Kane County’s 16th Circuit Court is one of three courts in Illinois chosen to pilot the implementation of a sweeping criminal justice overhaul bill approved last year which includes the end of cash bail.
The measure, known as the Illinois Pre-Trial Fairness Act, establishes new guidelines for judges to use when making pretrial release and detention decisions. With the passage of the bill, Illinois became the first state in the country to end cash bail for people who are arrested and awaiting trial.
Chief Judge Clint Hull said the county received an email from the Illinois Supreme Court looking for circuit court districts that were interested in piloting the program, and Hull pitched Kane County as willing to take on the task.
“It’ll be great for Kane County in that we get to work closely with the administrative office of the Illinois courts and it’s a huge advantage to have their expertise and their help,” Hull said.
The other circuit court districts taking part in the pilot program are the 9th Circuit Court District, a multi-county district in western Illinois, and the 2nd Circuit Court District, a multi-county district in the far southeastern part of the state.
While the law does not go into effect until Jan. 1, 2023, the three districts in the pilot program will start to develop the groundwork for its implementation and share their data with courts statewide to create best practices.
Hull said a meeting is scheduled to determine the timetable for the pilot project.
“It’ll give us a huge head start to tackle different issues and come up with policies and ways to implement this much sooner than we probably would otherwise,” Hull said.
Non-violent offenders may be released through a cashless bail provision under the new measures. Judges will retain the discretion to hold an individual if they believe the person poses a safety risk to others or have a high risk of failing to show up for future court dates, Kane County officials said.
Because of the sweeping nature of the changes, Hull said it will bring a huge shift of how criminal justice has been handled for decades. With something this new, he said there are a lot of things they’ll try to prepare for, but until it is put into practice, it is hard to anticipate every issue.
For instance, the circuit court’s bond call normally runs every morning, seven days a week, for half a day. He believes this will have to change to a full day and they will have to move other items handled in that courtroom, such as orders of protection, to another room.
“Under the act, there will be new requirements we have to meet to hold hearings that we’ve never had to do before,” Hull said. “There will be new evidentiary and discovery requirements that have never happened before, which will increase the amount of effort and time we’ve had to spend.”
The bill, signed into law in February 2021, also requires police officers statewide to wear body cameras by 2025, and pushes for the creation of a more robust statewide system for tracking police misconduct and a new police officer decertification process.
“Kane County should be very proud we’ve been selected and I think it’s been a testament to the hard work that’s been done in the county for years and years,” Hull said. “In the end, this will benefit everybody who is a part of the system because we’ll get to work harder ahead of time so when Jan. 1 hits, we are ready to go. It’s coming one way or another, and this way, we are prepared.”
