Latest Case: People v. Jaimes (Criminal Law)

Transitional Justice and Inauguration Poems

LESLEY WEXLER

Illinois law professor Lesley M. Wexler describes how Amanda Gorman’s The Hill We Climb and Jericho Brown’s Inaugural,’ an Original Poem—as two inaugural poems—fit within the call of transitional justice. Professor Wexler explains how, read together, the two poems provide a roadmap of the transitional justice terrain the government may choose to tread.

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People v. Jaimes

Docket: F077504(Fifth Appellate District)

Opinion Date: January 25, 2021

Judge: Smith

Areas of Law: Criminal Law

Defendants Gonzales, Jaimes, and Magana were convicted of crimes related to their involvement in a robbery, and the jury found true several gang and firearm enhancements. The Court of Appeal accepted each of the People's concessions of insufficient accomplice corroboration, a legally inapplicable firearm enhancement, and Senate Bill No. 136 retroactivity. The court concluded that the evidence sufficiently proved the gang enhancement. However, the court concluded that the trial court's response to the jury's request for assistance was prejudicial error because it focused the jury's attention towards the association between Gonzales and Jaimes and away from the requisite association between the crime and the gang. Accordingly, the court reversed the gang enhancements and remanded for further proceedings.