General-Assembly Acts to Ease Another Criminal-Records Barrier

Legislation allowing judges to make exceptions to the law’s current outright ban on persons who have felony records and are serving as guardians of minors or disabled persons has passed both houses of the Illinois General Assembly and is on its way to Gov. Rod Blagojevich for his consideration.

Under current law, as interpreted by the Illinois courts, judges may never appoint a person with a felony conviction record as a guardian—even when the person with the felony record is the best possible guardian. Senate Bill 658 amends the state Probate Act to allow judges to make exceptions to this prohibition. It creates a three-part test for the courts to use in evaluating a prospective guardian who has a felony conviction. It directs courts to consider the nature of the offense, the date of the offense, and evidence of the proposed guardian’s rehabilitation as specific parts of the general inquiry into what is in the best interests of the child or disabled person. The legislation specifically prohibits the courts from appointing as guardians persons convicted of felonies involving harm or threat to a child or elderly or disabled person, including felony sexual offenses.

S.B. 658 was supported by many advocacy groups for minors and disabled persons and by the Chicago, Cook County, and Illinois State bar associations. According to Linda S. Coon, legal services director of the Families and Children’s AIDS Network, today more children than ever are being cared for by relatives, and S.B. 658 strikes a necessary balance by keeping the felony ban as a general rule but allowing families to nominate the person of their choice as a guardian, including a person with a past felony conviction.

Letters urging the governor to sign S.B. 658 into law as soon as possible may be sent to Gov. Rod Blagojevich, 207 State House, Springfield, IL 62706. S.B. 658 will take effect when the governor signs it. Anticipating S.B. 658’s becoming law, some Illinois judges are postponing action on guardianship cases so that they may consider appointing highly qualified persons, even those with felony convictions, as guardians.

In recent years the General Assembly has taken several other steps to ease the burden of criminal records on people who have finished their sentences. For example, Illinois laws now allow expungement and sealing from public view of some nonviolent criminal records and create processes for issuance of certificates of good conduct and certificates of rehabilitation to qualified persons with criminal records.

For more information on S.B. 658 or Illinois’s other laws on criminal records, contact Margaret Stapleton at 312.368.3327.