Crime and punishment
Friday, Dec 17, 2010 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Progress report…
Two laws aimed at limiting the use of cell phones while driving have resulted in nearly 7,800 motorists being pulled over by the Illinois State Police this year.
In January, Illinois banned the use of cell phones in construction and school zones, as well as took aim at texting while driving. […]
Through Dec. 16, the construction and school zone ban netted 4,236 citations and 2,629 warnings from the state police.
The texting ban has resulted in a total of 929 citations and warnings over the same time period.
Those figures don’t count citations or warnings issued by county or municipal police agencies.
That’s about 132 a week for cell phones and about 18 a week for texting. Not a whole lot, particularly the texting ban, which is pretty tough to enforce.
* Nice move by the governor…
To those who know her, it’s no surprise that Hannah Perryman would keep working for stalking victims, though her own ordeal is over.
But the rapid pace of happenings since she came forward to tell her story several weeks ago is daunting even to the teen who specializes in slinging fastballs for Elgin High’s softball team.
After being contacted by 17-year-old Hannah, who, after years of being stalked by a neighborhood teen pushed for a change in state law, Gov. Pat Quinn has issued a proclamation declaring January Stalking Awareness Month in Illinois.
Hannah said she recently e-mailed Quinn at his state of Illinois e-mail address, with links to the Daily Herald’s three-day series of articles telling her story. […]
In less than a week, Hannah said, Quinn wrote back with the news, sending her an official proclamation.
* Unclear on the concept…
A Tinley Park couple was out of jail and cleaning up their home Thursday evening after being arrested and charged with running a $1 million marijuana lab from their suburban home.
John Gecan, 52, and his wife Darlene, 52, didn’t deny growing the plant, but said they weren’t distributing and seemed most upset about the raid on their 7,000 square foot home, located in the 5300 block of West 175th Street.
“You can’t come into somebody’s home and do that,” said John Gecan as he stood among the belongings strewn about the room. “It doesn’t matter what they found.”
Apparently, these people never anticipated that the coppers might ransack their alleged grow-house, which was pretty sophisticated…
Police showed off the mechanics of the basement operation, illustrating how the family hid a ventilation system in the walls and up four floors into a vent through the attic to get rid of the smell. There was another intake vent to let fresh air in, they said.
And the reason they grew the pot?…
“The real estate taxes went up four grand. My sons are unemployed, they can’t find jobs,” she explained.
Hookay.
* The infestation of Asian carp isn’t actually a crime, but we’ve declared war on the little buggers. And that little war might actually help a lonely little Metro East airport…
With invasive Asian carp teeming in Illinois rivers and growing exports of the fish back to Asia, St. Clair County leaders hope that booming trade may help their underused airport.
The county Public Building Commission approved the framework Thursday of a plan to turn MidAmerica St. Louis Airport into a center for the export of the carp to China.
The 12-year-old airport in Mascoutah has never turned a profit.
The Belleville News-Democrat reports that under the plan, carp caught by commercial fishermen in Iowa and Illinois will be trucked to MidAmerica and shipped fresh aboard air cargo planes.
* On a far more serious note, the Tribune editorializes today about a bizarre loophole in Illinois law which may be closed soon…
In California, a doctor convicted of a sex crime automatically loses his license to practice medicine. It is automatic and permanent.
That’s not what happens in Illinois. A doctor convicted of a sex crime here sometimes escapes discipline — even when his victims are patients, as the Tribune’s Megan Twohey has reported. When a doctor is punished, the discipline can be as tepid as a short suspension of his medical license.
A Chicago-area doctor convicted in 2001 of sexually abusing a Villa Park woman who had sought a bikini-line laser treatment at his Oak Brook office can still practice medicine in Illinois.
So can a Downers Grove doctor convicted of misdemeanor sexual abuse and battery of a Lisle woman who came to his clinic seeking treatment for a severe headache.
Sheesh.
- Holdingontomywallet - Friday, Dec 17, 10 @ 9:09 am:
Regarding the cell phone law - it’s a “Christmas Miracle” that they haven’t pulled over my wife!
- Small Town Liberal - Friday, Dec 17, 10 @ 9:10 am:
Thanks for the link to the Hannah Perryman story, and kudos to the governor for his prompt response. I’m sure Hannah and others greatly appreciate that lawmakers on both sides of the aisle took the time to solve a problem that wasn’t strictly related to fiscal matters.
- Cincinnatus - Friday, Dec 17, 10 @ 9:21 am:
Either ban the phones everywhere, or don’t ban them at all. Think about this for a minute. You’re driving down the street, talking on the phone. Suddenly, there’s the pot-hole crew, or you pass a school not during passing hours, but in the middle of the school day. Now, if I were a police officer, I’d plant my car about 5 feet past the obstacle.
Who is going to hang up an otherwise perfectly legal use of a phone to pass by an obstacle that will take 10 seconds to accomplish? Few, if any, I’d bet.
I reiterate, ban the phones everywhere, all the time, or eliminate this law.
- dupage dan - Friday, Dec 17, 10 @ 9:22 am:
I’m sure the overworked folk over at Dept of Prof Reg would be happy that a Dr loses the license to practice automatically after having been convicted of a sex crime. It could relieve some of the backlog of cases and reduce workload. I would think it would be an easy law to put into effect, right? Who would support a Drs right to practice after having been convicted of such a crime?
- zatoichi - Friday, Dec 17, 10 @ 10:06 am:
Real estate taxes go up $4,000 and the kids are unemployed so you grow $1M of pot but will not distribute. OK. Add vents to a 4 story house and all the growing supplies must have cost less than those taxes. OK. I see another Craig Ferguson movie in the making.
- Yellow Dog Democrat - Friday, Dec 17, 10 @ 10:32 am:
@dupage dan -
Sorry, in my mind that doesn’t go far enough.
A criminal conviction of a sex crime should be sufficient but not necessary for a physician to lose their license permanently.
There are plenty of cases that never make it to the cops where a physician is found by the department of professional regulations to have had inappropriate sexual contact with a patient and the doctor receives a relative slap on the wrist.
There are many parallels to the sex abuse scandals of the Catholic church. Current and former patients are not notified. Doctors return to practice where they re-offend.
We should be particularly concerned because, just like with clergy and teachers, sexual predators are drawn to the medical profession because it gives them access to potential victims where they are in a position of power and authority. That’s why its so important that there be zero tolerance.
Finally, the Department of Professional Regulations current policy is to halt disciplinary hearings against doctors who leave Illinois and relinquish their right to practice medicine here…only to start practicing in another state.
I know of one such doctor who relocated his practice to Iowa — where he sees plenty of Illinois patients, and returns to Illinois periodically to teach seminars.
That would be like me getting in a drunk driving accident in Illinois, but surrendering my driver’s license and moving to Iowa to avoid prosecution, where I drive across the bridge to the Quad Cities everyday.
Its an absurd disciplinary loophole that allows doctors to clear their records of even the most egregious acts simply by hopping from state-to-state, and we should close it.
- wordslinger - Friday, Dec 17, 10 @ 11:17 am:
If the Gecans weren’t distributing, why do they reference their financial issues? Are we to believe they went to all those lengths for personal use?
There’s a reason prisons are full of stupid people.
- cermak_rd - Friday, Dec 17, 10 @ 12:41 pm:
That’s exactly the question I had. If they weren’t distributing–why the financial angle. Do they maybe not understand that retail IS distribution?
- dave - Friday, Dec 17, 10 @ 1:07 pm:
If the Gecans weren’t distributing, why do they reference their financial issues?
Maybe they used to buy from someone else, but because their $4,000 increase in property taxes, they could no longer afford their $1M pot habit?
- Rich Miller - Friday, Dec 17, 10 @ 4:34 pm:
Holdingontomywallet, ditto.