Will County Gazette

State Rep. Jim Durkin (R-Lemont) recently spoke about the halting of the controversial SAFE-T Act.

"Last night's decision is a victory for the citizens of Illinois and especially the victims of crime and the men and women in law enforcement," Durkin said to the Will County Gazette. "We warned about the consequences of the legislation from the beginning. Now, the Illinois Democrats — the governor, the president of the Senate, the Speaker of the House — are feeling the consequences of how they formulated and passed this legislation. After four attempts to fix this misguided and confusing scheme and a strong rebuke by the Circuit Court, we have an opinion that we have to now decide how it's going to work and how this is going to be applied statewide.

"My recommendation is that we have both parties — the prosecutors and also the state — seek a stay of the implementation of the Pre-Trial Fairness Act section of the SAFE-T Act to the Supreme Court and negotiating [sic] in good faith to find a fair and reasonable cash reform bill, or I would ask if both parties — the plaintiff, the prosecution, and also the governor, speaker, and president — to stay the implementation of this act while this matter is under appeal. We have 54 counties that are affected by this and we now have, if nothing is done between now and Jan. 1, there will be an unequal application of this law throughout the state of Illinois. That is not right and it's not responsible."

The Pre-Trial Fairness Act is a portion of the SAFE-T Act that eliminates cash bail for several crimes, according to NBC Chicago. It was found unconstitutional in late December by a Kankakee County Judge, following a class-action lawsuit from multiple jurisdictions within the state of Illinois. The decision meant that cash bail would remain legal in 65 counties statewide. This move led to questions from the public after the office of Kwame Raoul, Illinois attorney general, filed an appeal.

"It is important to note that the order issued today by the court is not a decision on the merits of the constitutionality of the SAFE-T Act, and I appreciate the court's interest in expediting the appeal," Raoul said, as reported by FOX 32. "We look forward to mounting a robust defense of the constitutionality of the law and ensuring that it goes into effect across the state."

The Illinois Supreme Court issued a ruling on Saturday that placed the SAFE-T Act on an indefinite hold statewide, according to CBS Chicago. The state Supreme Court found that "the measure would unfairly take discretion on bail out of the hands of judges." This occurred only a few hours before the SAFE-T Act was scheduled to go into effect — at 12:01 a.m. on Sunday. 

"Tomorrow was supposed to be absolute chaos at 26th and California with this new law taking effect, and I think the Illinois Supreme Court realized that in making this rather late decision today to stop that from happening tomorrow," Irv Miller, legal analyst for CBS Chicago, said. "So, I think they were sitting around today thinking, 'How are we going to remedy this catastrophe?' And I'm going to use the word 'catastrophe' if this went ahead."