By: Matt Rosenberg
Last week the Illinois House and Senate approved amendments to the controversial criminal justice reform law the SAFE-T Act. The next step is an important court challenge on grounds the Act violates the Illinois Constitution. Hearings had been set for this Wednesday, December 7 in Kankakee County Court where the Democratic State’s Attorney James Rowe will be lead prosecutor against top state officials of his own party.
But that scheduled high-stakes courtroom challenge to the constitutionality of the act has been pushed back to December 20 from this Wednesday. Kankakee County is where 58 separate county state’s attorney lawsuits to halt the SAFE-T Act have been consolidated. Kankakee County court officials confirmed Monday to Wirepoints the delay is so that parties to the suit can see if Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker signs the amendments.
At first blush it’s a head-scratcher because the claims in the civil suit highlight constitutional issues on which the recent legislative actions in theory have no bearing. But a layer deeper, the developments may suggest that the defendants – Governor Pritzker, Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul, House Speaker Chris Welch and Senate President Don Harmon – may be preparing to argue that the signed amendments would remedy the complaints of the plaintiffs.
Prominent among claims in the consolidated lawsuits is that the state constitution guarantees cash bail and that the 764-page SAFE-T Act allegedly violated that guarantee. The lawsuits also claim the Act violates the Constitution’s single subject rule.
Marla Coxley is a media liaison for Chief Judge of Kankakee and Iroquois Counties Circuit Court, John Cunnington, who is to hear and rule on the consolidated lawsuits by the county’s state’s attorneys against the SAFE-T Act. She told Wirepoints Monday the court has moved the hearing to the 20th to allow time to see if Pritzker will sign the amendments.
Another Kankakee County justice official, Assistant State’s Attorney John Coghlan, confirmed that to Wirepoints today, saying, “she was right. Just because of the uncertainty” around whether Pritzker would sign the amendments. He declined further comment, citing the pending litigation. Later Monday the case docket was updated to reflect Judge Cunnington presented and filed a signed order to continue the case to December 20 in his courtroom.
Developments suggest the defendants may argue the amendment to the SAFE-T Act once signed will represent a remedy to the complaint that the Act violates the spirit of the Illinois Constitution. Legislative sources note that some among the 58 county lawsuits raised other issues which may be addressed to some extent in the Act’s amendments. So prosecutors may welcome a chance to retool their case.
Certainly some big issues are at stake, foremost among them the abolition of cash bail. In Article 1 titled “Bill of Rights” the Illinois State Constitution holds in Section 9 that “all persons shall be bailable by sufficient sureties.” In Section 8.1 of Article 1, titled “Crime Victims’ Rights,” the constitution states victims must be “reasonably protected from the accused throughout the criminal justice process” and must have their safety “considered in denying or fixing the amount of bail, determining whether to release the defendant, and setting conditions of release after arrest and conviction.”
DuPage County State’s Attorney Robert Berlin was not one of the 58 who filed suit to rescind the SAFE-T Act but he was the sole Republican among four state’s attorneys who negotiated the amendments with legislative leaders. He praised the revisions but said of the postponement on the grounds given by Kankakee County, “the basis of the lawsuit really should not be impacted by this legislation, by this new amendment.”
UPDATE: On Tuesday afternoon Governor Pritzker signed the amendments.
Read more from Wirepoints:
- Changes to Illinois’ SAFE-T Act a vindication for opponents of the law, but the Act remains dangerous to Illinoisans
- Proposed SAFE-T Act changes fall far short of the structural fixes needed
- 100 a day: Chicago motor vehicle thefts explode as SAFE-T Act changes debated
- Electronic monitoring horror show grows as lawmakers skate past SAFE-T reforms
- Poor communities bear the brunt of crime unleashed by Cook County bail reform and the SAFE-T Act: New Manhattan Institute report
Audio and summary 
If this bill passes, say goodbye to local control over all Illinois parks and expect to see open drug and alcohol use, needles, no sanitation and fire hazards, but no ordinary park users.
Couldn’t counties in Illinois just ignore the new law like states attorney Foxx does? Making up her own rules about charging crimes, aka the shoplifting debacle she dreamed up, or other reasons she believes are racist or are needed to justify restorative justice. The attorney general of Illinois hasn’t stepped up and stopped her, oops he a black Democrat I forgot, and Foxx gets away with thumbing her nose at state law daily. Therefore country prosecutors who disagree with SAFE T could just ignore and do what they want. What would attorney general Raoul do? Inquiring minds want to know.
Its apparent that the Governor and his allies in the Democratic State Legislature are obsessed with passing the bill without any change. They proved it by holding the initial vote at 2am.
Even if they think it is wrong, it’s not about good legislation. It’s about power.
I think the fact Illinois has such legal wrangling going on while the state’s finances collapse and criminals rule the streets is just a sad exclamation point on the state’s status overall.
I’m curious, Matt, how the case landed in kankakee.
Kankakee County states attorney was the first to file a lawsuit against the implementation of the SAFE T act so the other county states attorneys added their counties to the suit. It was then determined that Kankakee would handle the case.
I live in a pretty rural area. Within the last few months I have seen an uptick in crime. Places which are a walking distance away are seeing crime. A store I frequent often was hit in broad daylight. I’m curious about the rise in crime with the new safe t act, or is it the economic status we are now in? I see the looks in the eyes of the moms shopping at the grocery store. The telling to her children that they can’t afford juice boxes. It doesn’t help to see smash and grab stories on the news.… Read more »
Pushing the hearing back to December 20 is too close to the start of the year. I don’t think Pritzker will sign the amendments as he thinks the law is perfect. The mis-named SAFE-T Act should be repealed in totality.
I think you & John Kass–among others–should be commended for at least getting the original publicity out there about the insanity of this law. The amendments–while not everything–apparently are a definite improvement. Stay tuned, I guess.
Yet, most folks voted to retain those two. Good luck Illinois. You’re going to need it.
The whole act is ridiculous in the first place! Illinois Marxists who put this together should be voted out or impeached.
Public pensions…constitution is inviolate. More goodies to the public unions, that already “own” our self serving public officials (Amendment 1)…the constitution is inviolate.
Protect some schlock suburbanite, who should be paying reparations anyway, from crime wave (Unsafety Act)….the dem Illinois Supreme Court will “modify” the constitution.