Can Sex Crime Charges Be Reduced in Illinois? Combs Waterkotte attorneys Christopher Combs and Joshua Boardman discuss everything you need to know about Illinois sex crime charges, including sexual assault, sexual abuse, rape, and more.
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Interview Transcript
Scott Michael Dunn: Can sex crime charges be reduced in Illinois?
Christopher Combs: Yes, just like any other state, charges can always be reduced. So, in Illinois, that’s something that our office is always working on. We go into every case looking for a dismissal or to shutdown charges ever even being filed. However, I’ll let Josh echo this, just like any other charge, sex crimes can be reduced to a lesser charge with lesser fines, lesser penalties, avoiding potential jail time, and other consequences.
Joshua Boardman: Yes, and oftentimes, reductions are a result of one of two things occurring. One of which is an amendment by the state’s attorney’s office. The second of which, or they’re essentially byproducts of one another, but sometimes the state’s attorney, as they are developing more and more evidence or more of a factual background from their law enforcement, their witnesses, I have had it several times where a sex crime was charged, but then prior to a preliminary hearing or as a part of a plea deal, they amended that charge to nonsexual contact or nonsexual behavior based on the strengths of the allegations. Sometimes perhaps there was some form of physical dispute or something like that, but it wasn’t sexual in nature. So, then they can potentially amend that to peace disturbance or an assault or battery or something outside of a crime realm. So, sometimes the state’s attorneys will do that based on their own investigation of their own facts, but then oftentimes whenever people get in contact with our office and we’re able to do a deep dive into all the discovery and we start pushing back on maybe the chronological discrepancies between witness statements or different things like that, then they can amend those charges because frankly they don’t want to go to trial and lose on those. So, they’re going to try to save face by amending those charges to charges that if they do have to go to trial that they think they can succeed on those.
Dunn: They’re trying to win.
Boardman: Exactly.
Combs: And maybe it’s a conviction for the state, but for our client they could be avoiding having to register as a sex offender or something of that nature. And what really sets Combs Waterkotte apart from any other law firm that I’m aware of is you get five or six levels of review of your discovery in our firm. So, everything the state is using to charge you when that comes into our office that’s reviewed by a law clerk, that’s reviewed by a senior litigation paralegal, that’s reviewed by our investigator who’s former law enforcement, that’s then reviewed by an associate attorney, and then it lands on a partner’s desk. So, you’re getting a very thorough review of any allegation against you.
