A Jacksonville man will be spending the next 18-months behind bars, but Morgan County’s Assistant State’s Attorney feels he “probably deserved a more severe punishment.”
Forty-five-year-old Jesse Redmond pleaded guilty to domestic battery in Morgan County Court Tuesday morning.
Assistant State’s Attorney Chad Turner breaks down the lengthy case at hand.
“He had two cases pending. One of them was originally filed as a misdemeanor. He pleaded guilty, didn’t like what he was likely going to be sentenced to and withdrew his plea of guilty, and I refiled it as a felony based on a misdemeanor prior from 2003 for violation of order of protection,” says Turner.
“Under the domestic violence act, that is one of the crimes that can be used to enhance what is normally a misdemeanor into a felony. Based upon that misdemeanor, I made this a felony. Then while he was out on bond, he was accused of battering a different woman and we filed on that one. That is the case he pleaded guilty to.”
Turner says his office ran into some roadblocks at the tail end of the case.
“In all cases, but particularly domestic battery, securing witnesses and their cooperation can be difficult. In this case we had difficulty securing one of the necessary witnesses and I was dubious about whether we were going to secure her presence. That is a factor that I took into consideration when offering this plea to Mr. Redmond.”
Turner pointed out that Redmond has four previous drug related convictions on his record, three of which earned him time behind bars.
Turner says Redmond’s criminal history and recent domestic battery charges could have yielded a longer sentence in the Illinois Department of Corrections.
“That is always tempered with our ability to prove the case. Our ability to prove the case is probably the number one factor that goes into plea considerations. Stronger cases get a harsher punishment and weaker cases, or cases where we have evidence problems, the punishment unfortunately goes down proportionately.”
Three charges were dropped in the plea deal.