[qingcharles]

Litigation takes forever. Especially when you factor COVID in. I'm still litigating cases from over a decade ago that are probably several years from resolution, just in the district court. Then you can spin through appeals courts for another five years. And that's civil.

Criminal, especially a death row case, can take 20+ years to exhaust every level of appellate review. In Illinois there are at least nine levels of review available to you without going through second rounds of review, state habeas, and collateral attacks like applications for clemency, pardons etc. If you're not paying for lawyers, expect each level to take around two years or more.