SAFE-T Act is on hold in Pike
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By BETH ZUMWALT
A status hearing scheduled for Jan. 6 to discuss the SAFE-T Act and it’s implementation in Pike County is in doubt.
The Act includes several reforms changing ways that the criminal justice system is operated, including cash bail. The act would eliminate bail for all, but the most serious offenses or those deemed a flight risk. Other provisions included in the bill were: limiting when defendants can be deemed flight risks, allowing defendants under electronic monitoring to leave home for 48 hours before they can be charged with escape, preventing police from arresting non-violent trespassers, body camera requirements and protocols and the way grievances by defendants against officers are handled.
The elimination of bail was the most controversial. The bill was scheduled to go into affect Jan. 1.
Last week a circuit judge in the 21st judicial circuit court ruled the act as unconstitutional. The ruling only applied to the counties that had filed suit questioning the legality of the ACT. Nearly half the counties in the state were included in the suit. Pike was not one of those counties.
An appeal to the Illinois Supreme Court, by the governor and the attorney general, resulted in the supreme court agreeing with the circuit court and putting the elimination of bail on hold.
In their ruling Saturday evening, the Illinois Supreme Court issued a stay saying their ruling was to “maintain consistent pre-trial procedures throughout Illinois.
Judge Frank McCartney, the judge in the 8th judicial district, which serves Pike County, had issued a temporary restraining order that would follow the opinion of the judge in the 21st district which is Iroquois and Kankakee.
A status hearing on McCartney’s order was scheduled for Jan. 6 in the Pike County Courthouse. It is unknown if that hearing will still be held.
“I think it’s a moot point now,” McCartney said. “The state’s attorney, Zack Boren, is talking to the attorney general. I’m just not sure what they decided. The supreme court could vacate their order for some reason.
McCartney said the matter of the Jan. 6 hearing could be left on the docket and if there is no new information, just continued until a decision is made.
Boren could not be reached for comment.
David Greenwood, Pike County Sheriff, said he has notified his deputies to handle cases as they normally would before the SAFE-T act was put into place.
