According to CWB Chicago, a new Illinois policy means that repeat offenders who commit violent acts with objects like pipes won’t necessarily face prison time. One notable case involves Pierre Thorne, who has a staggering 57 arrests to his name. He attacked a 53-year-old man from behind with a metal object in December 2022. Court documents indicated that, although a Democratic Party Judge, Joan Rosado, allegedly sentenced Thorne to four years in prison through a plea deal, he ended up serving only 752 days. The judge reportedly applied a 50% sentence reduction, which means he won’t spend any additional time in jail.
The consequences of Thorne’s actions were severe; the victim suffered significant injuries, including multiple lost teeth, a fractured jaw, and disfigurement that would require surgical intervention. At the moment of the attack, the victim fell immediately, bleeding from injuries to his head and face.
A witness recalled the incident saying, “I was just outside Clark and Madison’s office. The man came up from behind and hit him in the head with a sledgehammer, then walked down the middle of the road as if nothing had happened.”
In January 2023, police released a video showing Thorne, dressed in a hoodie, asking for public help in his identification before he was ultimately apprehended. His record also features past misdemeanors, particularly a previous random assault in downtown Chicago. He pled guilty to aggravated battery with a pipe resulting in serious bodily injury, while another charge of public assault was dropped.
CWB Chicago notes that Illinois’ lenient criminal justice policies had attracted national attention in November following another case where a man with over 70 arrests was charged with burning a woman on a train. This incident led the Department of Justice to file federal charges. Interestingly, this defendant had previously been released from prison under Illinois Governor Pritzker’s SAFE-T Act, suggesting that even he is reconsidering the implications of such legislation in light of recent events.
