Hannah Meisel’s recent report for Capitol News Illinois
included a line that jumped out at me: “Per state law — which hasn’t been
updated since 1949 — only counties with 35,000 or more residents are required
to set up offices of public defender.”
According to information posted on numerous websites (Illinois
Demographics, Wikipedia and World Population Review), a majority of 62 out of
102 Illinois counties have fewer than 35,000 residents. Fifty counties have
less than 25,000 residents. Another 31 have less than 15,000 inhabitants, 15
have less than 10,000 people and seven don’t even have 5,000 residents. For
perspective, a single Chicago ward contains about 54,000 people. Only 24
counties have at least that much population.
All counties in the state are required by the Illinois
Constitution to have sheriffs, county clerks and treasurers. State statutes
heap on many more responsibilities, as do local county ordinances.
We’ve long seen advocates calling for school district consolidation
and township elimination. But the SAFE-T Act’s implementation last week
highlights how the state should probably start a conversation about how dozens
of small Illinois counties can effectively govern in a modern society.
A recent WBEZ story noted that Cass County has “one
attorney and one resident judge handling all the criminal cases.” Cass is just
northwest of Sangamon County and has a bit more than 13,000 residents.
Meisel’s story profiled a public defender who does
part-time work in two counties: Gallatin and Hamilton. The combined population
of those two counties is about 13,000, according to her report.
The counties want more money from the state to implement
the new law, which fully took effect Sept. 18. Public defenders outside of Cook
County received $10 million in this fiscal year’s budget, which doesn’t seem
like much.
I don’t know what the answer is here, but I do know that
local mandates are regularly approved at the Statehouse without taking the
population of most Illinois counties into consideration.
And the lack of resources in Illinois’ plethora of tiny
counties is only one problem. There will be other problems with the new SAFE-T
Act.
A prosecutor will decide not to ask a judge to keep
someone in custody who has been busted for a detainable offense, or a judge
will overrule a prosecutor who wants someone detained, or a loophole will be
exploited and that suspect will then go out and commit another crime and maybe
hurt someone, or worse.
This sort of thing is not new, of course. A small
minority, but still a significant number of people who bailed out of jail,
wound up going back after committing more offenses. But that history may easily
be lost in the debate as bad things happen under the new law.
Controversy arose on the very first day of the new law
when WTTW reported that the Cook County state’s attorney’s office decided not
to ask for the detention of the very first person given a hearing. The suspect
was accused of pepper spraying four Chicago police officers and sending three
of them to the hospital, and is facing four counts of aggravated battery to a
police officer.
“This highlights the misplaced priorities of Illinois’
criminal justice system when the prosecutor prioritizes the freedom of a
violent offender over the safety of those police officers dedicated to
protecting and serving our communities,” said Senate Republican Leader John
Curran in response.
Elsewhere, though, prosecutors used the new law to keep
people behind bars who likely would’ve previously walked away.
McLean County State’s Attorney Erika Reynolds has been a
staunch critic of the new law, but her office persuaded a judge to keep a man
locked up who was accused of possessing a gun as a felon, a consortium of
Public Radio stations reported. The man was arrested before the SAFE-T Act
officially took effect, and his public defender wanted him charged under the
old statute so he could potentially bond out of custody. The judge disagreed
and the man remained in custody.
Proponents just haven’t focused on how the SAFE-T Act
will make it easier in many cases to keep physically dangerous people locked up
without bail.
But no mere law can eliminate human error or prevent all
unforeseen circumstances. As those cases emerge, we can probably expect
legislative fights over whether to expand the list of detainable offenses.
Those battles could wind up being the new version of the
old legislative tradition of annually enhancing criminal penalties, which
proceeded unabated for decades until more progressive members finally put a
stop to it.