Winnebago County state’s attorney highlights high conviction rates in year-end report

By Kevin Haas
Rock River Current
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ROCKFORD — Winnebago County State’s Attorney J. Hanley delivered a year-end report on Wednesday that highlighted high conviction rates in murder trials, armed habitual criminal cases, domestic violence cases and child sexual abuse cases.

Hanley said the report reflects both the offices success in the courtroom and its data-driven focus. He also said the office’s success at trial plays a role in the falling violent crime rate in the city, which was down nearly 20% last year, according to Rockford police data.

“I want to be clear, I am not taking any credit for the success of the Rockford Police Department,” Hanley said. “I think we are a part of that downward trend, and some of the things we’re doing are helping with that downward trend just as they are.”

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Since taking office in late 2020, Hanley made it a goal to track and share more data from the office. Not all is tracked, however. A conviction rate on all felony cases isn’t available because of the challenges of accurately depicting success rates among thousands of cases, he said. For example, it’s difficult to nail down an overall rate because of cases that end with a conviction but have multiple other charges dismissed as part of a plea.

“In some cases it may be a great sentence and a good plea, and it’s very typical when someone is charged with four different counts that they don’t always plead guilty to all counts,” he said. “That’s an example where the amount of effort that it would take would just be insurmountable.”

Murder trials

The office obtained convictions in eight of 10 murder trials in 2023, including six of the eight trials heard by a jury. Both bench trials before a judge without a jury ended in conviction.

The murder trial conviction rate for 2021, 2022 and 2023 — the three years Hanley has led the office — is 79%, his office’s data shows. He gave credit to both the work of prosecutors in his office and law enforcement officers who bring cases forward for charging.

From 2008 through January 2020, 61% of murder trials ended in a guilty verdict, according to an analysis of all trial records. Hanley previously said that rate was around 55% when he took office in December 2020.

“This is a vast improvement on what I would consider the most important cases,” Hanley said Wednesday. “As I mentioned earlier, law enforcement deserves a ton of credit for the success.”

Armed habitual criminals cases

Armed habitual criminal cases involve defendants with at least two convictions of other serious crimes including weapons and drug offenses. They are Class X felonies — a high-level offense with a minimum 6-year prison sentence if convicted.

In those cases, Hanley said his office achieved an 89% success rate with an average sentence of 8.4 years in prison.

Hanley also spotlighted cases of note, including the 30-year prison sentence for Danny Randall, who was arrested in 2021 on weapons and drug charges after two previous home invasion convictions.

Child sex abuse cases

Hanley said his office had a 95% conviction rate on child sex abuse cases.

He gave credit to having a designated prosecutor handle cases involving physical and sexual abuse of children, rather than having the cases assigned to various attorneys with different levels of experience on these type of sensitive cases.

He highlighted the May 2023 conviction of Lamarr Wooden, who was found guilty of sexually abusing three girls in 2020 and sentenced to 23 years in prison.

Domestic violence cases

Last year, there were 41,532 total civil and criminal cases filed in Winnebago County, including 575 misdemeanor and felony domestic violence cases, according to 17th Judicial Circuit Court data. There were 39,679 cases filed in 2022, including 469 domestic violence cases.

Hanley said 83% of felony domestic violence cases resulted in successful conviction last year.

This was the first year the office has tracked the conviction rate, meaning there is no year-over-year comparison data. Hanley said at a previous news conference in October that he expected the rate was improving because of the office’s dedication to evidence-based prosecution. That strategy is less reliant on victim testimony and instead focuses on physical evidence such as hospital records, phone calls and text messages. That way, a case can still be brought to trial even if the victim cannot or refuses to take the stand.

“This evidence-based prosecution strategy that has been talked about a lot … that’s really at the heart of this,” Hanley said. “We’re working to prosecute cases even if we have a victim who may be unavailable for whatever reason.”

Domestic violence accounted for roughly 44% of all violent crime in the city last year. That was up from 38% in 2022, according to year-end Rockford police statistics.

The office also obtained 25 stalking convictions, up from 19 in 2022. There was just one such conviction in 2021 and none in 2020.

Deferred prosecution

Hanley said the office has enrolled 868 participants in a deferred prosecution program since its inception in 2015. The program, which is at the discretion of the state’s attorney, allows defendants to avoid prosecution if they agree to participate in certain programs designed to provide treatment and reduce the possibility of future criminal offenses.

Hanley said 93% of participants in the past year successfully completed the program. More than half the participants were charged with felonies, he said.

“On the one hand, I’m talking about how well we’re doing in aggressively prosecuting violent crime,” he said. “I think it’s also important to really emphasize and note that where appropriate we’re diverting individuals from the traditional criminal justice system.”

The program is being studied by Loyola University in Chicago, which will release more information soon on recidivism rates and the outcomes from the program, Hanley said.

So far, he said the recidivism rate is roughly 11% for participants who successfully complete the program.

You can read Hanley’s full year-end report HERE.

This article is by Kevin Haas. Email him at khaas@rockrivercurrent.com or follow him on X at @KevinMHaas or Instagram @thekevinhaas and Threads @thekevinhaas