DeKalb Times

In a Dec. 9 Facebook post, Sen. Dave Syverson shared a week-in-review release where he talked about the Safety, Accountability, Fairness and Equity-Today (SAFE-T) Act.

“After the fall veto session resulted in the passage and the Governor’s signature of yet another trailer bill to the controversial SAFE-T Act, the lawsuit challenging its legality has been delayed,” he wrote on Facebook. 

Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed the trailer bill that Syverson referred to on Dec. 6. The bill clarifies multiple aspects of the SAFE-T Act, which ends the cash bail system in Illinois effective Jan. 1, 2023 and creates what its authors say will be a more equitable system where pre-trial detention is based on community risk rather than financial means. 

The clarifications to the SAFE-T Act are the result of the work of a bi-cameral legislative group who collaborated with advocates, public defenders, state's attorneys, victim advocates, and law enforcement officials. Changes to the Act clarify court authority in controlling electronic monitoring and escape, outline specific guidelines for trespassing violations, and create a grant program to aid public defenders with increased caseloads. The amendments strengthen and clarify the main principle of the SAFE-T Act- to ensure that individuals who pose a risk to the community aren't released from jail just because they are able to pay bail while people without financial means sit in jail regardless of whether they pose a risk at all.

Kankakee County Circuit Court Judge Thomas Cunnington is set to hear oral arguments Dec. 20 over claims brought in roughly 60 lawsuits, now combined, from prosecutors and sheriffs around the state. The case before Cunnington will likely be the first of many legal challenges to the SAFE-T Act. The lawsuit raises some of the same questions that led lawmakers to pass clarifying changes on Dec. 1. The lawsuit revolves around whether the law aligns with Illinois' Constitution, both in its content and in its passage. The lawsuit alleges the SAFE-T Act violates the separation of powers and improperly addresses multiple subjects. It claims lawmakers who passed the law violated a rule that requires them to read bills "on three different days" in each legislative chamber. It also alleges the SAFE-T Act improperly amended the state Constitution.

Illinois Policy noted that the pretrial detention standards laid out in the SAFE-T Act are complicated, because there are multiple layers to them. Under the SAFE-T Act, detention can only be imposed if the defendant poses a specific, real and present threat to a person or has a high likelihood of willful flight. The phrase “specific, real and present threat” though is not defined, and there is no case law that interprets the meaning of the phrase, though “real and present threat” is a standard used in jurisdictions outside of Illinois.