Officials ‘grinding to the bone’ to prepare for cash-bail reform amid what they call misinformation, politicization

Bond court in Cook County happens every day in a flurry of organized chaos: Attorneys often quickly make a case for or against detention or for a monetary bail. A judge issues a ruling and the court appearance can be over in minutes.

A new provision that will abolish cash bail is set to begin in January after a two-year ramp-up, taking aim at the long-standing way of making pretrial decisions in Illinois. It marks a major operational change that officials on Friday told reporters they have been preparing for aggressively.

The looming deadline and increasing politicization of the reform measure spurred attorneys, officials including Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx, and other criminal justice stakeholders to gather Friday at a downtown club to detail how the provision will affect Illinois courts.

The speakers at Friday’s event made up a coalition that mostly favors the measure. They said they sought to dispel myths and offer facts to counter misinformation that has been circulated about the provision enacted with the goal of reducing disparities in how people are treated in the criminal justice system.

The no-bail provision has been used for misinformation and sensationalized political ads, particularly in the race for governor between incumbent Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker and his Republican challenger, state Sen. Darren Bailey, of downstate Xenia.

“The assurance that I can give you is that the stakeholders, at least in Cook County, have been absolutely grinding to the bone to make sure we are as prepared as we can be,” Foxx said, answering questions about how the measure will be implemented.

Illinois lawmakers in 2021 passed the Safety, Accountability, Fairness and Equity-Today law, a sweeping criminal justice reform measure that addresses a host of issues ranging from improving police accountability to creating a more equitable court system. The cash bail measure, called the Pretrial Fairness Act, stipulates that bail money will not determine whether defendants remain in jail before trial. Instead, judges will weigh whether a defendant should be released from custody ahead of their trial with certain conditions.

Known as the SAFE-T Act, the 700-plus page law mandates broad reforms that require, for instance, every police department in Illinois to equip its officers with body cameras by 2025, a more robust system for decertifying police officers and allows the public to file more anonymous complaints against cops.

Proponents of the bail measure say defendants should not be incarcerated while awaiting trial because they are too poor to make bail while some detractors, particularly in law enforcement, have said they are concerned about its impact on crime.

Officials have stressed that the no-bail provision doesn’t mean that defendants accused in violent crimes automatically go free. Judges will review the circumstances and decide whether to keep someone in custody while charges are pending. An Illinois Supreme Court task force is working to help criminal courts across the state prepare for the change.

“Money is entirely eliminated as condition of release, but the court does still retain the power to use other evidence-based conditions of release,” said Era Laudermilk, chief of staff for the Cook County public defender, adding that judges can also detain people deemed to be a danger or flight risk.

Proponents of the measure also said under the current system, some people accused of violent crimes can be released if they have the means to post bail.

David Olson, a professor of criminal justice and criminology at Loyola University of Chicago, who has studied bond reform in Illinois, said under the current system, most people stay in jail for short periods of time before posting bond.

In New Jersey and New York, where lawmakers have passed bail reform measures, the rates at which people appeared in court, as well as were rearrested, remained relatively flat, said Insha Rahman, a bail reform expert who is vice president of advocacy and partnerships at the Vera Institute.

Under the new system in Illinois, defendants will appear for two hearings, an initial hearing and a detention hearing, a process that seeks to provide a more comprehensive look at whether someone should be released or detained pretrial, officials said.

Asked whether the county has the resources to handle the new system, Foxx said lawmakers built in a nearly two-year period before the provision would take effect in order to allow agencies to prepare. She said she and members of her office have been meeting regularly with Cook County Public Defender Sharone Mitchell and other stakeholders.

“I feel the proof will be in the pudding, but the reason it took so long for implementation from the passage of this bill was because we wanted to make sure in the interest of safe communities that we had the infrastructures there,” Foxx said.

Assistant state’s attorneys have begun reviewing cases of people held pretrial to determine whether they will ask that they remain detained, Foxx said. Going forward, she said, prosecutors will look at a wide swath of factors.

“We are not robots,” she said, “there are certainly guideposts we are looking at.”

Lake County State’s Attorney Eric Rinehart said his office has also gone through a similar review of current detainees.

“We will obviously be focusing on the most violent cases,” he said. “We will be obviously focusing on shootings, murders, sex cases where the public is obviously at risk.”

The passage of the broader criminal justice reform law was controversial, approved last year by narrow margins in both chambers of the state legislature as some Democrats sided with Republicans in voting against it.

Several Illinois state’s attorneys have filed lawsuits challenging the measure or have otherwise spoken out against it.

DuPage County State’s Attorney Robert Berlin voiced concerns to the Tribune last month about whether the bar would be too high to detain certain people before trial.

“We would all agree, and I want to make it clear, I agree, somebody should not be held in jail pending trial just because they can’t afford to post a bond,” Berlin said, adding, “Without a robust preventive detention statute, yes, we are opposed.”

Proponents of the provision have said that some portions may need clarifications during future legislative session.

Last month, the state’s Democratic Attorney General Kwame Raoul, said at a campaign event that some provisions of the SAFE-T Act merit further conversation.

“There are a number of issues that I think deserve discussion. I’m not going to have the debate about them here at a podium, but I think again like most legislation, we often revisit because we pass legislation that requires a lot of debate,” Raoul said at the event. “We are often clarifying ambiguity or uncertainty in ... countless laws. Is the SAFE-T Act worthy of that discussion? It is.”

Chicago Tribune’s Jeremy Gorner contributed.

mabuckley@chicagotribune.com