Violent Crimes Defense

Helping You Protect Your Freedom When Charged With Violent Crimes

A violent crime charge in Illinois carries real prison exposure from the moment it’s filed — and the difference between a misdemeanor and a serious felony often comes down to details like the extent of an injury, who the alleged victim was, or where the incident happened. W. Scott Hanken has spent 37 years on both sides of these cases, including time as a Sangamon County prosecutor, and brings that experience to every assault, battery, domestic violence, and serious felony case he defends.

📞 Call (217) 544-4057 for a Free, Confidential Consultation

A Former Prosecutor on Your Side

Violent crime cases move fast, and the decisions made in the first hours and days — whether to speak with police, how to approach a bail hearing, whether a self-defense claim applies — can shape the entire outcome. Attorney Hanken’s experience prosecuting these exact cases for the State gives him a clear view of how the prosecution builds its case, and where that case is often most vulnerable.

He’s rated Avvo 10.0 “Superb,” has been voted “Best Attorney” by both the Illinois Times and the State Journal-Register, and has earned 270+ five-star Google reviews and 340+ five-star FindLaw reviews. His office is in Springfield, a short walk from the Sangamon County Courthouse where most local violent crime cases are heard.

Violent Crimes We Defend

This office represents clients facing the full range of Illinois violent crime charges, from misdemeanor assault to the most serious felony offenses.

Commonly defended charges include:

• Assault and aggravated assault
• Battery and aggravated battery
• Domestic battery and aggravated domestic battery
• Violating an order of protection
• Robbery, armed robbery, burglary, and home invasion
• Resisting arrest and assault on a police officer
• Murder and manslaughter charges

We work with clients at every stage of a case, including bail hearings — often the most immediate and consequential issue in a serious violent crime arrest.

Assault & Aggravated Assault: The Difference Between a Threat and Contact

Assault in Illinois doesn’t require any physical contact at all — it’s the act of knowingly placing someone in reasonable fear of an imminent battery.

Under 720 ILCS 5/12-1, simple assault is a lower-level misdemeanor. It escalates to aggravated assault — carrying penalties up to a Class A misdemeanor or even a Class 3 felony — based on factors like:

• The status of the alleged victim (a police officer, firefighter, teacher, or similar protected role)
• The use or display of a deadly weapon
• The location of the incident (certain public places, schools, or places of worship)

Because assault is defined by the threat rather than actual contact, these cases often turn heavily on witness perception and context — what a reasonable person in the situation would have believed, rather than what physically happened.

Battery & Aggravated Battery: When Contact Becomes a Felony

Battery is a Class A misdemeanor in its basic form — but Illinois law lists more than a dozen separate factors that can elevate it to a felony, and the penalties climb steeply from there.

Under 720 ILCS 5/12-3, battery is knowingly causing bodily harm to someone, or making physical contact that’s insulting or provoking — no visible injury is required. A shove or a grabbed arm during an argument can be enough.

Aggravated battery (720 ILCS 5/12-3.05) escalates the charge based on the severity of harm, the identity of the victim, or where it happened:

A Class X felony conviction generally carries 6 to 30 years in prison, with some firearm-related enhancements adding significantly more. These cases require a careful, fact-by-fact review, since a single detail — where the incident happened, or the alleged victim’s occupation — can move a case from a misdemeanor into felony territory.

Domestic Battery & Domestic Violence Charges

Domestic violence isn’t a separate crime in Illinois so much as an enhancement — the same conduct that would be simple battery becomes domestic battery when it involves a family or household member, and Illinois defines that relationship broadly.

Under Illinois law, “family or household member” includes spouses, former spouses, people who share a child, people who currently or formerly lived together, and people in a current or former dating relationship — with no minimum time requirement on how long ago that relationship existed. Domestic battery (720 ILCS 5/12-3.2) is generally a Class A misdemeanor; aggravated domestic battery (720 ILCS 5/12-3.3) — involving strangulation or great bodily harm — is a Class 2 felony, and Illinois’s truth-in-sentencing law requires serving at least 85% of that sentence.

Domestic violence allegations aren’t limited to physical contact. Under the Illinois Domestic Violence Act, conduct that can support a charge or a protective order includes:

• Physical abuse — striking, shoving, kicking, or other bodily harm
• Sexual abuse — non-consensual sexual contact between partners
• Emotional abuse — severe or persistent intimidation, humiliation, or control
• Harassment or stalking — repeated unwanted contact causing fear or distress
• Threats — verbal or written statements creating a reasonable fear of harm

A domestic violence conviction carries consequences that extend well beyond the criminal case itself — it typically results in the loss of firearm rights, can affect child custody and visitation (often limiting a parent to supervised visitation), can impact professional licensing, and — for non-citizens — can carry immigration consequences up to deportation.

Orders of Protection: What They Mean for You

An Order of Protection can restrict your ability to contact someone, return to your own home, or see your children — and once issued, whether the protected person later says it’s fine to reconnect does not change your legal exposure.

Illinois recognizes three types of protective orders under the Illinois Domestic Violence Act (750 ILCS 60), each with a different timeline:

• Emergency orders (750 ILCS 60/217) can be granted the same day, based solely on the petitioner’s testimony, without the accused present or notified in advance. These last 14 to 21 days and are routinely extended while the case moves toward a full hearing.
• Interim orders (750 ILCS 60/218) bridge the gap between an emergency order and a full hearing, lasting up to 30 days, and require that the accused has at least been notified of the case.
• Plenary orders (duration set by 750 ILCS 60/220) follow a full court hearing where both sides can present evidence, and can remain in effect for up to two years — with no limit on how many times they can be extended.

Violating an Order of Protection

Violating an Order of Protection (720 ILCS 5/12-3.4) is a separate criminal charge from whatever underlying allegation led to the order — and Illinois courts have made clear that it doesn’t matter if the protected person invited the contact themselves. In People v. Witherspoon (2019 IL 123092), the Illinois Supreme Court held that a protected person’s consent to contact does not excuse a violation of the court’s order. A first violation is generally a Class A misdemeanor, with court supervision available in some cases; it escalates to a Class 4 felony for a subsequent violation, or for a first violation by someone with a prior conviction for domestic battery, violating a protective order, or another violent crime against a household member.

If you’re facing a domestic violence investigation or arrest, you have the right to remain silent, the right to be notified of court proceedings, and the right to legal representation — and using that last right immediately is often the single most important decision in these cases.

Self-Defense & the Castle Doctrine: When Force Is Legally Justified

Illinois law allows you to use force — including deadly force in certain situations — to protect yourself, another person, or your home, but the legal threshold depends heavily on where the incident happened and how much force was used.

Under 720 ILCS 5/7-1, you’re justified in using force against another person when you reasonably believe it’s necessary to defend yourself or someone else from the imminent use of unlawful force. Deadly force requires a higher threshold: a reasonable belief that it’s necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm, or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony such as robbery or aggravated kidnapping. Self-defense is what’s known as an affirmative defense — you’re not denying the act happened, you’re arguing it was legally justified.

Illinois’s Castle Doctrine (720 ILCS 5/7-2) provides enhanced protection inside your own home: there’s no duty to retreat, and deadly force can be justified to prevent a violent, unlawful entry or to stop a felony being committed inside the dwelling. This protection has real limits, though — it doesn’t apply against a co-tenant, family member, or invited guest, and it isn’t available to someone who was the initial aggressor in the confrontation. Illinois doesn’t have a formal “stand your ground” statute, but courts have consistently held there’s no duty to retreat in public either when facing a genuine threat of death or great bodily harm.

Robbery & Burglary

Robbery, armed robbery, burglary, and home invasion are among the most serious charges this office defends, and they carry some of the most detailed statutory penalty structures in Illinois criminal law — from Class 2 felony robbery up to Class X armed robbery and home invasion. Because these charges involve the same statutory framework whether they arise from a violent confrontation or a property crime, we’ve covered the full penalty breakdown on our Theft Crimes Defense page rather than duplicating it here.

Murder & Manslaughter: The Most Serious Charges in Illinois

Illinois has not had the death penalty since 2011 — the state’s most serious homicide charges now carry sentences up to natural life in prison rather than capital punishment.

Illinois’s homicide statutes distinguish between several degrees of severity:

• First-degree murder carries the most severe sentencing range in Illinois — decades in prison up to natural life, depending on the circumstances.
• Second-degree murder applies when certain mitigating factors are present, such as an unreasonable but genuinely held belief that deadly force was justified, and carries a significantly lower sentencing range than first-degree murder.
• Involuntary manslaughter applies to reckless conduct that causes a death without intent to kill, and is treated far less severely than either degree of murder.

These are the most serious charges in the Illinois criminal code, and every homicide case requires an immediate, thorough, individualized defense strategy — the specific facts of intent, provocation, and self-defense often determine which of these charges actually applies.

Resisting Arrest & Assault on a Police Officer

Resisting or obstructing a peace officer (720 ILCS 5/31-1) carries a mandatory minimum sentence with no probation available to reduce it — and it applies even if you believe the underlying arrest itself was unlawful.

Illinois law doesn’t allow physically resisting an arrest, even one you believe is unjust — the legally correct response is to comply and challenge the arrest’s legality afterward, in court. A resisting or obstructing charge is generally a Class A misdemeanor, but it carries consequences that go beyond a typical misdemeanor:

• A mandatory minimum of 48 consecutive hours in jail, or at least 100 hours of community service — and probation cannot be used to reduce this
• No court supervision is available, meaning the minimum possible outcome is a conviction that becomes a permanent, non-expungeable record
• The charge escalates to a Class 4 felony if the resistance is the proximate cause of an injury to the officer, firefighter, or correctional employee involved

There’s an important nuance here: while you can’t defend a resisting charge by arguing the arrest itself was unlawful, self-defense can still apply if an officer used excessive force during the encounter. These charges frequently accompany other allegations from the same incident, which makes reviewing the full sequence of events — not just the resisting charge in isolation — an important part of building a defense.

How Prior Convictions Affect a Violent Crime Case

Under 730 ILCS 5/5-5-3.2(b)(1), a prior felony conviction of the same or a higher class within the past 10 years makes a new felony charge eligible for extended-term sentencing — which roughly doubles the maximum sentence a judge is allowed to impose under 730 ILCS 5/5-8-2.

This is one of the most consequential and least understood aspects of Illinois violent crime sentencing. A Class 4 felony that would normally carry 1 to 3 years can extend to 3 to 6 years; a Class X felony that would normally carry 6 to 30 years can extend to 30 to 60. This is exactly why a defense strategy needs to account for criminal history from the very beginning of a case, not just at sentencing — by the time an extended-term factor is on the table, the range of realistic outcomes has already shifted substantially.

How We Fight Violent Crime Charges

These cases are often won on the same handful of questions: was force actually justified, was the alleged injury as serious as charged, and did law enforcement follow the law while investigating?

Common defense strategies include:

• Self-defense or defense of others — when the evidence supports a reasonable, proportional response to an unlawful threat
• Challenging the severity of injury — since the classification of many battery charges depends on proving a specific, legally defined level of harm
• Fourth Amendment challenges — examining whether evidence was gathered through an unlawful search or seizure
• Witness credibility and inconsistency — particularly important in cases that rest heavily on one person’s account of events
• Negotiated resolutions — reduced charges, alternative sentencing, or diversion programs, particularly in cases without significant injury

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Schedule Your Free Consultation

Violent crime charges move quickly, and early decisions — how you respond to police, whether a self-defense claim applies, how to approach a bail hearing — can shape the entire outcome of your case. The sooner an experienced attorney is involved, the more options stay available.

Call W. Scott Hanken at (217) 544-4057 or contact the office online to schedule a free, confidential consultation. The firm serves clients throughout Springfield, Sangamon County, and Central Illinois.

📍 1100 S 5th St, Springfield, IL 62703 ☎ (217) 544-4057 🌐 hankenlaw.com

This page is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Every case is unique — contact W. Scott Hanken directly for guidance on your specific situation.