On Jan. 15, 2026, the Third District of the Illinois Appellate Court held that the trial court properly excluded alternative-suspect evidence as remote and speculative.
The General Assembly enacted the Self-Administered Sexual Assault Evidence Collection Kit Ban Act, which prohibits the sale, marketing, promotion, advertisement, or other distribution of self-administered sexual assault evidence collection kits.
The Illinois Supreme Court addresses federal and Illinois rules of evidence conflicts in admitting other-crimes and propensity evidence when intent is not at issue in a case.
On July 30, 2025, the Fourth District of the Illinois Appellate Court held that there is an abuse of discretion where the trial court erred in excluding testimony as cumulative.
On June 20, 2025, the First District of the Illinois Appellate Court remanded a case for a new trial, holding that the trial court erred by excluding police body-camera footage as evidence.
On June 12, 2025, the Fourth District of the Illinois Appellate Court held that the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) cannot uphold an indicated finding based on unreliable and inconsistent hearsay because it is against the manifest weight of the evidence.
On June 5, 2025, the Illinois Supreme Court held that allowing misconduct evidence predicated on a propensity inference was error; however, under the facts of this case, the evidentiary error was harmless.
On Nov. 21, 2024, the Fourth District of the Illinois Appellate Court held that evidence obtained in a police search was admissible when a computer system glitch prevented officers from discovering that a warrant was withdrawn.
Carpenter v. United States has opened new protections from disclosure of electronic data under the Fourth Amendment. However, Illinois courts have moved cautiously in this new frontier.
The Illinois Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities Confidentiality Act sets out protections and procedures that lawyers must heed before attempting to access a person’s mental health records.
On Aug. 21, 2023, the Third District of the Illinois Appellate Court held that barring a necessity defense does not necessarily deny the defendant a fair trial in a criminal case.
A former member of the Illinois Supreme Court Committee on Illinois Evidence reviews its 2013 proposals for rules of evidence not adopted by the Supreme Court.
On Jan. 20, 2023, the Second District of the Illinois Appellate Court held that an arresting officer’s official reports were admitted into evidence once they were filed, although the defendant neither stipulated nor chose to utilize the reports in his case.
On Dec. 16, 2022, the First District of the Illinois Appellate Court held that a firearm found on a defendant during a Terry search, after the defendant was observed by officers adjusting his waistband and stating he dropped a bag of cannabis, must be suppressed.
This Act amends The Expressway Camera Act by modifying the circumstances under which footage from cameras on expressways and Jean-Baptiste Pointe DuSable Lake Shore Drive in Cook County may be extracted.
On July 29, 2022, the Fourth District of the Illinois Appellate Court held that a brief refusal to put one’s foot in a squad car did not materially impede an officer’s job performance to support a conviction of resisting or obstructing a peace officer.
On Mar. 31, 2022, the Second District of the Illinois Appellate Court held that failure to object to hearsay evidence did not constitute ineffective assistance of counsel when it would have been admitted through a hearsay exception.
On Jan. 21, 2022, the Illinois Supreme Court held that a prosecutor did not impermissibly shift the burden of proof to the defendant when the prosecutor said in rebuttal closing argument that the defendant could have requested evidence testing.
On June 11, 2021, the Fifth District of the Illinois Appellate Court held that a new trial is warranted because the state impermissibly used the defendant’s other bad acts as substantive evidence of the defendant’s guilt.
Although familial DNA database searches have been used as a law-enforcement aid across the U.S., these searches have yet to be scrutinized by many courts, including in Illinois.
