A bi-partisan group of 62 Illinois State’s Attorneys who have sued to overturn the SAFE-T Act will appear before a Kankakee County court, where their lawsuits are consolidated, for oral arguments Dec. 7.
The group, which includes Madison County's Tom Haine, released the following joint statement:
“As the Chief Legal Officers of our respective Counties we swore to protect and defend the rule of law. Therefore, we are compelled to inform the people of the State of Illinois, that the SAFE-T Act is unconstitutional and a serious threat to public safety, specifically, to victims of and witnesses to violent crimes in our communities. This is not political. We are Democrats and Republicans. Whatever the result of the various elections decided tomorrow, our fundamental legal concerns with the SAFE-T Act remain."
According to the state's attorneys:
- The SAFE-T Act violates the constitutional requirement that all bills “shall be confined to a single subject,” but the SAFE-T Act quite obviously covers several unrelated subjects across its 764 pages.
- A court’s ability to require a monetary bail is specifically stated in the Constitution. Yet the SAFE-T Act unconstitutionally eliminated that power without a constitutional amendment.
- This elimination of the core judicial power to set bail to protect victims and ensure compliance with judicial orders, along with severe restrictions in a court’s discretion to issue warrants when defendants fail to appear in court, also violates the separation of powers.
- The SAFE-T Act is unconstitutionally vague, since its terms cannot be reasonably understood by those mandated to follow them and are internally contradictory in many places.
The state's attorneys are requesting that Kankakee County Circuit Court Judge Thomas Cunnington declare the law null and void. Based upon a briefing schedule, they believe Cunnington will issue a ruling about one week after arguments, on Dec 15.
"There has been much confusion and vitriol surrounding the passage and haphazard attempts to implement the SAFE-T Act over the past year and a half," they said in a release. "We are hopeful that now, calmer heads will prevail, the rule of law will be respected, and the judiciary in its wisdom will once again make it clear that the constitution’s mandates must be followed and the general assembly may not simply ignore them whenever it pleases.”
The press release was signed by the state's attorneys of the following counties:
Adams, Boone, Brown, Carroll, Cass, Clay, Clinton, Coles, Cumberland, DeKalb, DeWitt, Douglas, Effingham, Fayette, Ford, Franklin, Fulton, Greene, Grundy, Hancock, Jackson, Jasper, Jefferson, Jersey, Jo Daviess, Johnson, Kankakee, Kendall, Knox, LaSalle, Lee, Livingston, Logan, Macon, Madison, Mason, Massac, McDonough, McHenry, McLean, Mercer, Monroe, Montgomery, Moultrie, Ogle, Perry, Pope, Pulaski, Randolph, Saline, Sangamon, Scott, Shelby, Stephenson, Tazewell, Union, Vermillion, Washington, White, Will, Winnebago and Woodford.