Kane state's attorney: Consecutive terms needed to protect public in some cases
Scott Turyna didn't have a previous criminal record, but when it came time for a judge to sentence him for brutally beating his wife and shooting at her five times in May 2016 in St. Charles, prosecutors had a strategy.
If a defendant commits a Class X or Class 1 felony and inflicts "severe bodily injury" on a victim while committing another felony, a judge can issue consecutive prison terms served one after the other.
In most cases of multiple felonies, only penalties for the most severe charge apply.
But Kane County prosecutors successfully argued for consecutive terms for Turyna, who was sentenced in March, and an Elgin man convicted of attempted murder in a 2012 home invasion and beating of two people.
"Those two cases are consistent with the message and direction I have tried to implement in this office and this community since I came in (to office in 2010)," State's Attorney Joe McMahon said.
"It's not a policy. We will look at cases on an individual basis. We'll make mistakes on cases for individuals we give a second chance to," McMahon said. "The goal is to get the right outcome for the right person. Sometimes that means giving people a second or third chance. Other times, that means the full weight of the government resources coming to bear on a career criminal."
In Turyna's case, the consecutive sentences ruling by Judge D.J. Tegeler added five years in prison for aggravated domestic battery to the 12 years Turyna, 67, received for aggravated discharge of a firearm.
In the Elgin case of Jaime Zarate, Judge Clint Hull sentenced him to 28 years - six for home invasion, six for attempted murder of a woman that night and another 16 for attempted murder of the woman's boyfriend, who was beaten with an iron, computer monitor and chair.
Zarate's conviction this spring in the 2012 attack was his sixth overall felony conviction, and he was on parole for serving prison time for attempted murder when he was arrested again.
Last month, three Elgin gang members pleaded guilty to the 2014 kidnapping and gang rape of a 17-year-old girl they knew that also was video recorded.
Two of the men were sentenced to 18 years in prison; Eric N. Cruz, 26, of Elgin, entered a cold plea to six counts of aggravated criminal sexual assault, a felony with a top prison term of 30 years, and one count of unlawful restraint.
A judge will sentence Cruz on Aug. 15.
McMahon declined to comment on whether his office will argue for consecutive sentences for Cruz based on "severe bodily injury." But prosecutors wrote in court records they planned to argue for an extended term of up to 60 years because Cruz recorded the rape with intent to share it.
"The facts of that case speak for themselves," McMahon said. "The behavior they engaged in, it was violent, it was demeaning."