On Jan. 29, former Sangamon County deputy Sean Grayson was sentenced to 20 years in prison for the killing of Sonya Massey, a 36-year-old Springfield resident.
In July 2024, two deputies, including Grayson, arrived at Massey’s home in Springfield after she called police to report a potential break-in. Grayson shot Massey 30 minutes later, after assuming Massey was going to throw a pot of hot water at him.
During Grayson’s trial, which occurred from Oct. 20-29, the jury found him guilty of second-degree murder and acquitted him of first-degree murder. The second-degree murder charge carries a sentence of between four and 20 years, a contrast to the minimum 45-year sentence Grayson could have received if convicted of first-degree murder.
When Grayson’s sentencing was announced, so was the possibility that his sentence could be reduced by half due to earning day-for-day credit for good behavior.
As far as the Illinois Prisoner Review Board’s role in granting Grayson’s potential early release, Eric A. Johnson, professor in Law specializing in criminal law, said the day-for-day credit would be automatic if Grayson behaves in prison.
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“It’s not as though the parole board gets to decide whether to confer those or not,” Johnson said. “So because these are automatic and because he probably won’t have a big prison disciplinary record, he’s just going to be entitled to those good time credits despite what he ended up doing and the severity of his offense.”
Johnson went on to say that day-for-day credit exists to encourage prisoners to behave and is not affected by the seriousness of Grayson’s offense.
“If you’re running a correction system, you’ve got to have those kinds of tools to keep the prison population in line,” Johnson said. “The good time credits are not premised on the idea that his offense wasn’t bad in the first instance or anything. That’s reflected in the fact that he got a 20-year sentence instead of a 10-year sentence.
Prior to Grayson’s 2024 arrest, he had a history of misconduct at his past jobs. This included sexually harassing a detainee after her arrest, charging someone with a felony without evidence, a dismissal from the United States Army and two DUI arrests.
After the Invisible Institute, a nonprofit journalism institute focusing on social justice issues, investigated Grayson’s criminal record, Massey’s family advocated for the reform of the SAFE-T Act to improve police hiring practices.
In February 2025, Massey’s family reached a $10 million settlement in the wrongful death lawsuit with Sangamon County and Sangamon County Sheriff’s Office months after Massey’s murder.
Johnson says that Grayson’s criminal record did not play a role in his conviction because the defendant’s background was not directly relevant to the crime. He went on to say that Grayson’s sentencing was likely not affected by his previous charges.
“If you’ve got someone who’s committing burglaries, robberies, batteries and they’ve gotten a bunch of them, in that situation, it’s like, ‘We’ve tried this before, and he’s not getting the message,’” Johnson said. “This is a different crime than the things that he’s been in trouble for, and it doesn’t seem like a situation where that history would’ve played a huge role in sentencing.”
In August 2025, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker signed SB1953, also known as Sonya Massey’s Bill, into law. It requires law enforcement agencies to conduct stricter background checks before hiring police officers.
“There’s no question — we want that information,” Johnson said. “People need to have the available information so they can make the right decisions. What you hope is by considering that sort of information, you don’t wind up with a situation like (Massey’s death) arising, so that seems like a good move on Governor Pritzker’s part.”
