We can’t remember when we’ve seen a governor attack the actions of a single judge.
But JB Pritzker did just that following the shocking shooting death of a Chicago police officer last weekend. Asked whether he saw the need for changes to the landmark SAFE-T Act he signed into law in 2021, the governor laid all the blame at the feet of Cook County Circuit Judge John Lyke.
Lyke made the fateful decision last December to release accused armed carjacker Alphanso Talley on electronic monitoring over the adamant protests of the Cook County state’s attorney’s office. Four months later, Talley had violated the terms of his release and six weeks after that he allegedly shot and killed Officer John Bartholomew and gravely wounded his partner after being arrested again, this time for armed robbery.
“You saw the judge wants to blame everyone else, but it was right before the judge,” Pritzker said. “Judge could’ve made the decision, didn’t make the decision.”
Lyke surely deserves the condemnation he’s getting for a terrible decision. But we don’t love the frenetic buck-passing we’re seeing, from Pritzker and from others.
The law Pritzker signed made Illinois the first state to eliminate cash bail, following the principle that those accused of crimes under our system of justice are presumed innocent and shouldn’t lose their freedom while awaiting their day in court simply because they can’t afford to buy their way out of prison. This page agrees with that fundamental proposition.
But losing cash bail meant a decision on whether to hold an accused violent criminal was based on whether they posed an ongoing threat to the public. The role of judges — always important — then grew exponentially.
Pritzker and Springfield Democrats (the SAFE-T Act garnered not a single Republican vote in 2021) own that outcome, for better or for worse.
Protection of the public following the law’s monumental changes boils down to judges. Those judges’ life experiences. Their biases. Their views on past systemic injustices. Even their mood on the day they render a decision on whether or not to incarcerate a defendant before them.
Prosecutors, too, play a critical role. Under the law, a judge can’t hold a defendant unless the prosecutor requests detention. In Cook County, this became an issue in the 2024 election to succeed progressive former State’s Attorney Kim Foxx, who focused more on righting the past wrongs of this county’s checkered criminal-justice system than on aggressive prosecution of street crime.
Her successor, Eileen O’Neill Burke, has dramatically changed the office’s approach to pretrial detention.
From the day she took office, Burke notably made a priority of asking for detention for anyone charged with possessing weapons of war on our streets, and that included handguns transformed into the equivalent of machine guns with simple switch contraptions.
The numbers tell the story. The elimination of cash bail became effective Sept. 18, 2023, a little over 14 months before Foxx’s term ended at the end of November 2024. Over those 14-plus months, Foxx’s office requested detention in 7,575 cases, according to data from the state’s attorney’s office. In the most recent 14 months of Burke’s term, from March 1, 2025, until April 30, 2026, the office has sought detention in 11,122 cases.
Interestingly, the rate at which judges agreed with prosecutors’ requests for detention didn’t change all that much. Judges granted the detention requests from Foxx’s office over that period 63% of the time, and they’ve agreed to Burke’s office’s requests for detention 67% of the time.
With Burke’s greater emphasis on detaining those accused of violent crimes, Cook County Circuit Court judges now really are the last line of defense when it comes to the rights of criminal defendants versus public safety.
Judges are accountable to voters.
Every six years, incumbent judges are part of a long line of their peers who voters must decide to retain or not. Judges must garner at least 60% of those retention votes to keep their seats; rarely does any judge fail to do so.
That means many judges owe their positions far more to political power brokers than anyone else. The Cook County Democratic Party isn’t what it used to be in terms of influencing voters as a general matter, but it continues to have important say in slating judges.
For the record, Judge Lyke isn’t up for retention until 2028.
There certainly are reasons to be concerned about the politicization of the courts. Judges increasingly are subject to physical threats. In an ideal world, judges would be insulated as much as possible from the rough-and-tumble of conventional politics and simply would be asked to apply the law — and their good sense — without such pressures.
Under the SAFE-T Act, however, we don’t live in that ideal world.
Lyke’s unwelcome turn in the spotlight sounds the alarm. Cook County Circuit Court judges must be more prepared than ever to have their decisions, especially those affecting pretrial detention in violent-crime cases, subject to the same sort of scrutiny mayors, governors and other officeholders receive. And, yes, those whose decisions end up endangering the public should expect to be singled out for removal the next time they’re on the ballot.
In the meantime, the go-to replacement for cash bail as the way for judges to avoid having to impose pretrial detention has become home confinement, with terms enforced via electronic monitors tracking defendants’ movements. Talley was on release in an armed carjacking case, and had removed or disarmed his electronic monitor, when he allegedly killed Officer Bartholomew. We’ve seen numerous other cases in which people on EM violated the terms of their confinement and went on to commit other violent felonies. Each one is enraging and undermines public confidence in the SAFE-T Act.
We hear the arguments the law’s proponents make, which is that the SAFE-T Act in and of itself doesn’t keep those accused of violent crimes free to walk the streets before they get their day in court. But a law is only as good as the way it’s executed.
Between the Cook County chief judge’s office’s poor record of enforcing EM violations and the questionable decision-making of some judges on pretrial release, Chicagoans simply aren’t safe enough right now. Pritzker and state lawmakers ought to consider prohibiting the use of electronic monitors for those charged with certain violent crimes — yes, including armed carjacking — and forcing judges to decide between allowing defendants accused in those cases to remain truly free or be detained while they await trial. At least until Cook County’s EM system is functioning and violations result in fast consequences.
We’d wager few judges would follow Lyke’s lead and release an accused carjacker without resorting even to electronic monitoring.
But the shocking killing of Officer Bartholomew finally should jolt our criminal justice system into prioritizing public safety at least as much as the rights of accused violent criminals.
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