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.

[Euler]

CWBChicago said:→

Cook County's new chief judge on Wednesday announced sweeping changes to his office's electronic monitoring (EM) programs, requiring all major violations to be reported to judges within 24 hours and lowering the threshold for what constitutes a major violation from 48 hours of unauthorized absence to just three hours.

The updated protocols represent Chief Judge Charles S. Beach II's first major policy initiative since taking office on December 2 amid intense criticism of the court's handling of electronic monitoring.
...
Under the new system, absences of three hours or more will now be classified as major violations and will be brought in for judicial review within 24 hours, according to Beach's office. That's a significant change from the previous policy, which classified major violations as 48 hours of unauthorized absence. Beach's office said weekday violations are already being reported to judges within 24 hours under the new program. Weekend violations will be reported within that timeframe, beginning on February 7.

Absences of less than three hours will continue to be handled by the Pretrial Services Department and returned to court when warranted, Beach's office said.

Beach's office also announced that the Cook County Sheriff's Office has agreed to expedite service of EM-related warrants, and the Clerk of the Circuit Court has agreed to ensure the matters are placed on the court call within 24 hours.
...
As of Sunday, the chief judge's electronic monitoring programs were tracking 39 defendants awaiting trial for murder or attempted murder and another 110 facing serious sex crime allegations, according to the office's website.
...
In Wednesday's announcement, the court said it has been working with partners, including the Clerk of the Circuit Court, the Cook County Sheriff's Office, the State's Attorney's Office, and the Office of the Public Defender, to develop the updated response protocols.
...

[John Q Public]

And yet, it's still the law of Illinois....

[Euler]

When words are just words ...

CWBChicago said:→

When accused cop killer Alphonso Talley vanished from Cook County's electronic monitoring system for more than 17 hours last month, then disappeared entirely after letting his ankle bracelet battery run dead, a series of safeguards were supposed to kick in.

A judge was supposed to be notified within 24 hours. A warrant, once issued, was supposed to be fast-tracked for service. A seven-time convicted felon already on pretrial release for armed carjacking and armed robbery was on the loose, and authorities were supposed to round him up.

That didn't happen.

Those safeguards were the centerpiece of a high-profile push by Chief Judge Charles Beach, who made overhauling the county's troubled electronic monitoring programs the very first move he announced publicly after taking office on December 1.
...
CWB Chicago has also learned that Talley had additional major EM violations in February.

On February 10, Judge Lakshmi Jha was presiding in place of Lyke when an officer from Beach's office reported that Talley had been away from home for more than three hours without permission, sometimes during overnight hours.

Assistant Public Defender Lauren Widdowson told Jha that Talley had used some unauthorized absences to obtain his birth certificate, secure an ID, and register as a gun offender to get into parole compliance.

"He has done what he needs to register, so he should not have those violations anymore," Widdowson said.

Regarding overnight violations, Widdowson said Talley had been changing residences and that the late-night issues should be resolved, too.

Jha warned Talley to comply with his monitoring restrictions and deferred the matter for Lyke to address on March 11.
...
Talley, who failed to appear for that court date, did not meet their hopes and expectations.

Beach's office did not respond to two requests for information and comment before publication of this report.
...

[Euler]

CWBChicago said:→

It's the question everyone is asking: Was Judge John Lyke required to release suspected cop killer Alphonso Talley under the SAFE-T Act?
...
Prosecutors argued for Lyke to keep Talley in jail, pointing out that two of Talley's four pending cases, an armed carjacking and an armed robbery, were allegedly committed while he was on electronic monitoring for the other two cases. They also pointed to Talley's background, which includes four robbery convictions.
...
Then, and this is where Lyke crossed the Rubicon, the judge made his finding: "This court cannot find that the state has met its burden by clear and convincing evidence that there is no condition or combinations of conditions that this court can impose to protect any person or persons in the community when weighing everything with a fresh set of eyes and understanding."

At that point, the SAFE-T Act required Lyke to release Talley on the least restrictive conditions Lyke believed were necessary to keep the public safe. He had no choice in the matter. A judge cannot decide that electronic monitoring is sufficient and then keep someone locked up anyway. The law does not allow it.

The answer, then, is yes. Once Lyke determined that conditions existed that could protect the public while Talley awaited trial outside jail, the SAFE-T Act required him to release Talley on those conditions.

The Illinois Network for Pretrial Justice issued a press release on Monday stating, among other things, "there was absolutely nothing in the law that prohibited the detention of Alphanso Talley while he was awaiting trial. Any statement to the contrary is manifestly false." It has repeated similar statements throughout the week.

A spokesperson for the network stood by that statement in an email. When asked to explain its position, given the step-by-step process explained above, the spokesperson said, "The reality here is that the law didn't require Judge Lyke to make the finding that he did. All information is up to interpretation."

We'll let all of that speak for itself. [i.e., "pretrial fairness" is subjective, not objective --e]

The fact is this: There are only three ways Lyke could have kept Talley in custody on December 11:

• By finding that he was too dangerous to release and detaining him in accordance with the SAFE-T Act
• By finding that he was safe to release but detaining him anyway in violation of the law
• By concluding Talley was safe to release, but keeping that thought to himself and finding Talley too dangerous to release, in violation of his judicial oath

...
While we're on the topic, Gov. JB Pritzker mentioned cash bail this week while speaking about Lyke's decision to release Talley, and he once again demonstrated that he either does not understand how cash bail worked or is willfully misinforming the public about it.

"It's one of the great things about the SAFE-T Act," Pritzker said. "We give judges the ability to say, ‘No, you're not going to get bail. You are going to stay in jail,' and to also make the decision that someone who has committed a non-violent offense doesn't have to come up with $500 or $1,000 or $5,000 that they otherwise would have had to pay to get bail."

In fact, people who committed non-violent offenses under the cash bail system were routinely released without posting a penny, set free on so-called "I-bonds," or recognizance bonds, often without even going to court. Even people who were taken to court for non-violent crimes were routinely released on I-bonds under the cash bail system.

Pritzker's talking point, which suggests that everyone swept up in a minor encounter with the law had to come up with cash, is far from the truth.

In other words, SAFE-T requires a judge to impose the least restrictive measures that prevent the defendant from committing further offenses while awaiting trial. if a judge believes that an ankle monitor or any other kind of conditional release is not sufficient to keep the public safe, he can order the defendant to be held until trial. Talley had committed two violent felonies while he was wearing an ankle monitor. Clearly (and convincingly) the ankle monitor wasn't stopping his crime.

[BobPistol]

So what's the status on this?   Is this law dead and finally can be buried?   Or is it in further litigation because..........reasons? 

[Euler]

The state supreme court overturned the ruling that the law is unconstitutional. The law is alive. To the best of my knowledge, there is no challenge to it. "Pretrial fairness" is still quite a football, though.

[Euler]

CWBChicago said:→

Cook County court officials now say that 8% of the people on the chief judge's electronic monitoring program are missing, marking the first major disclosure in what Chief Judge Charles Beach described as a renewed transparency effort following the killing of an on-duty Chicago police officer and the critical wounding of his partner last month, allegedly by a seven-time felon who had escaped the ankle monitor program.

With 3,048 participants currently on electronic monitoring, an 8% AWOL rate means 244 people with pending criminal cases, most likely felony charges, are unaccounted for.
...
Tuesday's disclosure came after CWB Chicago twice requested electronic monitoring escape data from Beach's office in the days following the April 25 fatal shooting of Officer John Bartholomew and the life-altering wounding of his partner, as they guarded a prisoner at Swedish Hospital. Beach's office never responded to either request. It also failed to answer questions about what charges the program's escapees are facing in court, a question that went unanswered in Tuesday's press release as well.
...
In January, Beach said the sheriff's office had agreed to expedite electronic monitoring warrants. ... Beach's Tuesday press release makes no mention of the expedited warrant arrangement, which had been a talking point in his January overhaul announcement.

Beach's office said 4% of program participants were considered AWOL when the new protocols took effect on January 28, but noted that the definition of AWOL was significantly broader at that time.

The definition of AWOL is narrower, but there is twice the proportion of people classified as AWOL. Hmm ...

[TomKoz]

Strip immunity from judges IF repeat offenders that could have / should have been incarcerated are released into the population And commit additional Felonies !

Edited May 14, 2026 at 03:31 AM by TomKoz
Add details

[Jeffrey]

On 5/13/2026 at 10:28 PM, TomKoz said:

Strip immunity from judges IF repeat offenders that could have / should have been incarcerated are released into the population And commit additional Felonies !

Wouldn't a judge need to enforce it?  Illinois judges are strong like a wet noodle unless you're Republican.

[John Q Public]

They keep passing more and more, but don't enforce them...  Until they do, it's a tactic as old as the Lords.

[Euler]

CWBChicago said:→

...
CWB Chicago was the first to report on Tuesday that [Judge Charles] Beach's office had revealed 8% of the people on its ankle monitoring program -- about 244 people, most likely with pending felony charges -- have gone AWOL, with nobody knowing where they are.

"It doesn't mean they're out committing crimes necessarily," Beach told WGN. "Some might be. But they're actively being searched for right now by law enforcement."

That is not the case, according to two law enforcement sources who spoke with CWB Chicago on Thursday morning.

"Nobody's actively looking for his EM escapes," said one, who explained most warrants for people who disappear while on electronic monitoring are treated like "failure to appear" warrants -- arrest warrants issued when someone fails to show up for a court date. The warrant is placed in a nationwide law enforcement database, where it will sit until the wanted person comes into contact with police sometime in the future. Exceptions are made if the courts flag a warrant for special attention, but they did not do so for [accused cop killer Alphonso] Talley.
...

[Euler]

CWBChicago said:→

More than one-third of the people on electronic monitoring for shoplifting cases in Cook County have gone missing, according to newly released data from Chief Judge Charles Beach. So have a quarter of the robbery defendants. ...

Tuesday's report shows that of the 244 missing defendants, about 24% were on electronic monitoring for domestic-related charges. Alleged shoplifters dominate the balance: 24 people put on ankle monitors after being charged with shoplifting have gone AWOL, but a separate report by Beach's office shows only 73 people are on ankle monitors for shoplifting, so a third of them have gone missing.

Also showing above-average disappearance rates: burglars. Nearly 15% of them have slipped away while awaiting trial. And 27% of people charged with battery have gone AWOL, too. For more serious aggravated battery cases, the AWOL rate is 10%.

Judges have put 13 robbers on ankle monitors and three of them have disappeared — that's a 23% disappearance rate. If the robberies involved a weapon, the disappearance rate dips to 9%. Ankle monitors are also failing 23% of the time when they're put on auto theft defendants, according to Beach's data.

Of the 19 people charged with attempted murder who've been put on electronic monitoring, only one is unaccounted for.
...
Since [Alphonso] Talley allegedly killed [Chicago Police Officer John] Bartholomew, Beach's office has repeatedly failed to respond to emails from CWB Chicago seeking information about the charges being faced by AWOL participants.

It's interesting that armed robbers are, in some sense, more honest than shoplifters.