguments in Lane’s case, specifically around whether Lane was…
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PITTSFIELD, Ill. — The Illinois Supreme Court will not consider an appeal of the 2021 criminal sexual assault and aggravated criminal sexual abuse convictions of Clayton G. Watts of Pittsfield, according to formal notification received by Pike County State’s Attorney Zachary Boren. In an order dated Dec. 15, 2022, the Illinois Court of Appeals for…
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The Illinois Supreme Court has denied a motion to disqualify two justices from hearing a challenge to the state’s new gun ban over perceived conflicts of interest. The two justices also declined to recuse themselves. Before Elizabeth Rochford and Mary O’Brien were elected to the Illinois Supreme Court in November 2022, Gov. J.B. Pritzker gave…
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