DuPage County courthouse debuts $20 million renovation week before the Illinois SAFE-T Act goes into effect
DuPage County officials unveiled the nearly completed mass renovation and expansion of the county courthouse Tuesday, six days ahead of Illinois’s rollout of the Pretrial Fairness Act, and an end to cash bail in the state.
In March of last year, the DuPage County Board unanimously approved the $19.8 million project in anticipation of the Pretrial Fairness Act, a provision to the SAFE-T Act.
“We knew this was coming, we knew there would be a dramatic change in how we operated dating back to when the governor signed this legislation in February of 2021,” DuPage County Chief Judge Kenneth Popejoy said at Tuesday’s ribbon cutting.
Renovations encompassed approximately 140,000 square feet across the three floor building improving upon the state’s attorney, public defender and pretrial services space.
The courthouse’s grand jury room was expanded, two domestic relations courtrooms were added to bring domestic violence cases to a quicker resolution, and a new first appearance courtroom was constructed to readily accommodate bond related hearings.
During its design health concerns relating back to the COVID-19 pandemic were taken into account, an additional $5.4 million in federal relief was set aside to make the courtroom’s facilities with safety concerns in mind, DuPage County Board Chair Deborah Conroy said Tuesday.
“The courtrooms are Zoom compatible and we have an ability for additional social distancing as needed,” Conroy said.
To comply with the new judicial standards set in the SAFE-T Act, the county knew it would need to increase the number of employees working in the courthouse, exacerbating a problem already in the mix, limited work space.
“We had employees who were working in closets, we had employees sharing common workspaces, and with the SAFE-T Act we knew that an additional head count would be required,” Popejoy said.
New police body camera requirements created the need to hire more staff to comb through hours of video footage, and as more courtrooms are required to meet digital capabilities, technical staff is going to have an increasing importance day to day.
“Digital media evidence has exploded … I’m a huge proponent of it, and it’s made our cases a lot stronger, is protecting police officers, but we’re receiving hours and hours of video that we have to watch,” DuPage County State’s Attorney Robert Berlin said Tuesday. “And because of this infrastructure improvement we’re able to do it.”
Berlin was one of three state’s attorneys involved in discussions with the Illinois legislature over the direction of the Pretrial Fairness Act, which was originally set to go into effect Jan. 1 but was delayed until Sept. 18 to address safety concerns from law enforcement officials.
Renovations are expected to be complete sometime in the next two months meaning the project will be complete 20 months after its approval by the county board, Conroy said.
“As we open our new courtroom and staff offices, this is truly a new era of justice in the county,” she said. “I am proud to say that our efforts have led to DuPage County being 100% prepared and ready to comply with [the SAFE-T Act].”
