DuPage County court prepares for end of cash bail in Illinois
CHICAGO (CBS) –Next week, cash bail will be gone in Illinois. The SAFE-T Act will take effect two-and-a-half years after Gov. JB Pritzker signed it into law.
Courthouses expect things to get busy, with lengthy detention hearings in place of bond hearings. CBS 2's Noel Brennan reported on how DuPage County is preparing for the change.
DuPage County unveiled $19.8 million in renovations to the courthouse.
"Our biggest need was space," said Chief Judge Kenneth Popejoy. "We had employees who were working in closets."
Popejoy pitched the expansion to the County Board in 2021 when the SAFE-T Act passed. The law takes effect on Sept. 18, effectively ending cash bail in Illinois.
"I am proud to say that our efforts have led to DuPage County being 100% prepared and ready to comply with this act," said County Board Chair Deborah Conroy.
To be prepared meant adding space.
"We are celebrating the opening of two new courtrooms, a new grand jury room and the opening of the new space for the public defender," Conroy said.
Popejoy added, "We've renovated what was the old bond court, over in the sheriff's office, to the new first appearance in court. This tripled the size of the original courtroom over there."
Bond hearings will soon become pretrial detention hearings, as CBS 2 Legal Analyst Irv Miller explained.
"It's no longer a matter of dollars and cents," Miller said. "It's a matter of what the crime is, what the person's background is, and whether or not the person is a danger to the community."
Brennan: "Are courthouses going to become busier places as a result of this?"
Miller: "Courthouses are going to be busier based upon the number of cases that have to deal with the detention issue on a regular basis, but also the paperwork that's involved. It is much more complicated than it was under our old system."
"Bond court never used to be that way. 15, 20 minutes, this bond, this bond, this bond, go home," Popejoy said. "Now you're all day in court Saturday and Sunday and those judges who are in there Saturday and Sunday still have their regular court calls."
It may result in longer days, but at least DuPage County's four dozen judges have some new, extra space.
"All 48 of us are ready to roll up our sleeves and get to work," he said.
Eliminating cash bail will also affect people in jail who couldn't post bond. Judges expect to revisit many of those cases in detention hearings.