CHICAGO, Ill./PEKIN, Ill. – Governor JB Pritzker, in his first public comments since the Illinois Supreme Court put on hold the “Pretrial Fairness Act” portion of the state’s “SAFE-T Act,” says he’s disappointed that’s what it comes to.
Pritzker says the constitutionality of “cashless bail”, even after lawmakers amended it, could have been decided before now.
“Justice shouldn’t be delayed, and we want our neighborhoods to be safer,” Pritzker said Wednesday at an unrelated event in Chicago. “Putting the Pretrial Fairness Act into effect will make our neighborhoods safe.”
Pritzker says he believes the Pretrial Fairness Act is constitutional, and that the concern always has been the ability of some people to, in his words, “buy their way” out of jail when charged with a violent crime.
Tazewell County Sheriff Jeff Lower says his concern has been how much the law would not have helped ALL of Illinois, instead of just Cook County.
“It just changes everything with the way we do business,” said Lower. “We had no say or consultation in any of those changes.”
Lower tells WMBD’s “The Greg and Dan Show” the work now is to fix what he says lawmakers “broke.”
