‘A bit opaque’ and confidential: Behind Illinois’ gubernatorial pardon
process
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[February 16, 2022]
By BETH HUNDSDORFER
Capitol News Illinois
bhundsdorfer@capitolnewsillinois.com
SPRINGFIELD – Jerame Simmons got his
long-held wish in December when he became the chief of the fire
department that dismissed him 24 years ago after he was charged with
setting fire to a vacant house and attempting to burn down his high
school.
It took a prosecutor’s dismissal of a serious felony arson charge, a
plea deal to get rid of two other felonies, misdemeanor charges wiped
from his record, dismissed domestic violence charges and a limited
police investigation into a gun charge to help make it happen.
But it was a pardon from Gov. JB Pritzker that finally cleared the way
for Simmons to become the full-time, paid fire chief for the Prairie Du
Pont Fire Department.
It’s one of 162 pardons issued thus far by the governor.
The case drew national attention as 11 of the department’s 13
firefighters resigned following the fire protection district’s decision
to oust the former chief in favor of Simmons, although some of them
reapplied. A petition from the ex-chief’s wife to remove Simmons
currently has 128 signatures.
It also shined a light on Illinois’ pardon process, described as “a bit
opaque” by a former U.S. pardon attorney.
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The process starts with the Illinois Prisoner Review Board, a
governor-appointed, 14-member board which has, for several months, been
operating with three vacancies and nine members serving without full
state Senate approval.
The board reviews all clemency petitions and makes a recommendation to
the governor as to whether they should be granted, but their decisions
are confidential, according to the board’s chief legal counsel, Kahalah
Clay.
“(T)he IPRB does not retry cases,” Clay said. “The IPRB reviews the
petitions that come before them and makes the requisite recommendations
based on those petitions.”
Simmons filed his petition on July 15, 2019, directly contradicting
contemporary law enforcement reports of a number of 1998 incidents which
led him to confess to setting a fire and using his father’s law
enforcement siren to make an unlawful traffic stop.
“This is a nightmare I play through my head a lot,” Simmons wrote in his
petition to receive that pardon. “If I had a chance to change anything
in my life, it would be the month of January and February the year of
1998. Those two months have put my whole life upside-down regarding any
career that I wished to have in any full-time job in public safety.”
In his petition for clemency, Simmons, the son of a former deputy U.S.
marshal and Metro East mayor, claimed innocence and submitted testimony
from local officials attesting to his work ethic and trustworthiness.
Due to the confidentiality of their recommendations, it’s unclear how
the IPRB weighed his former guilty plea against Simmons’ current-day
claims of innocence and evidence of reform.
But Pritzker’s spokesperson, Jordan Abudayyeh, pointed to consideration
of rehabilitation in his clemency decision.
“The governor is a strong believer in criminal justice reform and that
means carefully and thoughtfully considering petitions for clemency from
those who have demonstrated a commitment to rehabilitation while serving
their sentence and after,” she stated. “The governor takes the PRB’s
recommendations to heart as he weighs these decisions.”
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Simmons did not return repeated requests for comment.
The discrepancies
The fire that led to Simmons’ guilty plea occurred Feb. 13, 1998, when
an abandoned home nearby a bonfire that Simmons had attended was set
ablaze.
The contemporary report from the Illinois Fire Marshal noted there was a
5-gallon gas can with a small amount of gas inside found on the first
floor of the home, and flares were found at three different locations
throughout the house. Evidence of an accelerant was found on the steps
of the home, which had been set on fire three times before.
The report also outlined that Simmons, who was 18 years old at the time,
was driving a white van seen leaving the scene of the fire, and he wore
gloves and a coat that had the odor of gas.
As well, Simmons’ cousin told police that Simmons had started the fire.
Simmons eventually confessed to a St. Clair County Sheriff’s detective,
but in his petition Simmons said the officer “acted like a jerk” and
lied to him to leverage the confession.
Simmons now blames his cousin, according to the petition, which
described the evening in question as a typical night out that went
terribly wrong.
Simmons wrote he took a girl to dinner, then to a local bar and grill,
then to a bonfire in a rural area near the village of Dupo. Everyone at
the party was drinking or smoking marijuana, he wrote, except him.
At that bonfire, he bumped into his cousin, who later asked for a ride
home.
Someone had the idea of lighting a nearby vacant house on fire, and an
unlit road flare was tossed into the home, according to the petition.
After the teen boys taunted each other as “chicken,” Simmons wrote, his
cousin threw a lit flare into the house. The others watched and shouted.
Simmons wrote that he left the scene with his cousin in tow and his date
in the backseat.
Simmons, who was a volunteer firefighter at the time, received a page
alerting him of the fire as he was dropping his cousin off at home. He
headed to the Prairie Du Pont fire station where he served as a
volunteer firefighter and went out to help extinguish the fire at the
vacant house.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2022/Feb/16/images/ads/current/rohlfs_lda_072017.png)
That’s when police stopped Simmons and questioned him after a neighbor
identified the white van leaving the scene of the fire.
After his arrest, Simmons was charged with starting another fire at Dupo
High School one month prior to the February evening. He could have faced
15 years in prison on that charge.
Simmons was also charged with using emergency lights to stop a car in
the early hours of Jan. 24, 1998 – nine days after the fire at the
school and three weeks before the fire at the vacant house.
The two men reported a white van pulling them over. The driver of the
van got out, asked if the two men had alcohol, then displayed a badge
and told them he was a U.S. marshal. The van driver left, but the man
who was pulled over called deputies. They found Simmons at the wheel of
a white Chevrolet Astro Van registered to his father, Herb Simmons, who
served as a deputy U.S. marshal.
Herb Simmons, who was then the mayor of East Carondelet, later worked as
the 911 coordinator for St. Clair County. He now oversees St. Clair
County Emergency Management.
Simmons wrote in his petition that he was in the car with a friend when
his friend hit the emergency light. Simmons wrote that he immediately
turned it off, but the car in front of them pulled over. The car then
followed him to a nearby gas station – where he was confronted by his
brother’s ex-girlfriend who was a passenger in the car. In his petition,
Simmons denied ever getting out of the car.
The deal
In 1999, prosecutors offered Simmons a deal. They dropped the most
serious felony, related to the Dupo High School fire. In exchange,
Simmons would plead guilty to the other two charges. Simmons avoided
jail time, receiving a sentence of four years of probation.
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![](../images/021622pics/news_y47.jpg)
Gov. JB Pritzker is pictured at the Illinois
Emergency Management Agency building earlier this month. He has
signed 162 pardons thus far as governor. (Capitol News Illinois
photo by Jerry Nowicki)
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2015/May/02/images/ads/current/guzzardo_lda022609.png)
Despite claiming innocence in his 2019 petition, Simmons never filed a
petition for post-conviction relief, never appealed in state court, and
never challenged his convictions in federal court in the 20 years
following his guilty plea.
That’s not surprising, said Margaret Love, who served as U.S. pardon
attorney between 1990 and 1997, and has represented numerous individuals
in the federal conviction clemency process.
“It’s hard to overturn a conviction, especially if there is a guilty
plea,” she said.
While claiming innocence in a clemency petition is rare, it’s not
unheard of, she added.
“Both things can be true,” she said. “That he confessed and pleaded
guilty and that he is actually innocent.”
Simmons completed his probation but was later charged with a host of
other crimes. Those include:
A 2006 charge of leaving the scene of an accident, to which he pleaded
guilty and was sentenced to six months supervision.
A 2006 charge of violating an order of protection, which was dismissed.
A 2008 charge of falsely impersonating a police officer, which was also
dismissed.
Two charges in 2008 for violating an order of protection, both of which
were dismissed.
A 2009 charge of obstructing a police officer, to which he pleaded
guilty and was sentenced to conditional discharge.
A 2016 charge of disorderly conduct, to which he pleaded guilty and was
sentenced to 90 days of court supervision.
In 2018, Simmons was charged with disorderly conduct for a fight at a
strip club in Sauget. One of the bouncers at the club told police that
Simmons pulled a gun on him when he tried to remove his wife from the
club, according to a 2018 report from the Belleville News-Democrat.
Simmons later told police that it was an electronic cigarette. Police
did not review the surveillance tape of the incident, the article said.
If the tape showed Simmons had a gun, it could have resulted in a felony
possession charge.
Instead, Simmons pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor and received 90 days
court supervision.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2022/Feb/16/images/ads/current/ldn_sda_062409.png)
He also included an explanation for the violations of the order of
protection charges. The petition stated that Simmons and his wife had a
“falling out” and he was arrested.
In a sworn petition requesting that order of protection, Simmons’ wife
outlined six months of abuse that included choking, punching,
head-butting, breaking her phone and threating to “blow up” her car.
A Monroe County judge ordered Simmons to stay away from his wife for two
years. Simmons’ wife later asked the judge to lift the order, but he
refused.
The PRB
The Illinois Prisoner Review Board’s responsibilities include setting
release conditions for offenders exiting prison, making decisions on the
revocation and restoration of good conduct credits, holding hearings to
determine whether parolees have violated conditions of parole, and
notifying victims and their families when an inmate is about to be
released.
That’s on top of providing confidential recommendations to the governor.
The clemency process is not always transparent, but it is absolute, said
Love, the former pardon attorney.
“The Illinois system is a bit opaque,” she said. “As far as the Prisoner
Review Board, who knows why they recommended or didn’t recommend it? And
who knows why the governor granted it or didn’t grant it?”
Nine of the 11 current members of the Prisoner Review Board appointed by
Pritzker are awaiting full approval from the Senate, and there are three
vacancies on the 14-member board.
Despite the urging of the Senate Republican Caucus, the Senate Executive
Appointments Committee has repeatedly failed to take up the nine pending
appointees since 2019.
In March, Pritzker withdrew the nine appointments and reappointed them
to reset their appointments in the absence of the committee acting
within a legislative legal timeline.
Senate Republicans cried foul, claiming the four appointees sat on the
board without approval for more than two years, making major decisions
without proper Senate vetting.
Sen. Laura Murphy, D-Des Plaines, chairs the Executive Appointment
Committee and did not return a request for comment.
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A clean slate
Simmons’ pardon was signed by Pritzker on May 14. Those cases were
expunged and are no longer available for review.
When a police officer runs Simmons’ record, his convictions will not
show up. The public cannot view his court files. The only version
available to the public was included by Simmons in his clemency
petition.
Simmons can now legally carry a gun, and he’s free to serve in the
full-time, paid public safety officer position he currently holds.
And by several accounts, he’s a changed man.
Included with his petition were letters of support from Brooklyn Police
Chief Thomas Jeffery, Brooklyn Village President Vera Glasper-Banks,
former Washington Park Fire Chief Charles Schreiber, East Carondelet
Police Lt. Rodney Stone and East Carondelet Village Trustee James Brown.
“He has proven himself to me to be an honest, trustworthy, hardworking,
caring individual. I would not be writing this letter if I did not truly
believe Jerame possessed those qualities and traits,” Dupo Police Chief
Kevin Smith wrote.
Simmons trained with a K-9 officer, searched for missing kids, and
started a Boy Scout Police Explorer program. He received First
Responder, Firefighter Chief, Police Safety Commissions and University
of Illinois and Federal Emergency Management Association certificates.
He served as the director of the Public Safety Department of Emergency
Services for East Carondelet – where his father was the longtime mayor –
in 2005. He volunteered with Golden Garden Fire Department, Valmeyer
Fire Department, and East Carondelet Fire Department. He was acting fire
chief for the Brooklyn Fire Protection District.
In the ideal clemency petition, according to Love, the person accepts
responsibility for the criminal conduct and shows how they have changed
by doing good work in the community.
A little bit of influence doesn’t hurt, she added. She encourages
clients who have connections to use them to support their bids for
clemency.
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Acts of community service are also important factors for the PRB and the
governor to consider, Love said.
Abudayyeh, the governor’s spokesperson, specifically pointed to the
letters of community support when it came to the governor’s decision to
pardon Simmons.
Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service covering
state government and distributed to more than 400 newspapers statewide.
It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert
R. McCormick Foundation. |