All persons shall be bailable by sufficient sureties and No person shall be imprisoned for debt... Section 9 and Section 14 of Illinois State Constitution
As Election Day is long past at least I don't have to see the political ads featuring Joe Rogan's fat fascist head talking about OMG!No Bail in Illinois anymore!
The SAFE-T Act was an excellent step in Illinois not only to address Police abuses but, the well-known inequities in the application of criminal procedure, especially in the which defendants are allowed to bail themselves out awaiting trial. You see rich people can always get themselves out of detention while awaiting their trial but, poor people are often kept in custody for long periods of time.
In response, white rightwingers in Illinois lost their minds and engaged in a bigoted fear campaign of unprecedented fury. Powerful racist white bureaucrats took to the papers with false scenarios and filed a various lawsuits across the State. Eventually a "class action lawsuit" by the Illinois States Attorney's from 57 Illinois Counties were consolidated into a hearing in Kankakee County on December 9th. On December 28th, Judge Thomas Cunnington ruled the "No Cash Bail" provision to be unconstitutional. Setting up an eventual Illinois Supreme Court ruling on the provision. Which I guarantee is going to overturn Judge Cunnington's ruling because tying a defendant's ability to bail themselves out specifically to money is a clear-cut violation of the Illinois Constitution.
The Public Defenders Office of Cook County released a statement as the Illinois Supreme Court issued a last minute stay just prior to the implementation of the Pre-Trial Fairness section of the SAFE-T Act,
Money bond is a deplorable practice, and it is high time that Illinois abolish a system that punishes people – most of them Black and Brown – for being poor. We decry the frivolous lawsuit that was brought against the Pretrial Fairness Act almost two years after it was signed into law. We continue to look forward to a day in the near future when Illinois will move forward as a beacon for our nation, reforming our inequitable pretrial legal system.
Remember it's important to always note that when rightwingers wail about CRIME! CRIME! CRIME! they mean BLACK! BLACK! BLACK! "Crime" and "Chicago" is code for black people. Conservatives believe black people are predisposed to be criminals. So when they have a freak out about OMG! No Cash Bail! it's because conservatives believe all black people are a priori criminals and thus the SAFE-T Act lets hardened criminals out of jail.
Additionally in this fear mongering is the subtle or unsubtle claim by State's Attorney's and Police Chiefs that everyone arrested, regardless of race, is ipso facto guilty. And this gets to the syllogistic conclusion, which the opponents of cash-less bail are actually proposing; i.e. that once someone is arrested they can never be released. Ever. And no this is not hyperbole. Anyone arrested has ostensibly committed a crime once and therefore could commit some crime in the future, so based on this possibility shouldn't every person arrested be kept in custody until such time as their trial occurs?
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