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Shooting Down Old Gun Convictions in Illinois

Thu 5 Feb, 2015 / by / General

Today we became the first official case in Peoria County to successfully toss out a client’s old gun conviction. In 2007 he was convicted of a felony for AUUW (Aggravated Unlawful Possession of a Weapon). The gun was found loaded under his passenger seat, and ultimately he was sentenced to two years in prison.

Since then, the law has changed in a big way. The Illinois Supreme Court in People v. Aguilar held that the Illinois statute criminalizing possession of a loaded gun outside the home violated the 2nd Amendment right to bear arms. Being unconstitutional, the law must be treated as though it never existed – void from the start.

We went back to the court in Peoria where he was convicted and petitioned for the judge to toss out his conviction and clear his criminal record of the crime. We’ll share what we filed with you (we removed his name although it’s public record) – so here’s the Petition we filed to do it (CLICK TO SEE FULL FILED DOCUMENT). We gave notice to the State’s Attorney who handled the case, and after a couple hearings, today the judge agreed with our position and cleared his record.

He’s not alone: a lot of people have been convicted of AUUW in Illinois. If the crime was the same, then the result will be too. Everyone should be able to go back to the court in which they were convicted, and filed a request for it to be tossed out (“vacated”) under the same case number. Obviously, it can be a major change in a person’s life to eliminate a felony conviction. If you’ve thinking about trying to do this, contact us with your questions.