By Kevin Haas
Rock River Current
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ROCKFORD — Winnebago County State’s Attorney J. Hanley has filed a lawsuit that seeks to halt the implementation of the SAFE-T Act in Illinois.
The first-term Republican joins approximately 50 other top prosecutors around the state from both political parties who are attempting to prevent the law, which ends cash bail in the state and makes multiple other criminal justice reforms, from taking effect on Jan. 1 as scheduled.
“Despite what some have said or intimated, I am not a proponent of returning to a cash bail system,” Hanley said at a news conference Thursday announcing his suit. “However, I will remain a vocal critic of this current version of this law because of its shortcomings. We must demand better.”
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Hanley’s lawsuit is modeled after suits filed in other counties earlier this year. He said all the litigation is likely to be consolidated, but he opted to file here to ensure that any ruling handed down by the court would apply in Winnebago County.
Hanley’s office filed the 33-page complaint Wednesday afternoon in Winnebago County. The lawsuit challenges the constitutionality on six legal bases. Here’s how he summarized those challenges in the conclusion of the suit:
- The law violates the single subject rule, which says a piece of legislation should deal with one subject.
- It violates the Illinois Constitution in that it deprives defendants of their right to be “bailable by sufficient sureties.”
- It violates the rights of victims guaranteed by the Illinois Constitution.
- It improperly interferes with the court’s supervisory and administrative responsibilities.
- The passage of the law violated the three readings clause of the Illinois Constitution.
- The law is unconstitutionally vague.
The lawsuit, which was also filed on behalf of Winnebago County Sheriff Gary Caruana, names Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul, Gov. JB Pritzker, Speaker of the House Emanuel Welch, and Senate President Don Harmon as defendants.
A timeline for when the suit could be heard is unclear, but Hanley said that because constitutional arguments are being made the matter could quickly move to the Illinois Supreme Court as opposed to first being heard in the appellate courts.
“There’s some hope that this decision could be made by the Supreme Court before Jan. 1,” he said. “Litigation is always difficult to predict, particularly as to the timing, but that I think is the hope of the state’s attorneys who have filed.”
Related: Rockford clergy members show support for ending cash bail in Illinois
Advocates for the law have said ending cash bail creates a more fair and equitable system for criminal defendants, who would no longer be held in jail pretrial solely because they couldn’t afford to pay bond.
“Right now, hundreds of people are jailed in Winnebago County not because they’re a danger to anyone but simply because they can’t afford to pay a bond. People are losing their jobs, housing and even custody of their children, making all of us less safe,” the Rev. Frank Langholf of Rockford’s Emmanuel Lutheran Church, said in a news release last week after the County Board opposed the SAFE-T Act. “The Pretrial Fairness Act simply ensures that poor people have the same rights as the wealthy. We are proud to stand by this moral and just reform to our legal system.”
Hanley, however, has argued the law as written creates a standard that makes it difficult to detain potentially dangerous offenders. That’s because it limits which charges someone can be held on under the dangerousness standard and requires prosecutors to prove a defendant is a danger to a specific person, which isn’t applicable in some cases, he has said.
He has previously called for the state to delay implementation of the law, and then rewrite it to model it after New Jersey, where judges can detain a person for any crime under certain criteria.
“Ultimately, I am advocating for a law which appropriately balances a defendant’s presumption of innocence against the court’s interest in the fair and orderly administration of justice and the community’s safety,” Hanley said Thursday. “I remain hopeful that we will get there, but in the meantime I will bring every tool to bear in defense of the Illinois Constitution, the rights of all involved in our criminal justice system, and fundamental public safety.”
Related: Winnebago County Board members call for repeal of the SAFE-T Act in Illinois
Hanley said he has met with prosecutors in New Jersey to study how its law ending cash bail has worked there. He said because New Jersey allows a judge to detain someone on any charge if they’re proved to be a danger to the public, it is a better and more fair system that allows for the most violent offenders to be held in jail.
“While there are some detractors, many, prosecutors included, have said in New Jersey it’s working,” Hanley said Thursday. “Our most violent offenders, the people who are at most risk to our communities, are the ones being detained. We’re not holding people in jail based on whether they can afford it or not and we’ve also reduced our jail population.”
He said his lawsuit was not politically motivated, and he pointed to the bipartisan group of state’s attorneys and sheriff’s who have filed suit as evidence that it is not a partisan issue.
“This is is not a piece of litigation that’s fluff litigation,” he said. “There are real issues with the constitutionality of the law that simply can’t be ignored.”
This article is by Kevin Haas. Email him at khaas@rockrivercurrent.com or follow him on Twitter at @KevinMHaas.