Not one, but two men were found unfit to face criminal charges this week.
For the second time in a month, Mark Lewis, 53, was deemed unfit to stand trial for the murder of his sister, who was found beaten to death in her Naperville home in June 2011.
Lewis wants to act as his own attorney if the murder case ever makes it to trial.
Also wanting to act as his own attorney—and deemed unfit to face criminal charges—was 40-year-old Jason Chance of downstate Lewiston.
Chance already did prison time for menacing Will County State's Attorney James Glasgow through Facebook. According to a criminal complaint, Chance threatened to rape and kill the county's top prosecutor.
After his release, Chance allegedly made harassing telephone calls to a judge, the Channahon village clerk and Silver Cross Hospital. This caught the attention of prosecutors who claim Chance has violated the special conditions of his probation.
Also in court this week was a Frankfort lawyer charged with brutally beating his estranged wife in a courthouse hallway and then trying to get a fellow inmate at the county jail to kill her. Issues have been raised about 50-year-old Robert Gold-Smith's fitness as well, but so far he's still in the game.
This week, Gold-Smith's attorneys told a judge that new visitation rules at the Will County jail have been making it tough to get in to interview witnesses, and that this is delaying their preparation for the case.
That's the story with those three. Let's look at what else was on the docket last week:
- Jeremy Travis, 22, who had pleaded guilty to the 2009 murder of 19-year-old Mark Bew, got 35 years in prison.
- Already facing two sex cases involving juveniles, 37-year-old Kevin Skaritka of Orland Park may be looking at additional charges down the road, his attorney said.
- Lawyers for three of the four young men charged with killing a Palos Township couple received stacks of evidence, including digital photos from the medical examiner’s office, cell phone analysis and other documents.
- Frankfort pediatrician Kishor Jain was arraigned on a 16-count indictment charging him with groping five women in his doctor's office. Jain, 59, was also ordered to surrender his passport.
- Jay Cox, 36, of Bolingbrook got 12 years in prison for a drunken crash that claimed a man's life in 2012.
- Right before his trial was to start, Plainfield man Brandon Haggerty pleaded guilty to battering the pregnant ex-girlfriend of alleged Hickory Street killer Joshua Miner. Haggerty, 22, got a year's probation and was told to stay away from Ivon Walsh, 26. Walsh has claimed both Haggerty and Miner caused her to suffer miscarriages.
- A Burr Ridge teen charged with killing an Orland Park man in a drunken wreck on LaGrange Road pleaded not guilty. Nicholas Puccinelli, 19, made his plea while being arraigned before Judge John Hynes in his Bridgeview courtroom.
- The lawyer for a Plainfield teen charged with sexually abusing a child is trying to get a hold of the boy's psychiatric records. The boy is expected to testify against 19-year-old Jason Minger, said attorney Neil Patel. Patel argued the information may prove useful when questioning the boy while he is on the witness stand.
- A Matteson man charged with a deadly shooting on Nicholson Street pleaded not guilty to murder charges during his arraignment Friday morning. Ruben Wayne Washington, 32, appeared before Judge Robert Livas and was returned to the Will County jail, where he is being held on a $3 million bond.