Attorney General Kwame Raoul is expressing his frustration with the last-minute effort of some States Attorneys around the state to block the start of the SAFE-T acts cashless bail system.
Raoul calls the actions seeking the temporary restraining orders as improperly entered on the last business day before January 1st when the act’s new provisions go into effect.
In some of the temporary restraining order motions, Raoul says the plaintiffs are asking that the Attorney General’s office be enjoined from enforcing any provision of the SAFE-T Act, not just the pretrial release provisions. Many of those provisions have been in effect for more than a year, but his office received less than one hour’s notice of hearings in some counties and no notice at all in others.
Throughout the day, Raoul says his office continued to learn of plaintiffs having obtained temporary restraining orders without giving the AG’s office notice or providing copies of the complaints or TRO motions. He says to say that is an abuse of the judicial process is an understatement.
Raoul says plaintiffs have had nearly two years to raise challenges since the law took effect and since October to join the lawsuits consolidated in Kankakee County. He says it is outrageous that the plaintiffs instead chose to sit on their hands until the last business day before the SAFE-T Act is to go into effect and then seek to prevent the act from going into effect.
In Marion County, State’s Attorney Tim Hudspeth said Judge Jeff Delong told him to notify the Attorney General so they were present for the Marion County hearing.
Raoul notes it goes without saying that there is an appropriate way to challenge a new law. In fact, he says while their colleagues were engaging in 11th-hour theatrics, the state’s attorneys of DuPage and Kane Counties filed an emergency motion with the Illinois Supreme Court in which they ask the court to provide some clarity regarding the SAFE-T Act so that there will be consistent pretrial proceedings throughout Illinois beginning January 1st. And because his office has already appealed the circuit court judge’s order, the appropriate process for seeking a ruling that will apply to all 102 counties is now underway.
The Illinois Supreme Court halted implementation of the law early Saturday night until its constitutionality is reviewed.
