Fatal crash drove law change

Although Randall Visor got the maximum sentence Thursday on his misdemeanor charge of driving on a revoked license, future offenders could get more time behind bars.

State Rep. Joe Dunn, a Naperville Republican, introduced a bill in February that would make driving with a revoked license a felony for people convicted of reckless homicide. The bill passed unanimously through both sides of the General Assembly.

Gov. Rod Blagojevich has until Oct. 5 to sign it or it automatically becomes law. If approved, a first offense would carry one to three years in prison. A third offense would carry up to 15 years.

Visor's case has set precedent before. In 1998, he received a 13-year sentence -- one year shy of the maximum -- for the four deaths in the 1997 Aurora accident, but served less than five years and was paroled in November 2002.

After that, DuPage County State's Attorney Joe Birkett and parent Shelly Anderson successfully lobbied to raise the reckless homicide maximum sentence to 28 years and require defendants to serve 85 percent of the sentence, up from 50 percent.

--Harry Hitzeman