A temporary restraining order was entered in Hardin County prohibiting the implementation of the no cash bail provision of the SAFE-T Act. | 3D Animation Production Company/Pixabay
A temporary restraining order was entered in Hardin County prohibiting the implementation of the no cash bail provision of the SAFE-T Act. | 3D Animation Production Company/Pixabay
The Hardin County Sheriff’s Department has filed a temporary restraining order to stop the SAFE-T Act from taking effect in the county on Sunday.
The move comes days after Kankakee County Chief Judge Thomas W. Cunnington of the 21st Judicial Circuit Court of Illinois ruled that the bail reform and pre-trial release provisions are unconstitutional.
“As of January 1st it will be business as usual for the Hardin County Sheriff's Department,” the Hardin County Sheriff’s Department said on Facebook. “We've joined with the other counties in support of revising the Safe-T Act.
“Edit: The no cash bail provisions of the SAFE-T act were found unconstitutional by a Kankakee County judge per written orders entered on December 29th and December 30th. A temporary restraining order was entered in Hardin County on today's date prohibiting the implementation of the no cash bail provision of the SAFE-T act. For all practical purposes it is business as usual in the criminal justice system in Hardin County. Please share this information with your fellow Hardin County residents.”
Cunnington wrote in his decision that “the administration of the justice system is an inherent power of the courts upon which the legislature may not infringe and the setting of bail falls within that administrative power, the appropriateness of bail rests with the authority of the court and may not be determined by legislative fiat.”
Many believed that the ruling was a forgone conclusion. Among them was criminal law professor Richard Kling who, according to the Chicago Sun-Times, said that “the arguments raised all had merit, they weren’t frivolous.”
The SAFE-T Act will still take effect on Jan. 1 in the 37 counties not included in the lawsuit. In those counties, thousands of inmates who await trial on serious crimes would be released. But after Cunnington's ruling, the 65 counties involved in the lawsuit will not be subject to those provisions of the SAFE-T Act.
The Act underwent changes after a campaign communications blitz revealed several glaring errors in the law. No Republicans voted for the bill or the subsequent changes. When the SAFE-T Act is implemented in the surviving counties, those charged with the most heinous crimes—such as robbery, kidnapping, arson, second-degree murder, intimidation, aggravated battery, aggravated DUI, aggravated flight, drug-related homicide, and threatening a public official—will be freed; as the Will County Gazette previously reported.
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