Chicago Criminal Lawyer Blog
Call Guinness; it’s a new record! A South Side teen committed nine carjackings in one day. He has since been charged with 11 carjackings with a deadly weapon and two counts of damaging government property. No one was injured or killed during these carjackings. Instead, it appears to be an effort to commit as many carjackings as possible in as short a period of time as possible. While the carjacker is under 18, he is likely to be charged as an adult and face substantial prison time. His age will be considered a factor when sentencing him, but he will go to prison for these crimes.
Aggravated vehicular hijacking comes with a potential sentence of between four and 15 years. So, figuring this precocious teen will be sentenced toward the minimum because of his age, he still faces 44 years behind bars. That’s not good. Getting your name into Guinness isn’t a big enough payoff to spend the next 44 years of your life behind bars.
Now What?
It is a sad problem for a society to have. First, you have a teenager who has engaged in a cheap thrill like carjacking, and suddenly you have a wasted life. On top of that, you have 11 traumatized victims who had their property stolen and will likely have nightmares and emotional distress over the terror of being carjacked. So, 11 lives have been irrevocably altered, and one teenager has forever changed his life in just one day. He may have to spend the foreseeable future in prison.
Defenses to Carjacking
It is unlikely this particular teen will be able to provide an innocence defense. He may have been tied to more carjackings than he actually committed, but then again, he may have confessed to the crimes already or been identified by victims. In a case like this, you defend the client from the sentence as opposed to the crime. You would want to argue that the defendant is a troubled youth from a broken home who lacks the resources to become an upstanding citizen, get access to mental health services, and otherwise do something constructive to provide meaning to his life. You have the benefit of his age, but not much else. You want to be able to argue that under the right circumstances, this young man could have thrived and contributed to society. But the needs of the defendant have to be weighed against the needs of the victims, in this case, and there is a mandatory minimum sentencing range. So, it becomes a matter of disputing some of the carjackings, if possible.
Talk to a Chicago Criminal Defense Attorney Today
David Freidberg represents the interests of those who have been charged with serious crimes in Chicago. Call today at (312) 560-7100 and we can begin preparing your defense immediately.
