The elimination of cash bail as a means to detain people before trial has brought change to McLean County, including heavier workloads and lower jail populations, as officials navigate the implications of a massive rewrite of the state’s pretrial process.
Courts across Illinois began implementing the Pretrial Fairness Act in September.
The new law has brought change to nearly every step of the criminal justice system, starting with how people are arrested, charged and released. Judges and other stakeholders in the justice system were tasked with developing a plan to comply with the new law and at the same time keep the court system moving efficiently.
Bond hearings where a determination is made on whether the state will ask for a person to be detained and a judge will decide if the individual is allowed to be released have gone from lasting as little as 15 minutes to taking an entire afternoon.
McLean County State’s Attorney Erika Reynolds called the new process “clunky and difficult to execute because there is so much information being exchanged and steps that must be taken in a very short amount of time. This can be as little as three hours when we used to have weeks.”
In cases where a person is issued a citation and released, the state is bound to a 21-day timeline for providing information to the defense “when in the past we could prioritize the most serious cases and address others later,” said Reynolds.
To deal with the added workload, the state’s attorneys office has revamped the responsibilities of support staff. So far, the office has managed with existing staff, although the McLean County Board approved additional resources for the PFA changes.
The automatic review process for jailed defendants has also created more work for prosecutors and stress on victims who could be called to testify at every hearing where the defendant’s release and any no-contact orders are considered, said Reynolds.
“In the past to have bond re-evaluated there had to be a change in circumstances, a motion filed and three days’ notice. Now, the review happens every single time the person is in court. This is extremely burdensome, not only to my office, but also and more importantly, the victim and/or the victim’s family,” said the prosecutor.
Reynolds said, for some victims, “our phone calls are reminders of a terrible time in their lives."
Victims may also be called to testify at PFA hearings and explain why a defendant poses a threat to their safety. Such a trend has not been seen locally, said Reynolds, adding “my office does whatever we can to avoid that.”
Lawmakers who supported the PFA view the sweeping changes as a roadmap to allow persons accused but not convicted of crimes to continue to live their lives outside a jail cell while their cases are pending.
Before September, Illinois followed a pattern seen in other states where jails held mostly pre-trial detainees who are presumed innocent. Statistics on how the PFA has impacted jail populations and court systems statewide are being compiled by Loyola University in Chicago.
McLean County Public Defender Ron Lewis said the possibility of being released on a criminal charge is important to defendants.
“Many appreciate the ability to get back to a job or household to continue supporting dependents. This helps avoid other situations with dependent care, eviction, and other issues that tend to stress local resources,” said Lewis.
The public defender acknowledged that detention hearings run longer under the PFA and involve a greater level of detail. Lewis said the number of defendants scheduled to appear in court impacts staffing.
“We are in a continuing state of adjustment, including the day-to-day fluctuation in hearing numbers. On some days, one attorney can handle the hearings, while on other days we pull several attorneys from other areas to respond to the numbers due in court,” said Lewis.
Tracy Beeler, supervisor of the criminal division of the McLean County circuit clerk’s office, has witnessed how small changes in the flow of information can produce a multitude of changes for the office responsible for maintaining court records.
“Change trickles down. It’s like every week something new happens,” said Beeler, whose division processed about 1,900 felony and misdemeanor cases last year.
Keeping up with the new format for detention hearings has meant new training for court clerks and tweaks to the workflow to make sure certain information from the hearings is sent to the jail and filed in a timely matter. Clerks now file the updated information electronically from the courtroom to avoid delays, said Beeler.
A dramatic increase in the number of appeals filed since September has also added to the workload for the circuit clerk’s staff, said Circuit Clerk Don Everhart.
The handful of appeals normally filed over a four-month period now stands at 88 as defendants held under the PFA challenge their detention, said Everhart. The McLean County state’s attorney has filed one appeal involving the release of a man charged with predatory criminal sexual assault.
“It’s obviously more work. My staff has to be on top of everything,” Everhart said of the impact the PFA has had on his office.
Statewide, the dramatic increase in the number of appeals since September will be the focus of a new task force named in January by the Illinois Supreme Court to study the impact of the state’s five appellate districts.
Still unknown is the economic impact the PFA will have on circuit clerks’ budgets. The loss of the 10% of cash bail previously retained by the state from defendants at the conclusion of a case “will be significant,” said Everhart. The extent of that loss will be clearer later this year when county officials begin work on their 2025 budgets, said the circuit clerk.
Jail population down
A slow but steady decrease in the McLean County jail population since September follows predictions that as fewer offenses were detainable under the PFA, more jail cells would be empty.
McLean County Sheriff Matt said the jail averages 25 fewer inmates.
“We were sitting usually around 200 inmates at the beginning of this and now we’re around 175, so it's pretty steady. So we lost a percentage there, but it wasn’t huge. I think people thought the jails were going to empty out. There are advantages to some inmates not to go on the new PFA system, so not everybody applied” for release, said Lane.
Defendants who consider their cases to be weak and their chances of going to prison strong may opt to earn pretrial detention credit by staying in jail as their case plays out in court, Lane explained.
Sheriff’s department data shows an average daily population of 198 inmates in September. The highest census for 2023 came in February with 220 inmates.
Last year, the county found itself in a different position as the county paid to house its inmates in LaSalle County because of a staffing shortage. That situation was resolved, said Lane, after more correctional officers were hired.
The increased staffing and lower population may allow the jail to reopen an area for inmates sentenced to weekends and other shorter stays to accommodate work schedules, said Lane.
“As this population goes down and my staffing goes up, I hope to be able to do periodic imprisonment again. It’s something we haven’t done in a while because we don’t have the room or the manpower at this point and we would have to cordon off one section for that purpose only. So when we get to that point, we’ll be opening that up too, hopefully.”
People on both sides of the PFA issue have discussed the unintended consequences of the criminal justice reform measure, reflecting on the positive as well as the negative aspects of allowing more people to stay out of jail.
Lane said he worries about the consequences of releasing people under the influence of drugs or those accused of violent behavior on a notice to appear in court at a later date.
“I do have concerns about people that have addictions and you let them out immediately. So, if somebody got caught with a minor amount of drugs that comes in, they get processed, they go out the front door, they’re very capable of going to get more. And there’s violent people, too, that come in and maybe they didn’t do anything that is detainable, and they just get let out and it concerns me for the victim,” said Lane.
A small change in arrest procedures allows the county to locate individuals who received a citation and are released with a court date. A requirement that arrestees are booked at the jail before their release gives the county information that could help find someone who fails to appear in court, said Lane.
Stakeholders consider the fine-tuning of the process an anticipated consequence of the major change the PFA brought to the criminal justice system.
“As in any field with a new process, wrinkles should get ironed out with practice, reflection and adjustment,” said Public Defender Ron Lewis.
The year-plus of planning and preparation in McLean County paid off, said the public defender.
'I think we are doing a fairly good job'
Both Twin City police chiefs say the advanced training in advance of the PFA's implementation also paid off for officers.
There was "certainly a lot of anxiety going into it," Bloomington Police Chief Jamal Simington said in an interview. "The officers, especially the veterans who have been working a different system for 20 or more years, had concerns policywise. So we knew it was important to amp up the training to make sure they were comfortable when the switch happened — and for the most part, officers have acclimated to that. I think we are doing a fairly good job."
Normal Chief Steve Petrilli said the McLean County state's attorney's office held multiple trainings to guide officers through various "problem scenarios" that could come up via the new jail booking and arrest procedures.
"When the switch finally was flipped that, 'Hey this is the guidelines that we are going to under,' we were prepared," Petrilli said. "We had kind of put flowcharts together: If it's A, you go this route. If it's B, you go this route. And once you learn those things, it becomes kind of like second nature."
But both Petrilli and Simington said the PFA's requirement that a court hearing be held within 48 hours of a person's arrest has resulted in additional working hours for officers.
"Operationally, the biggest change for us would be just the timeliness of reports. Making sure that the reports and any accompanying evidence are transmitted down to the state's attorney's office in a timely manner," Petrilli said.
Simington said BPD has seen an uptick in the amount of overtime hours related to processing violent crimes under the PFA. He said the 48-hour hearing deadline means officers sometimes work back-to-back shifts in order to compile reports and other necessary information, particularly related to violent crimes or other felonies that are detainable under the PFA.
"Our overtime hours have increased significantly, especially for homicides, for instance, because those reports have to be done before a person goes before a judge to determine whether he or she will be detained," Simington said. "So I've had officers having to work double shifts, sometimes, just to get reports done for those violent crimes. So that becomes problematic at times, but we know that's part of it."
Both chiefs said data that more accurately reflects changes following the PFA's implementation would likely be available after a year.
