A man suspected of holding up a group of Illinois College students with a large bladed weapon in December 2022 has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity in his case.
27-year old Devin C. Hall of Barrington Hills was charged with two counts of home invasion and two counts of armed robbery without a firearm. All four are Class X felonies.
Hall is accused of entering a Mundinger Hall dorm room on the Illinois College campus with a dagger and a machete in the early morning hours of December 14th, 2022 in an attempt to take property. Eye witnesses to the event told the Journal Courier at the time that he also intended to harm four students in the process.
Hall was found unfit to stand trial in the case in May and August of 2023 and remanded to the custody of the Department of Human Services. In October, Hall was remanded back to the Morgan County Jail in October after being found able to stand trial.
The state and Hall’s defense attorney, Michael Hankins of Springfield have been working towards reaching a disposition in the case ever since.
In court proceedings on Tuesday, Morgan County Chief Judge Chris Reif signed the order of Hall’s plea. Morgan County State’s Attorney Gray Noll explains the next steps in the process for Hall with the disposition: “He goes directly from our jail to the Department of Human Services. They will evaluate him. Once he’s evaluated, Mr. Hall will return to our court specifically on June 18th at 2:30PM. That evaluation will say one of three things: a) the defendant is in need of mental health services on an in-patient basis b) the defendant is in need of mental health services on an out-patient basis or c) the defendant does not any mental health treatment. Whatever recommendation that evaluation makes from the Department of Human Services, the court will then adopt as its final order in the matter.”
Noll says that based on the serious nature of the offense and Hall’s history with mental health issues, he does not believe that DHS’ evaluation would not recommend that mental health treatment would not be needed in some form. Hall faced up to 40 years in prison on the charges if they had gone to trial.