The Illinois Supreme Court has issued a stay on the provision of the SAFE-T Act abolishing cash bail. Tim Ward reports at ABC 7 Chicago:
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (WLS) — The Illinois Supreme Court has halted the Pre Trial Fairness Act, a provision of the Safe-T Act, hours before it is set to go in effect at the first of the year.
The decision handed means, until further notice, every county in the state must maintain a cash bail system.
The court issued the order Saturday evening, keeping the cash bail system until further notice as the state appeals a judge’s ruling on the matter.
“Throughout the entire state of Illinois, we need to have the same rules, the same protections for every single person no matter where they live,” said Kane County State’s Attorney Jamie Mosser.
Earlier this week, a Kankakee County judge ruled that a portion of the Safe-T Act, that ends cash bail in Illinois, is unconstitutional after states attorneys in 65 Illinois counties challenged the new law.
In his 33-page opinion, Judge Thomas Cunnington cited the need for a separation of powers, saying “…the appropriateness of bail rests with the authority of the court and may not be determined by legislative fiat.”
It’s a step in the right direction but I suspect the stay won’t be maintained forever. I question Judge Cunnington’s reasoning in this.
I think there are two issues. One is the State Constitution is very specific an how bail works, which probably removes a lot of flexibility:
“All persons shall be bailable by sufficient sureties,
except for the following offenses where the proof is evident
or the presumption great: capital offenses; offenses for
which a sentence of life imprisonment may be imposed as a
consequence of conviction; and felony offenses for which a
sentence of imprisonment, without conditional and revocable
release, shall be imposed by law as a consequence of
conviction, when the court, after a hearing, determines that
release of the offender would pose a real and present threat
to the physical safety of any person.” (Art. 1, Sec. 9)
The other is that the Illinois Supreme Court has a history of invalidating statutes that interfere with the traditional role of the Courts. It invalidated a statute that placed caps on noneconomic damages because the courts had the power of remittitur under the common law to reduce excessive verdicts. I thought that seemed odd, but it would follow that traditional judicial practices regarding bail are part of the judicial power vested in the courts by the state constitution.
Just skimming the opinion and the quoted passage on separation of powers is in fact attributed to the case in which the Supreme Court struck down statutory caps on noneconomic damages. Always interesting to learn whether a principle still exists when its sauce for the gander.
Grrr. Put this in wrong place.
PD- If I am reading it correctly it looks to me like everyone who is not considered a risk to public safety would be released, just with no bail. Doesnt seem to break the spirit of the law. The big difference would be that people who are not a risk to public safety but who are poor have to stay in jail since they cant post bail.
Wikipedia says this.
“In the new system, the role of cash payments will be eliminated and judges will determine whether detained individuals pose a risk if released. Pretrial release can be denied by a judge after a hearing, “when it is determined that the defendant poses a specific, real and present threat to a person, or has a high likelihood of willful flight.â€[3]
So in our current system if the judge thinks you are a flight risk he sets bail high. In the new system he doesnt let you go. Only about 5% of crime is violent crime so I would expect that most fo those dont get let go, though judges let an awful lot of those out on bail, based upon whether they can pay and not, it looks like, the severity of the crime. Does it really make people safer to have a bunch of people who cant afford bail for non violent crimes while you let violent criminals out just because they can afford bail? (Did a quick perusal of literature on this and it looks pretty divided on whether evidence shows cash bail reduces either flight risk or increases safety.)
Given that people usually spend over 6 moths in jail before their trial what happens if you are innocent but cant afford bail?
Steve
@steve, the Illinois Constitutional provision I quoted gives the accused the right to bail under terms specified. The General Assembly just passed a law ending bail. There is a conflict.
I don’t think that Wikipedia is accurate about the law unless it was cleaned up in the lame duck session. It doesn’t matter if the law is a good law or bad law if its unconstitutional.