Now, judges decide whether defendants should be jailed until trial or set free without a cash bail. The decision depends on the severity of the crime, the defendant’s criminal history, their likelihood to flee and if the person poses a threat to the community, officials said.The move is part of a larger criminal justice reform bill signed into law in Illinois in 2021 that saw several legal challenges which delayed its implementation.
Kane County Associate Judge Salvatore LoPiccolo, tasked with presiding over pretrial hearings Monday through Friday, saw six cases Monday. Four people were released without bail and two had detention hearings in the afternoon. Of the two, only one person was detained. With the new system, at 5:30 a.m., court services officials in Kane County arrive to find out who is on the list to appear in front of LoPiccolo, and begin collecting information, such as the defendant’s criminal history, to prepare a risk assessment, Hull said. Public defenders come in at 7 a.m. and meet in person with the defendant in jail instead of over Zoom, a new step that hasn’t been done since before the pandemic.
On Monday, only one person was detained in Kane County. LoPiccolo said he has a list of statutes to look at when deciding whether to detain someone. The one person who was detained was selected in part because of his previous criminal history and because of the details of the crime itself, officials said.