Gov. Pat Quinn on Friday named former federal prosecutors, FBI agents and judges to a seven-member panel to review objections raised by law enforcement to people who apply to carry a concealed firearm under the state’s new law.
The move is the latest step to put in place the state’s new concealed carry law, a legislative compromise enacted last summer after a federal appeals court ruled Illinois had to give up its status as the last state in the nation to ban possession of firearms in public.
Under the law, people apply for concealed carry permits and police departments can object to the application. The review panel hears appeals of those objections and is supposed to decide within 30 days whether the applicant poses a danger to themselves or others or is a threat to public safety.
The panel’s membership represents the state’s five judicial districts, including three from Cook County, and is supposed to include commissioners with judicial, prosecutorial, criminal justice and mental health treatment experience.
Appointed from the First District were Robinzina Bryant of Flossmoor, who spent a decade as a special agent with the FBI in Chicago and St. Louis; Dr. James Lewis Cavanaugh of Winnetka, a professor of psychiatry at Rush University Medical Center and a behavioral risk analyst; and Virginia Wright of Palatine, who served as a special agent with the FBI for 24 years in New York, New Haven and Chicago.
Sergio Acosta of Elmhurst was picked to represent the Second District, which includes the west suburbs and north and northwestern Illinois. Acosta is the former Illinois Gaming Board administrator, a partner with Hinshaw & Culbertson and once headed the general crimes section of the criminal division of the U.S. Attorney’s office in Chicago.
For the Third Judicial District, which includes Will County and north central Illinois, Quinn named John Diwik of Naperville, a criminal investigator with Amtrak’s office of inspector general and a former FBI special agent.
From the Fourth Judicial District, made up of central Illinois, Quinn named Patrick Chesley, a private attorney who served as an assistant U.S. attorney in Springfield for nearly 30 years. Chesley previously worked in the state attorney general’s office.
Representing the Fifth Judicial District, covering southern Illinois, Quinn named recently retired federal judge G. Patrick Murphy of Williamson County.
Quinn called his choices “highly qualified and committed individuals” who will “carry out their duties diligently to protect public safety.” The initial appointments, which require Senate confirmation, are for a term that ends Jan. 12, 2015. The positions pay $37,571 a year.
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