SPRINGFIELD -- The state's highest court heard arguments Tuesday in a case that could drastically alter the legal landscape for criminal defendants who are incarcerated as they await trial. It's the latest development in the ongoing legal challenge to the pretrial detention provisions of the SAFE-T Act criminal justice reform -- short for Safety, Accountability, Fairness and Equity-Today -- which the high court put on hold in December just hours before it was scheduled to take effect.
SPRINGFIELD -- The state's highest court heard arguments Tuesday in a case that could drastically alter the legal landscape for criminal defendants who are incarcerated as they await trial.
But the law would also create a list of lower-level nonviolent offenses for which a defendant cannot be held pretrial if they are not already out on pretrial release when committing the alleged offense or proven to be a"willful flight" risk. "We're talking about six decades of legislative regulation of pretrial practices that are all called into question by plaintiffs' expansive reading of judicial power and their narrow reading of legislative power in this area," Hemmer said.
Kankakee County State's Attorney James Rowe argued that lawmakers put amendments to the voters in the 1980s when looking to expand the list of nonbailable offenses in the constitution. He contrasted that effort with the January 2021 passage of the SAFE-T Act which moved quickly through the legislature and came for a vote in the middle of the night."The bail clause itself refers to capital offenses, but there are no more capital offenses in Illinois," he said.
"This court has said a party has standing to challenge the constitutionality of a statute only insofar as it adversely impacts his or her own rights ... How does this statute adversely impact the rights of elected state's attorneys and sheriffs?" she asked. He added that prosecutors"have an inherent interest in ensuring that we can move cases through the court system, that we can secure a defendant's appearance at trial."
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