Edith Brady-Lunny

The McLean County  judge who will determine a verdict in the June 2018 triple homicide on Bloomington's Riley Drive heard opening statements Monday in the case against Sydney Mays.

The last of five former officials charged with misconduct related to their oversight of Bloomington's city-owned arena pleaded guilty to misdemeanor theft on Friday and agreed to pay $20,500 restitution to the city.

A March 22 jury trial is scheduled for a Bloomington man accused of hate crimes for allegedly riding his motorcycle into a group of protesters during a May protest rally in Bloomington.

Evidence that one of two victims of a June 2018 homicide was a gang member should be presented to the McLean County jury that will consider murder charges against the alleged assailant, according to arguments made in court Wednesday by the defendant’s lawyer.

A different judge will hear the majority of the criminal cases pending against more than 40 defendants charged with looting last summer that left several local businesses heavily damaged and injured police officers called to quell the civil unrest.

An October trial date was set on Monday for a former Bloomington piano teacher accused of sexually assaulting his students and recording his lewd interactions with them.

Earnest Bell refused to attend his September 2015 bench trial on drug charges, opting instead to stay in a holding cell, where he wrapped a shirt around his neck in an apparent suicide attempt.

Donald Whalen is headed back to the Department of Corrections to complete the 30 years he must serve in the 1991 stabbing death of his father, the latest in a roller coaster ride of legal developments that swerved dramatically against Whalen on Tuesday after a judge reversed an earlier ruling granting Whalen a new trial.

Two people charged in looting incidents that led to more than 40 arrests last summer in the Twin Cities  lost their bids for a new judge on Monday after a second judge rejected their bias claim against Judge William Yoder.

A former Bloomington college student who faced decades in prison for dealing drugs on campus will have to wait for the public records of his offenses to be sealed, a judge ruled on Friday.

“Sham investigations” by state child welfare workers emboldened Rica Rountree’s abusers to continue the abuse that led to her death in January 2019, according to a federal lawsuit filed by the child’s estate.

Residents of the Twin Cities were subjected to a night of fear and anarchy when looting broke out earlier this year, a judge said on Friday, as he agreed to give one of the looters a chance on probation.

In a sentence contrary to a state recommendation for probation, a judge on Wednesday sentenced a Bloomington man to 4½ years in prison and ordered him to pay restitution to the Town of Normal for damages to police squad cars caused by looters earlier this year.

The beating death of an 8-year-old Normal girl is the focus of a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday against six state child welfare workers, the child’s father and the woman serving life in prison for the child’s death.

Cynthia Baker’s life sentence in the beating death of an 8-year-old girl will stand, a judge ruled on Tuesday.

A McLean County judge delayed sentencing hearings Tuesday for two men charged in connection with last summer's looting after prosecutors could not provide figures for the restitution the judge insisted the defendants pay to the Normal Police Department and two businesses.

The hastily concluded investigation by the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services into black eyes and bruises on a child who died weeks later of abuse is laid out in state records recently filed in a McLean County murder case.

A former Normal police officer was sentenced to 30 days in jail on Friday after he pleaded guilty to official misconduct in connection with the December theft of $12,000 while he was on duty.

After almost two years of waiting, Ann Simmons delivered a message Thursday to the woman who killed her daughter, 8-year-old Rica Rountree.

A hearing is scheduled for Thursday for a 10-year-old Goodfield boy accused of causing an April 2019 fire that killed five people.

The Illinois Department of Corrections had adopted its first standardized policy for inmates held in segregation, with a focus on limiting the number of prisoners removed from general population for years at a time.

A judge rejected a request on Friday to reduce the 45-year prison term handed down in September for Anthony Grampsas in the December 2018 slaying of Egerton Dover.

Two men accused in a 2019 murder in Bloomington will be tried together in February, a judge ruled on Thursday. 

Eleventh Judicial Circuit Judge Scott Drazewski will retire Dec. 31 after 23 years on the bench, according to a statement Monday from Illinois State Supreme Court Justice Rita Garmin.

Christopher Harrison was sentenced to 31 years in prison on Thursday for second-degree murder related to a drug-related dispute that ended in a hail of bullets and the deaths of two young men.