2021 IMPACT
Public Act 101-0652 is a comprehensive criminal legal system and policing bill. It includes a change to Illinois’s felony-murder law. Before this bill became law, Illinois had one of the broadest felony-murder laws in the country. Prosecutors charged people with deaths caused by third parties. If someone committed an underlying felony and a death occurred, they could be charged with first-degree murder and receive our state’s harshest punishment, between 20 years and life in prison. Now, under the 2021 law change, people can only be charged with felony murder if they or a co-defendant cause a death during the course of an underlying felony.