Defendant Laquita Calhoun and some friends beat to death one Alonzo Jones because they thought Jones had molested Calhoun’s child. Associate Judge Stanley Sacks sentenced Laquita Calhoun to the maximum sentence of 60 years IDOC for murder and 7 years consecutive for kidnapping after a jury trial, finding that he had “never seen a more horrendous vicious crime than this one.” In a thoughtful opinion by JUSTICE JOSEPH GORDON, our Appellate Court ordered a new sentencing hearing, and in a rare statement, recommended that a proper sentence on remand be “the minimal sentencing level for first degree murder.” The Appellate Court implied that the trial court had “neglected its duty to consider the relevant mitigating factors.” These factors included “defendant’s undeniably strong provocation, her lack of any venial criminal record, and the manifest unlikelihood of any repetition of this crime…” Click this link to read the case of People v Laquita Calhoun, No. 1-07-0266, First Dist., Fifth Div., 9/10/2010.
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