Alma Is Free.

Alma Durr got some great news last week.

Her time behind bars had come to an end. She would soon be free.

The former resident of Calumet City, Illinois was serving a natural life sentence in the Illinois Department of Corrections for a 1996 conviction.

According to media reports, she got her 21-month-old son Darryl from his foster home. Darryl had been born with crack cocaine in his system and was taken from Alma almost immediately by DCFS.

After picking him up, Alma got some drugs and smoked dope for hours in his presence. Early the next morning, with her boyfriend in the house, Alma put a .357 revolver to Darryl’s head--as he slept--- and pulled the trigger. She says she thought about taking her own life….but lacked the nerve. Darryl, of course, died at a nearby hospital. She told authorities stress was the key factor. She was tired of getting stuck in the snow.

A jury of her peers found her guilty of murder and eligible for the death penalty. But the judge decided on a life sentence.

Fast forward to last week. Under the cover of a pandemic, the Governor of Illinois commuted her sentence.  

Alma and six other convicted murderers were freed by J.B. Pritzker who has not even tried to tie his decision to the pandemic.

This commutation of Alma Durr’s life sentence is a grotesque mockery of our justice system.