West Central Reporter

The Pittsfield Police Department is noting Pike County’s successful granting of a temporary restraining order mirroring a successful challenge of the cashless provision of the SAFE-T Act. 

Sixty-five Illinois counties have challenged the constitutionality of the Act. Pike County was among the 37 counties that did not join the lawsuit.

“On December 30, 2022, Pike County Resident Circuit Judge J. Frank McCartney entered an order granting a temporary restraining order requested by Pike County State’s Attorney Zachary Boren and Pike County Sheriff David Greenwood,” the Pittsfield Police Department said on Facebook. “Pursuant to the order, the pretrial provisions of the SAFE-T Act will not take effect in Pike County. The order was based on the summary judgment order entered on December 28, 2022, by Judge Thomas W. Cunnington, Circuit Judge of the 21st Judicial Circuit, finding the pretrial portions of the SAFE-T Act unconstitutional. Additionally, Judge Cunnington entered an order on December 30, 2022, clarifying that the amendments to the terms 'bail' and 'pre-trial release' are 'facially unconstitutional, void, and unenforceable' as used in the pre-trial provisions of the SAFE-T Act. The Pike County case is set for status on January 6, 2023.” 

The move comes days after Kankakee County Chief Judge Thomas W. Cunnington, of the 21st Judicial Circuit Court of Illinois, ruled the SAFE-T Act’s cashless bail provision unconstitutional.

“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,” Cunnington wrote in his decision.

Richard Kling, criminal law professor at the Chicago-Kent College of Law, noted that the ruling was a forgone conclusion.

“The arguments raised all had merit, they weren’t frivolous,” he told the Chicago Sun-Times reported.

The SAFE-T Act will still take effect on Sunday in the counties that were not included in the lawsuit. In those counties, thousands of inmates currently being held in jails while they await trial on serious crimes would be released. But after the recent 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.