McHenry Co. State's Attorney Files Suit Over SAFE-T Act

MCHENRY COUNTY, IL — The McHenry County State's Attorney's Office has joined a growing list of prosecutors suing the state over its passage of the "SAFE-T Act.

The bill, which was signed in 2020, will eliminate cash bail in Illinois and takes effect on Jan. 1, 2023. In a statement Monday, McHenry County State's Attorney Patrick Keneally said the law means criminals will not be held before a trial and, if defendants do not show up for court, fail drug screens or violate other conditions of their release, the court cannot issue a warrant for their arrest.

On Monday, the state's attorney's office in McHenry County filed a 49-page lawsuit against Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul and Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker. The law, Kenneally said, passed in the "predawn hours of the 2020 COVID lame-duck session by the super-majority in the Illinois Senate approximately one hour after it was finalized and made available for review" came as a surprise to many in law enforcement.

"The bill felled, in a matter of hours, structural principles of bail that had been deliberately developed over the course of centuries. Principles to effectuate, to the extent possible, important yet competing interests — a defendant’s presumption of innocence against the court’s interest in the fair, safe, and orderly administration of justice," Kenneally wrote.

Kenneally said it's not common for defendants to be jailed prior to trail in McHenry County. As of July, only 3 percent of the 3,714 defendants facing charges as of July were being held pre-trial — and most of them have several past convictions in drug, battery or drug-induced homicide cases.

"Despite claims to the contrary, under current bail laws most indigent defendants are released without paying bail, bail is determined on a case-by-case basis and must be 'considerate of the financial ability of the accused,' and only a tiny percentage of low-class felony or misdemeanor, non-violent offenders are held because they cannot afford bail (usually because they have dismal criminal histories)," according to Kenneally.

Last week, the Will County State's Attorney's Office and the Kankakee State's Attorney's Office filed similar lawsuits.