Safe-T Act Ruled Unconstitutional

[davel501]

On 10/9/2024 at 1:50 PM, MrTriple said:

Stuff like this is precisely why I get so annoyed with supporters of the SAFE-T Act. You cannot seriously argue that allowing violent criminals to go out on pretrial release is a good thing when there's functionally no means of enforcing their compliance with the terms of their release.

 

(Granted, there's a big difference between politicians who support it and the rank and file voters who also support it. My issue is with those voters. I don't expect the politicians to be honest with others, let alone themselves, about the utter failure of the bill, but what excuse do the voters have?)

 

And yet people will seriously insist that the old bail system could be abused by "rich defendants," in spite of the fact that this line of argument makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. So instead of making them put up bail money we're just gonna release them instead? And that's supposed to somehow work better?

 

It's taking the "One innocent person assumption" a few steps too far. The assumption is that there is at least one innocent person being held for one reason or another. It makes a lot of sense when you are looking at the history of the death penalty and why life in prison is probably as far as we can go morally as a society. Big difference in scenarios though. Murderers stay locked up; we just don't put innocent people to death.  Seems to me, the better fix here would have been to a system where the state pays legal fees, lost wages, etc. if you are acquitted. Suddenly, even the best lawyers are public defenders and bad police are a finacial liability.

[Euler]

There are two things being conflated in this issue.

One is the power to hold a person without an opportunity to bail out or bond out. Judges still have the ability to hold people (remand) if they are a danger to the community or a risk of flight. They just aren't doing it. Even if a judge deems someone not a danger, not showing up (failure to appear) is demonstration of risk of flight.

The other is bail/bond amounts. The purpose of bail is that it's incentive to make people show up to get their money back. Unfortunately Illinois made bail bondsmen illegal a while ago. Instead Illinois had bonds paid to the government. Anyone who pays a bond doesn't get that money back, even if they do show up for court. In other words, someone who pays a bond directly to the government has no incentive to return for court.

Aside: if they paid a bond to a bondsman, then the bondsman would have incentive to hunt the fugitive down for a bounty, because the bondsman would want his money back from the bail.

Bonds amounts were used as a cop-out for not remanding someone, but bonds also penalized people who were probably innocent. The Illinois bond system penalized poor people for being poor. Not penalizing the innocent is a good thing. The 8th Amendment hasn't been repealed. The underlying problem has always been and still is judges who won't remand dangers to the community and risks of flight, which is not an 8A violation. In that regard, Safe-T is a distraction from the problem, which it didn't solve.

Edited October 9, 2024 at 10:44 PM by Euler

[JTHunter]

Euler - didn't it use to be that, if you put 10% of the bond up and then showed up in court, you got all but 10% of that 10% back from the county?

[davel501]

On 10/9/2024 at 5:42 PM, Euler said:

There are two things being conflated in this issue.

One is the power to hold a person without an opportunity to bail out or bond out. Judges still have the ability to hold people (remand) if they are a danger to the community or a risk of flight. They just aren't doing it. Even if a judge deems someone not a danger, not showing up (failure to appear) is demonstration of risk of flight.
 

 

There are a lot of articles about judges saying they wish could hold someone but the safe t act prohibits it. 

[Euler]

CWBChicago said:→

A woman jailed by a judge after she failed to appear in court at least five times for a stolen motor vehicle case is asking the Illinois Supreme Court to set her free.

After being arrested on December 29, 2023, Aimee Stewart, 38, missed court four days later and then again on March 21, June 5, September 4, 2024, and October 15, according to public records. She turned herself in on November 5 but was also charged with possessing a controlled substance for drugs she allegedly had when she surrendered, according to a court filing.

She has been in the Cook County jail since then because Judge Steven Rosenblum ordered her jailed for failing to appear in the stolen motor vehicle case, even though prosecutors didn't file a detention petition, court records show.

"It does not matter how many times you release Miss Stewart, Miss Stewart is not going to come to court," Rosenblum found.

The judge appeared to take issue with the SAFE-T Act, which limits the amount of time a defendant can be detained for failure to appear to 30 days.

"It is impossible to administer justice to Miss Stewart under the present situation with the Pretrial Fairness Act. This court will no longer go along with that situation. It is four warrants before we even get to an arraignment date on Miss Stewart. So I am not releasing her. Defendant is to be detained," Rosenblum said.
...
He said the SAFE-T Act, "as applied to a person like Miss Stewart is, quite frankly, unconstitutional."
...
"So this is a case that needs to be decided by the Supreme Court," Rosenblum said. "If the Supreme Court agrees with me that the statute has constitutional issues with it, then perhaps the legislature will fix it and we won’t have this problem. The judges will have the discretion to do their jobs."
...
[During oral arguments at the Supreme Court Wednesday,] Special Asst. Attorney General Alan Spellberg countered, "When a judge is satisfied that the evidence shows that the defendant will not appear in court, regardless of the conditions, the judge has the inherent authority to deny pretrial release."

The justices are expected to release a decision later this year.

Alan Spellberg is one of the lawyers who quit the CC ASA office in 2021 because he couldn't stand Foxx. Although the CWB article does not explain it, he is now "Special ASA" for Will County.

[TRussell]

On 5/22/2025 at 9:35 PM, Euler said:

Alan Spellberg is one of the lawyers who quit the CC ASA office in 2021 because he couldn't stand Foxx. Although the CWB article does not explain it, he is now "Special ASA" for Will County.

Our state is a mess. And the SAFE-T act is not helpful. Needs to be overturned.

[JTHunter]

On 5/24/2025 at 8:41 AM, TRussell said:

Our state is a mess. And the SAFE-T act is not helpful. Needs to be overturned.

 

No more so than the FOID, PICA, the ban on suppressors/threaded barrels, ad nauseam. 🤮

[Euler]

It turns out the SAFE-T Act "cashless bail" doesn't apply to divorce, either.

CWBChicago said:→

...
Steve Fanady, unable to convince the court he lacks the $10 million he was ordered to pay his ex-wife from their 2011 divorce, faces an indefinite stay in custody -- a situation his attorney calls an unconstitutional "debtor's prison."

Already, Fanady has spent more time behind bars than most people convicted in Cook County of illegal gun possession or even robbery. And his case provides an interesting example of justice in Illinois, where the SAFE-T Act prohibits the majority of criminal defendants from being jailed.
...
[Fanady's attorney, Laura Grochocki] argued Fanady may spend more time in jail than top politicians convicted of corruption, including former Chicago Ald. Ed Burke and former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan.

The dude may still be a deadbeat.

[SiliconSorcerer]

On 6/25/2025 at 7:02 PM, Euler said:

It turns out the SAFE-T Act "cashless bail" doesn't apply to divorce, either.


The dude may still be a deadbeat.

A well off one. 

[yurimodin]

Govt marriage........what was it PT Barnam used to say?

[Windchaser]

But how is he supposed to pay it back if he is in jail? He will have little to no earning power. At least very little control over it.

[Euler]

Another "cashless bail" shocker: no one enforces electronic monitoring conditions in Cook County.

CWBChicago said:→

...
Cook County actually has four electronic monitoring programs, three of which are run by the chief judge: a GPS-tracking system for domestic violence defendants, a pretrial curfew system for defendants ordered to be home during certain hours, and the full-blown monitoring program for defendants who, at least on paper, are supposed to be in their homes around the clock.

The fourth system, operated by the Cook County Sheriff's Office, is being phased out. The sheriff's program served as the county's customary "24/7" monitoring system until officials transferred responsibility to Evans' office on April 1. The sheriff's office will continue to monitor participants who were already in its program on that date, but no new participants are being admitted as the operation winds down.
...
After staying silent for more than a week after the CTA fire attack, [outgoing chief Cook County judge Timothy] Evans issued his first public statement about his monitoring programs last Tuesday, but only after the Chicago Tribune criticized his office in an editorial that cited CWBChicago's reporting.

In that statement, Evans admitted that his staff does not try to apprehend people who abscond from electronic monitoring. The staff does not notify law enforcement either. Instead, they take note of the violations and pass them on to the judge at the defendant's next court date.

Even in what Evans called "major violations," such as the unauthorized removal of an ankle monitor, the chief judge's staff does not notify law enforcement. Within 72 hours of the band's removal, they notify the relevant judge and the Cook County State's Attorney's Office, neither of which has any way to track down and apprehend the violator.
...
And because the courts are exempt from FOIA, they remain a black hole where poor procedures and failed programs can hide. The only information the public receives about their operations is what the chief judge chooses to release. That's another policy that serves no one -- other than the chief judge. Exactly how [new chief Cook county judge Charles] Beach will address those transparency issues, if at all, remains to be seen.

[TomKoz]

Ankle monitors/monitoring do nothing.

 

Hmmm 🤔 which Illinois politicians have ties to ankle monitor contracts ??  #USDOJ 

[Euler]

CWBChicago said:→

Some of Illinois' most powerful Democrats are signaling a willingness to revisit parts of the SAFE-T Act, the sweeping criminal justice overhaul that eliminated cash bail and significantly loosened restrictions on electronic monitoring. But there are questions about who, if anyone, is actually studying the law's effectiveness.

House Speaker Emanuel "Chris" Welch told Capitol News Illinois this week that he is waiting for a report from the chief judge of Cook County before deciding whether to pursue legislative changes. Welch suggested the new chief judge was reviewing how the law is working and could bring recommendations to lawmakers.

But the chief judge's office says there is no SAFE-T Act report coming.
...
On his second day in office, [Cook County Chief Judge Charles] Beach announced the creation of a panel tasked with examining the chief judge's electronic monitoring program. That group was instructed to review how the program functions and return findings and recommendations by the end of January. The announcement did not reference the SAFE-T Act itself or broader statutory changes.
...
After Welch's comments were published, we asked Beach's office whether evaluating or improving the SAFE-T Act is part of the assignment given to the electronic monitoring panel and whether the chief judge was preparing a separate report with recommendations for changes to the law.

"The answer to both questions," a spokesperson for the chief judge said, "is, simply, no."
...
Welch's office did not respond to a request for comment and clarification of his statements.