The bill comes after the Illinois Supreme Court issued a pair of rulings last year. The court ruled in September that the smell of burnt cannabis did not give police probable cause to search a vehicle, but three months later ruled the smell of raw cannabis was probable cause for a search.

Republicans argue the map is an example of “extreme partisan gerrymandering,” which renders it unconstitutional under state law.

The Illinois Supreme Court on Wednesday heard arguments in a case centered on whether a state law passed in 2023 violates the due process rights of Illinoisans outside Sangamon and Cook counties. A 2023 law restricts certain types of lawsuits – namely challenges to a law’s constitutionality – to courts in those two counties. The law came in response to challenges to the state’s COVID-19 response, a state law ending cash bail and the state’s ban on assault weapons, among others.

Under Illinois’ aggravated unlawful use of a weapon statute, individuals are not allowed to carry a firearm in public unless the person has a valid Concealed Carry License.

The disparity — that the smell of unsmoked marijuana is justification for a warrantless search, while the smell of smoked pot is not — “defies logic,” Justice Mary K. O’Brien wrote in her dissent.

Mauro Glorioso, a former chair of the Illinois Property Tax Appeal Board who later became its executive director, sued the newspaper in 2021, alleging he was defamed by the Sun-Times’ coverage of the board’s handling of a property tax appeal for Trump Tower in downtown Chicago. 

The state’s highest court ruled Illinois can revoke a person’s FOID card once they’ve been charged with a felony and that patients in hospital rooms don’t have a universal expectation of privacy from police searches.

The stench of smoked pot doesn’t give a police officer the right to search an adult’s car without a warrant, according to a new ruling from the Illinois Supreme Court.

In early 2019, Smollett made what turned out to be a false police report alleging that he’d been violently attacked by two men in downtown Chicago. The men allegedly punched him and yelled homophobic slurs, put a noose around his neck and told Smollett, “This is MAGA country,” a reference to then-President Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan.

The first appeal the court heard Tuesday centered on the new law’s early implementation. It involved a Chicago man who was charged with attempted murder and jailed just before the new law took effect, but who later petitioned for release once cash bail officially ended.

Illinois advocates for LBGTQ+ rights are pushing for the state’s high court to mandate that all lawyers, judges and other court personnel, such as clerks and security staff, be trained on be the legal needs of LBGTQ+ people. Critics, however, say the call for inclusivity training is exclusionary.

A law banning political parties from waiting until after the primary election to place a state legislative candidate on the general election ballot won’t keep any Republicans from running this November.

The SAFE-T Act included a provision known as the Pretrial Fairness Act that ended the use of cash bail in Illinois, meaning a person cannot be jailed while awaiting trial simply because they can’t afford a dollar amount assigned by a judge.

At 9 years old, L.J. started missing school. His parents said they would homeschool him. It took two years — during which he was beaten and denied food — for anyone to notice he wasn’t learning.

While Cortez Turner was in a hospital room being treated for a gunshot wound to his leg in 2016, police took his clothes. Now, the Illinois Supreme Court is weighing whether that action violated Turner’s expectation of privacy under the Fourth Amendment.

In a 6-0 decision, the court found the residency restriction “does not infringe upon a child sex offender’s fundamental rights” and that there was a “rational basis” for the state to restrict where a person convicted of such a crime can live.