People v. Nielson

Illinois Supreme Court

Decided June 17, 1999

Illinois Supreme Court · decided 1999-06-17

Relies on 185 Ill. 2d 179 - People v. Bull

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1999-06-17

How this case has been cited

Cited by 75 later decisions — most recently July 2025 · most notably 193 Ill. 2d 306 - People v. Williams (2000), 211 Ill. 2d 502 - People v. Pitman (2004)

3 federal appellate · 70 state decisions

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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JUSTICE HARRISON,

¶1concurring in part and dissenting in part:

¶2I agree that Nielson’s convictions should not be disturbed and that we should reduce the sentences on his concealment convictions to five years’ imprisonment. In my view, however, we should also set aside Nielson’s death sentence. For the reasons set forth in my dissent in People v. Bull, 185 Ill. 2d 179 (1998), this state’s present death penalty law does not meet the requirements of the eighth and fourteenth amendments to the United States Constitution (U.S. Const., amends. VIII, XIV) or article I, section 2, of the Illinois Constitution (Ill. Const. 1970, art. I, § 2). Because the law is unconstitutional, Nielson should be resentenced to a term of imprisonment. 720 ILCS 5/9—1(j) (West 1996). Because he was found guilty of murdering more than one victim, the term of his imprisonment must be natural life. 730 ILCS 5/5—8—1(a)(1)(c)(ii) (West 1996).