| On December 12, 2003, 25-year-old Thadieus Goods was arrested in Chicago, Illinois and charged with aggravated unlawful use of a firearm.
On September 3, 2004, Goods pled guilty in Cook County Circuit Court. He was sentenced to four years in prison.
In September 2013, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled in People v. Aguilar that the portion of the statute under which Goods had been convicted was unconstitutional. The statute said that a person committed the offense of aggravated unlawful use of a weapon when a person “carries on or about his person or in any vehicle or concealed on or about his person except when on his land or in his abode or fixed place of business any pistol, revolver, stun gun or taser or other firearm and the firearm is uncased, loaded and immediately accessible.”
The court held that this portion of the statute violated the right to keep and bear arms as guaranteed by the Second Amendment.
In 2020, Goods, represented by attorney Saani Mohammed, filed a motion to vacate the conviction based on the Aguilar ruling. After the motion was granted on October 1, 2020, Goods’s conviction was vacated and the charge was dismissed.
Goods then sought a motion for a certificate of innocence. On October 29, 2020, the motion was granted. Goods filed a claim with the Illinois Court of Claims seeking compensation. In February 2021, the court of claims awarded him $54,400 and an additional $5,600 for his attorney.
– Maurice Possley
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