DuPage County ‘absolutely prepared’ after amendments added to state cash bail law
During a presentation to the DuPage County Board Tuesday, DuPage County State’s Attorney Bob Berlin detailed the changes made to the SAFE-T Act’s section on pretrial detention, also known as the Pretrial Fairness Act, which eliminates cash bail in the state of Illinois.
The Pretrial Fairness Act would make Illinois the first state to do away with cash bond entirely for all criminal proceedings.
An earlier version of the Pretrial Fairness Act was scheduled to take effect on Jan. 1, but was postponed until Sept. 18, as proponents and detractors of the law argued over what a cashless bail system should look like in Illinois.
Amendments to the act focused primarily on what criminal offenses are or are not eligible for pretrial release, judicial discretion during pretrial sentencing, and bond appeal for those pending trial before the law’s enactment.
“I was one of three state’s attorneys in the state that participated in these discussions over an eight-week period, with members of both the Illinois Senate and the Illinois House, as well as the advocates to eliminate cash bail, the ACLU, the Sheriffs’ Association and the [Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police],” Berlin said.
Berlin said he felt he and his fellow state’s attorneys, Jamie Mosser from Kane County and Julia Rietz from Champaign County, had a significant impact on the amended law, in particular to changes made to “dangerousness standards.”
The pre-amended act specified a judge’s decision to detain a defendant was contingent to the defendant’s threat to a specific person or persons; the language was broadened to include threats to the community as detainable.
“Take an armed robbery of a convenience store, where someone goes in and robs the convenience store, but doesn’t know the victims involved … how would we be able to prove that they were a specific threat to the victim of their case?” Berlin said. “We made it a lot easier for us to show that they are a threat to the community.”
Not all of the changes recommended by the state’s attorneys were met, most notably the addition to include burglary as a detainable offense, Berlin said. “We fought hard on [burglary], there was a lot of discussion over it, but ultimately the General Assembly did not include that [in the amendment].”
Illinois’ Pretrial Fairness Act isn’t wholly unique. In 2017, New Jersey passed the Bail Reform and Speedy Trial Act, effectively eliminating cash bail in all but a few circumstances. That bill became a sort of model for the SAFE-T Act with a few notable exceptions.
“New Jersey’s law gave judges complete discretion in all criminal offenses to detain individuals if they’re affecting the community, if they’re likely to flee or if they were a threat to intimidate witnesses or obstruct justice,” Berlin said. “The [SAFE-T Act] gives judges a lot more discretion, but there are still cases that they won’t have discretion on.”
Under the new law, forcible felonies and certain non-forcible felonies, including solicitation of murder, drug induced homicide, possession with intent to deliver narcotics of certain amounts, possession of explosives or incendiary devices, money laundering of over $500,000 or done with intent to promote terrorism, armed violence and non-probationable DUI offenses, are non-probationable.
“I do believe that most, if not all of the really violent offenders, are going to be detained under this law, the people charged with murder, carjacking, aggravated criminal sexual assault, I’m pretty confident that they’re going to be detained.” Berlin said. “How it’s going to impact some of these other offenses, I think we have to wait and see … I’ll say this, in terms of DuPage, we are absolutely prepared for it.”
