Prairie State Wire

Illinois GOP Chairman Don Tracy is one of many celebrating the overturning of the cashless bail portion of the SAFE-T Act.

“Cashless bail was slated to go into effect across Illinois this Sunday,” Tracy said In a Dec. 29 statement posted on Facebook. “This law would have severely limited the ability of judges and prosecutors to keep dangerous criminals off of the streets thereby exporting the epidemic of lawlessness we’ve seen in certain parts of Chicago throughout the rest of our state. The Circuit Court ruling which rightly declared it unconstitutional is a win for public safety, and the businesses and residents of Illinois, if upheld by the Illinois Supreme Court. For now, it should serve as a message to Governor Pritzker and Democrat legislators that they can’t subvert our constitutional process by ramming their unpopular and dangerous soft-on-crime policies through the legislature in the dark of night.” 

Kankakee County Chief Judge Thomas W. Cunnington of the 21st Judicial Circuit Court of Illinois released his decision on Dec. 28.

“The administration of the justice system is an inherent power of the courts upon which the legislature may not infringe and the setting of bail falls within that administrative power, the appropriateness of bail rests with the authority of the court and may not be determined by legislative fiat,” the judge said in the 36-page ruling.

Criminal law professor Richard Kling of the Chicago-Kent College of Law noted that the decision was a forgone conclusion.

“The arguments raised all had merit, they weren’t frivolous,” he told the Chicago Sun-Times.

The SAFE-T Act will still take effect on Jan. 1 in the 37 counties not included in the lawsuit. In those counties, thousands of inmates who await trial on serious crimes would be released. But after Cunnington's ruling, the 65 counties involved in the lawsuit will not be subject to those provisions of the SAFE-T Act.

The Act underwent changes after a campaign communications blitz revealed several glaring errors in the law. No Republicans voted for the bill or the subsequent changes. When the SAFE-T Act is implemented in the surviving counties, those charged with the most heinous crimes—such as robbery, kidnapping, arson, second-degree murder, intimidation, aggravated battery, aggravated DUI, aggravated flight, drug-related homicide, and threatening a public official—will be freed; as the Will County Gazette previously reported.