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Dan Stratford: If one is found guilty of DUI or for that matter, I guess, any kind of criminal
case, how does sentencing work in Illinois?
Dan Noll: That's a great question, Dan, because in any criminal case there's really two steps.
Step number one is what we call the guilt phase. If a person is found Not Guilty they
walk out of that courtroom with no sentence. But for purposes of your question, let's assume
that somebody is found guilty or they pled guilty 90-95% of criminal cases are dealt
with by what's known as a negotiated plea. That means that the accused knows exactly
what they're going to get. For example, on a speeding ticket you know you're going to
get a $235.00 fine and court supervision. But there are also times when the state's
offer is unacceptable to a client and we think we can get a better disposition from the judge.
We do it all the time.
For example, I had a gentlemen who had gotten two DUIs within three weeks of each other,
both with crashes and his blood alcohol content was about .25 for each one. We were able to
negotiate with the States Attorney's Office to dismiss one and he would plead open on
the other DUI. Pleading open, what that means is the Judge can sentence him to any potential
penalty that the offense requires, so in terms of a DUI on a misdemeanor, that could be anywhere
between zero days in jail to 364 days in jail. The State's offer was 30 days in jail and
the way we had worked out the case and worked it up was we told the Judge that he was eligible
for supervision, and that we thought supervision would be appropriate; the State wanted him
to have a conviction which would have revoked his license.
Ultimately, during his sentencing phase, we were able to convince the judge to give him
supervision and he's still driving today even with two DUIs and two crashes. So, in sentencing,
our office has been told numerous times by numerous judges all over Macon County; I was
in a sentencing in Carlinville, Illinois about two weeks ago and the court has often commented
to myself, Daniel Noll, and my legal partner and father, John Noll, that our office is
the best at criminal sentencing that they have ever seen. So a lot of times we are able
to minimize the potential penalty that a person gets through our approach at sentencing.