Lake County Gazette

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker is defending the idea of a cashless bail system as a "more fair" system, The Center Square reported. 

“It’s a more fair system than to have some people sitting in jail for days, weeks or months when they just don’t happen to have the few hundred dollars, or a couple of thousand dollars, again when they’ve committed a nonviolent crime, to be let out,” Pritzker said, the story said.

The law ending cash bail statewide was initially passed with the SAFE-T Act in early 2021, with lawmakers having amended the law several times since then, including last fall when the Democratic majority modified it to allow denial of pretrial release for a slew of serious crimes, ranging from murder to kidnapping and more, according to the Center Square.

With the law slated to go into effect at the start of the new year, the day before the Illinois Supreme Court suspended the measure pending an appeal from the Pritzker administration, legislative leaders and the Illinois Attorney General, the story said. If the legislation is restored as signed, violent criminals will remain behind bars at the judge’s discretion, the governor said, according to The Center Square.

Pritzker recently downplayed concerns raised over his million-dollar donation to two then-supreme court justice candidates now on the bench of seven. Critics charge such a perceived conflict is enough to taint the possible outcome.

Jeff Clayton with the American Bail Coalition said judges already have the ability to set lower bail for lower-income defendants.

“Are first-timers who can’t afford bail stuck in jail, generally not, and I think Illinois being a progressive state, we’ve already seen that, that those people just don’t exist, and that’s exactly what we saw in New York,” Clayton told WMAY, the Center Square reported. “Laws like this benefit recidivist defendants.”