In June, the Illinois 2nd District Appellate Court reversed the first-degree murder conviction of defendant Gareng Deng under rather unusual circumstances. Deng, who pleaded guilty to a killing in 2009 in exchange for 35 years in prison, argued that his conviction should be overturned because the sentencing judge had given him too lenient a sentence — and the appellate panel agreed. People v. Deng, 2013 IL App (2d) 111089 (2013). The counterintuitive ruling was in accord with Illinois decisional law, under …