Baker’s sentencing hearing postponed

Joliet man found guilty of second-degree murder of Morris resident will be sentenced in April

MORRIS – The sentencing hearing for Kasim K. Baker of Joliet, who was found guilty of second-degree murder in the death of Morris resident Daniel Smiley, has been postponed until April 28.

The hearing was scheduled to begin at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday in the upstairs courtroom of the Grundy County Courthouse. However, while researching the sentencing code, Grundy County State’s Attorney Jason Helland found some case law that would allow his office to seek an enhanced sentence of 15 to 30 years. Normally, a second-degree murder conviction carries with it a sentence of four to 20 years. Both sentences are 50% sentences, meaning that the convicted party would only have to serve 50% of the sentence.

After Helland provided the case law, Public Defender Gary Dobbs asked for some time to research the statutes, and Judge Lance Peterson rescheduled the sentencing hearing for 1:30 p.m. April 28.

“We found this when we were researching for this hearing,” Helland said. “We wanted to give Mr. Dobbs and Judge Peterson time to research on their own so that we are all on the same page when the sentencing hearing takes place.”


Rob Oesterle

Rob Oesterle

Rob has been a sports writer for the Morris Herald-News and Joliet Herald-News for more than 20 years.