In one of the most serious cases on the detention hearing call at the Leighton Criminal Court Building on a day earlier this month, a judge ordered a teen jailed pending trial after he was accused of shooting a woman in the neck during an attempted carjacking.
“It’s difficult for the court to come to the finding that an 18-year-old is so dangerous,” said Cook County Judge William Fahy. “I can’t overlook the nature of this offense and the level of violence involved. … This poor victim was shot twice.”
More than six months into implementation of the law that eliminated cash bail and reformed the state’s pretrial justice systems, counties have settled into new patterns, with longer detention hearings and money no longer a factor in whether someone will be released from jail.
Illinois was the first state in the nation to legislatively outlaw cash bail, ensuring that outcomes here would be watched closely. With half a year past, experts are taking stock of the Pretrial Fairness Act in practice, while advocates push for funding to support measures that they say will set the law up for success, particularly for the state’s underfunded public defense system.
“It’s a sea change in how things were done,” said Carolyn Klarquist, director of the Pretrial Fairness Unit in the Office of the State Appellate Defender, which is overseeing most appeals related to the act.
Newly released data from the Cook County courts also offers the first glimpse of detention outcomes, though experts caution that it’s still early to compare rates of court appearances and reoffending before and after the law.
The Pretrial Fairness Act has already ushered in significant change for county jails, with reductions in population across the state and in Cook County, according to state and county data.
Its implementation has also come with some growing pains. Appeals of judicial detention decisions have soared, straining the state’s high courts and spurring new rules meant to stem the flow. The law, which seeks to give all defendants a robust defense in the pretrial stage, has underscored the dearth of resources for public defense in some mostly rural parts of the state.
Overall, though, new routines have taken hold, with the law mostly “working as intended” in Cook County, according to a recent report from the Civic Federation and League of Women Voters in Cook County.
By the numbers
Since implementation of the reforms in September, the Cook County prosecutor’s office sought detention in about 18% of cases, with judges granting such petitions about 60% of the time, according to data from the chief judge’s office.
Across the state, judges have granted nearly 64% of detention petitions brought before them by prosecutors since the law took effect, according to data from the Office of Statewide Pretrial Services, which serves 74 counties.
Previously, defendants would go before a judge, who would detain them or order release, often on condition of posting a monetary bail. Under the new system, prosecutors ask a judge to hold defendants in jail in cases deemed to present a flight risk or danger to the public when charged with an offense where detention is allowed. Everyone else is released with conditions, sometimes including electronic monitoring, after an initial appearance.
Proponents of the law have long argued that cash bail deepened disparities in the system by disproportionately jailing people too poor to make bail, and often point out that defendants were still allowed release under the old system if they could afford it.
The measure, though, has been controversial for those concerned about the public safety impact of the provisions — particularly Republicans. Opponents of Gov. J.B. Pritzker have sought to paint him and his Democratic allies as weak on crime.
Since the Pretrial Fairness Act took effect, warrants in Cook County were issued for a failure to appear in court in about 10% of cases in which defendants were released, according to court data.
When looking at new criminal activity, about 7% of those released were charged with a new, nonviolent offense and 4% with a violent offense, the data shows.
It’s not yet clear how this compares with such rates before implementation of bail reform.
During a panel discussion Friday about the reforms, Don Stemen, a professor at Loyola University Chicago studying the impact of bail reform, said the relatively short time frame that the law has been in effect makes it difficult to draw conclusions about recidivism and court appearance rates, though studies are in the works.
With shorter time frames, Stemen said, success rates may be high due to less time to reoffend or miss court dates.
“It’s a little early to try to talk about that,” he said.
The impact on the jail population, though, is clear. In Cook County, the jail population has decreased by about 13%, comparing snapshot days in September and April, according to county data. Despite early concerns, the number of defendants on electronic monitoring has also decreased.
Statewide, average daily jail populations also fell in the first few months, even after taking into account expected seasonal fluctuations, according to a Loyola University Chicago study.
Challenges and future funding
In southwestern Jackson County, prosecutors initially filed detention petitions on nearly every eligible case, said the county’s public defender, Celeste Korando. Pretrial services officers didn’t have a physical location for clients to report to, she said during a bail reform panel Friday in the Loop.
Some of the early hardships have been ironed out. Prosecutors have become more discerning in filing petitions after learning what judges are apt to grant, she said, and the county now has a physical office for pretrial services.
But she said resources are still scarce. Mental health treatment and assessment programs are lacking, and there are lags in outfitting defendants with electronic monitoring due to manpower issues.
“Rural wise, being a more rural county, it is the lack of services,” she said, speaking about post-reform challenges.
In addition to eliminating cash bail, the law also sought to even the playing field for defendants up for their first court appearance, with more robust hearings and opportunities to evaluate the evidence more closely.
While applauded by stakeholders, they still acknowledge the burden placed on judges, attorneys and court staffers often already working with a scarcity of resources.
“I think more so in trial court, there’s a lot more for judges to do, prosecutors to do, for public defenders to do,” Klarquist said.
Proponents of the law are seeking funding to address some of these challenges, which they say were present in the court system long before the reforms.
An April report released by the Illinois Network for Pretrial Justice, which has advocated for bail reform, noted that county funding for prosecutors’ offices often nearly doubles that of their public defender counterparts.
Cook County’s 2024 budget includes more than $204 million for the state’s attorney’s office compared to more than $102 million for the public defender’s office, according to the report.
“Prior to the (Pretrial Fairness Act) it was a crisis,” Stephanie Kollmann, policy director of the Children Family Justice Center at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, said during a panel discussion about funding earlier this month. “When release hearings are happening they are much more robust than they used to be, which is good, but that does put a burden, though, on public defenders, who are already carrying caseloads in many cases that are two or three times the national recommended level.”
Though the Pretrial Fairness Act did allot funding for public defense services, public defenders in rural counties have previously spoken about the difficulties of meeting requirements related to the law when already stretched thin, with fewer lawyers in their communities willing to do public defender work as compared to larger metro areas.
Illinois Senate President Don Harmon proposed a bill earlier this month that would create a statewide office to provide public defenders with additional support, telling the Tribune it seeks to “make sure that resources are being put in place so that no one lacks adequate or effective counsel.”
Advocates are also pushing what they are calling the “Pretrial Success Act,” filed in February by Democratic lawmakers. The bill asks for $15 million to be appropriated for programs that would help defendants navigate the pretrial criminal justice system, expanding access to mental health and drug programs and creating programs to ease barriers that cause people to miss court appearances, such as child care and transportation.
“Missing court is often not intentional,” said Briana Payton, director of policy and advocacy at Appleseed Center for Fair Courts. “Some barriers have very straightforward solutions.”
