By JERRY NOWICKI
& PETER HANCOCK
Capitol News Illinois
[email protected]
CHICAGO – The man who pleaded guilty to a mass shooting in 2022 in Highland Park that left seven people dead and prompted the passage of a ban on assault-style weapons in Illinois, has been sentenced to seven consecutive life sentences.
Robert Crimo III pleaded guilty on March 3, the day his trial was set to begin in Lake County, to 69 counts of murder and attempted murder stemming from that shooting. His attorneys informed Judge Victoria Rossetti that he wanted to change his plea just before what was to be the start of a three-week trial.
Crimo was accused of firing into a crowd of people from a rooftop in Highland Park during the city’s annual Independence Day parade using a semiautomatic rifle equipped with three 30-round magazines. He reportedly fired approximately 80 shots in about two minutes, killing seven people while injuring dozens more.
Rossetti on Thursday sentenced Crimo to consecutive life sentences for each of the seven victims who died. He also received 50 years for the 48 counts of attempted murder to which he pleaded guilty.
Victims of the shooting include Katherine Goldstein, 64; married couple Irina McCarthy, 35, and Kevin McCarthy, 37; Stephen Straus, 88; Jacki Sundheim, 63; Nicolas Toledo-Zaragoza, 78; and Eduardo Uvaldo, 69.
Survivors and witnesses shared stories with the court during the sentencing hearing on Wednesday and Thursday, which Crimo did not attend.
The Highland Park shooting in part prompted Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker to call for bans on assault weapons and large-capacity magazines at both the state and national levels. State lawmakers took up the issue during a lame duck session the following January and passed what is now called the Protect Illinois Communities Act.
It prohibits the purchase, sale, transfer or ownership of hundreds of types of firearms that it classifies as “assault weapons,” although people who owned such guns before the law’s enactment are allowed to keep them if they obtain a special endorsement on their Firearm Owner’s Identification card.
It also bans large-capacity magazines and various kinds of firearm attachments, including those that increase the rate of fire of a semiautomatic weapon to simulate the rapid fire of a fully automatic weapon.
‘Venue shopping’ law upheld
The Illinois Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a 2023 state law that says constitutional challenges to certain state actions may only be filed in Cook or Sangamon County circuit courts.
In a 6-1 ruling, the majority overturned a lower court ruling and said the law did not pose an unreasonable burden to the plaintiff in the case, a gun dealer in Madison County, and that the state had a legitimate reason for consolidating certain kinds of cases in certain counties.
The case involved Piasa Armory, located in East Alton, which filed a suit in 2023 challenging the state’s ban on assault-style weapons and large capacity magazines.
Although the case was filed in Madison County where the store is located, Attorney General Kwame Raoul’s office filed a motion to move the case to Sangamon County under a new law the General Assembly had passed, and Gov. JB Pritzker had signed, earlier in 2023.
That law requires lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of a state statute, administrative rule or executive order be filed in the circuit court of either Cook County or Sangamon County.
Democrats pushed the legislation through the General Assembly in response to numerous lawsuits filed in multiple counties throughout the state challenging the assault weapons ban, as well as other cases that had been filed earlier challenging Pritzker’s executive orders during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The law was intended to prevent what lawyers sometimes refer to as “venue shopping,” or the practice of filing cases in specific jurisdictions where the political climate is such that judges and juries are more likely to side with one side of a case.
The law came in response to challenges to the state’s COVID-19 response, a state law ending cash bail and the state’s ban on assault weapons, among others.
These lawsuits – often filed in jurisdictions with sympathetic judges – became a way for some conservatives to make a name for themselves at the state level. Former Republican governor candidate and state Sen. Darren Bailey and former Republican attorney general candidate Thomas DeVore both backed high-profile lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of state laws.
“We conclude that the State has some interest in consolidating actions in certain counties, especially in light of recent statewide litigation asserting duplicative constitutional claims,” Justice Elizabeth Rochford wrote in the majority’s opinion.
Andrew Adams and Ashley Soriano contributed to this report.
Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.
