Illinois Supreme Court Upholds Legislative Abolition of Cash Bail

On my drive home yesterday, I heard a news story on the radio. The report indicated that the Illinois Supreme Court had just upheld a law completely eliminating financial conditions of release in the Prairie State – apparently making it the first state in the country to abolish cash bail. The story didn’t detail the legal arguments at issue in the case, or even who had challenged the law. Given the national interest in bail reform, I thought the Illinois case might be a harbinger of things to come elsewhere, so I looked into it. This post briefly summarizes what I learned. What the Illinois legislature did. The path to the elimination of cash bail in Illinois dates back at least to 2017, when the state supreme court convened a Commission on Pretrial Practices. The Commission issued its report in 2020. The group recommended several changes to the pretrial release system then in effect, including that “[j]udicial bail decisions shall presumptively favor nonfinancial release” and that no defendant should be detained due to an inability to pay money bail. After George Floyd was killed in 2020, the Illinois Legislative Black Caucus introduced bills designed to reform the criminal justice, education, health care, and economic systems of the state. The omnibus criminal justice reform bill, commonly known as the SAFE-T Act, is the bill at issue in the recent court decision. See Ill. Pub. Act 101-0652. The bill is 764 pages long and addresses topics including police use of force, body-worn cameras, [...]