There will be no purge at the McLean County Jail on January 1st. Due to a court decision on Wednesday the Illinois Safe-T Act will not be fully going forward according to Sheriff Matt Lane who spoke with Cities 92.9 on Thursday.
Lane said, “The Pre Trial Fairness Portion is not going to be in affect for the county because we were involved in a lawsuit, which means that the Safe-T Act itself as a whole wasn’t found unconstitutional but the Pre Trial Fairness portion of it was. And we are going to be doing business as usual. Basically we are going to continue to do it the way we have always done.”
The Pre Trial Fairness Portion that referred to the end of cash bail in Illinois is in question now after Kankakee County Circuit Court Judge Thomas W. Cunnington said the state legislature “improperly attempted to amend the [Illinois] Constitution,” by ending cash bail.
Cunnington wrote regarding the Pre Trial Fairness Portion, “This will undoubtedly lead to increased overtime, staffing needs, and other costs. More importantly, it puts the Sheriff’s staff at increased risk. The court finds that this issue is not simply a police dispute, as defendants urge, but a clear matter of law enforcement safety.”
Illinois State Attorney General Kwame Raoul issued a statement saying, “Although the court’s decision is binding in the 65 cases that were consolidated in Kankakee County, it is important to note that it is not binding in any other case, including those involving criminal defendants in any of the state’s 102 counties.”
But others are interpreting the decision differently. The 65 cases involve 65 counties that challenged the law. Kankakee County State’s Attorney Jim Rowe said in a release that the Pre Trial Fairness Portion will not go into effect in the 65 counties that were party to the lawsuit.
One could argue that the ruling does not apply to any of the remaining 37 counties that were not involved in the suit and therefore those counties should move forward with the No Cash Bail system proposed. But some of those counties disagree with that. For example, Peoria County was not part of the suit but they have decided not to make a change at this time either.
Peoria County State’s Attorney Jodi Hoos released a statement saying, “Although Peoria County did not participate in this ruling, we are required to follow it. When a statute is unconstitutional, the statute becomes invalid and has no force or effect on anyone. As a result, and until the Illinois Supreme Court provides further clarification, we will abide by this ruling and not implement the new bail reform.”
Raoul said in his statement, “To definitively resolve this challenge to the pretrial release portions of the SAFE-T Act, Governor Pritzker, the legislative leaders named in the consolidated cases and I intend to appeal the circuit court’s decision directly to the Illinois Supreme Court, where we will ask the court to reverse the circuit court’s decision.”
But there is no way of knowing how soon that might be. The case could potentially appear on the January, February or March State Supreme Court Docket.