The Highland Park parade shooting suspect is expected to enter a negotiated plea at a court hearing Wednesday, days ahead of the second anniversary of the July 4, 2022, massacre that killed seven and wounded dozens more.
The plea deal, if it's accepted by Judge Victoria Rossetti, could bring closure to the criminal case against Robert E. Crimo III sooner than expected.
Crimo's jury trial on 117 felony counts is scheduled for February. But prosecutors said last week said they expect Crimo, 23, to change his not guilty plea in the hearing at the Lake County Courthouse in Waukegan.
He pleaded not guilty during an arraignment in August 2022 and has been held at the Lake County Jail since.
Extra security is planned for the 9 a.m. hearing. The Lake County sheriff's office says it doesn't plan to close streets, as it did at the arraignment, but will deploy extra deputies in anticipation of the potential major hearing.
Crimo's potential plea deal has obvious benefits for the prosecution, which could save the resources needed for a potentially lengthy trial and spare victims from reliving details of the massacre.
Crimo's defense attorneys won't say why they're considering a deal. But one law expert said Crimo may consider a guilty plea because it avoids the automatic life sentence without the possibility of parole that would come from a guilty verdict at trial.
"By pleading guilty instead, the defense avoids this automatic mandatory life sentence and has the opportunity to potentially present mitigating evidence, such as mental health problems, family issues, etc., which may persuade the judge to give a sentence less than natural life," said Monu Bedi, professor at DePaul University College of Law.
Bedi said that it is unlikely the judge will give a sentence less than natural life without parole, given the number of victims and alleged premeditated nature of the killings, "but at least there is a chance if the defendant takes the plea route," he said in an email.
Crimo's father, Robert E. Crimo Jr., took a similar course last year, pleading guilty to misdemeanor charges that he recklessly signed his son's gun ownership card despite knowing about his son’s previous homicidal and suicidal statements. Crimo Jr. agreed to a two-month sentence and avoided a trial, where prosecutors would have had to prove that signing for his son's gun ownership card directly led to his son allegedly shooting from a rooftop at the parade over two years later.
The father's case came much closer to trial. He accepted the plea deal the day the trial was set to begin. In that trial, which was expected to be a preview of the son's potential trial, prosecutors were prepared to share a fraction of the evidence they collected in both cases. Prosecutors planned to read parts of a transcript of the 7½-hour police interrogation of Crimo III, in which he allegedly admits to the shooting.
If there's a plea deal, the public won't get a detailed look at the evidence that prosecutors would have presented at trial against Crimo III. The Lake County state's attorneys office said it has collected over 10,000 pages and pieces of evidence in the case.
A trial could shed more light on Crimo III's motive, which is still unclear. Authorities have said he planned the attacks for weeks. But Crimo III did not leave a manifesto or clear indication of why he allegedly did it.
In a federal search warrant affidavit, the FBI wrote that Crimo III allegedly said he committed the attack to "wake people up." In a leaked video call from jail in September, the suspect baselessly claimed the attack was staged by federal agents.
He had apparently published racist posts on social media, targeting Black people and Jews. While the paradegoers included many Jews from Highland Park, there was also a heavy Hispanic and Italian-American population from neighboring Highwood, where the suspect lived.
Mass shooters rarely go to trial. Nearly 60% of mass shooters are killed in the attack, either by themselves or law enforcement, according to one study that analyzed nearly 200 mass shootings between 1966 and 2019. About 35% of shooters survived and received a criminal penalty, whether it was jail time or a death sentence.
