■ Police unions, others air concerns over criminal justice proposal.
Police unions and law enforcement organizations from across Illinois were united on Saturday in opposition to a broad criminal justice overhaul the Illinois Legislative Black Caucus is pushing during the General Assembly’s lame-duck session, while Cook County’s top prosecutor weighed in with her support.
Many of the objections from police unions and others were aired during a nearly four-hour Senate committee hearing, and centered largely on proposed restrictions on collective bargaining rights for police and the removal of protections for officers against lawsuits alleging civil rights violations.
Tamara Cummings, general counsel for the Illinois Fraternal Order of Police Labor Council, warned that eliminating so-called qualified immunity for officers would “open the floodgates for frivolous lawsuits.”
“This bill goes beyond reasonable reform and goes beyond necessary reform, and it’s frankly punitive,” Cummings testified before the Senate Executive Committee.
The wide-ranging Black Caucus agenda also has health care, education and economic tenets. While the lawmakers spearheading the agenda are pushing for its passage during the brief lame-duck session, it remains unclear how much can get done before the General Assembly’s next term begins on Wednesday.
State Sen. Elgie Sims, a Chicago Democrat, is sponsoring the proposed criminal justice overhaul, which also includes the elimination of cash bail and requirements for all police officers to eventually be equipped with body cameras. Sims indicated some changes to the plan could be forthcoming
But Sims and other proponents pushed back on the idea that the legislation, filed late Tuesday, was being rushed, noting that public hearings and private meetings took place throughout the summer and fall after the public outcry over the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police.
“For me, it’s not a rush,” said Senate Majority Leader Kimberly Lightford, a Maywood Democrat, who led the Black Caucus for years. “You guys knew we were doing this. You participated in what we were doing. In fact, you provided testimony.”
While several representatives from law enforcement on Saturday expressed a general openness to reform or “modernization,” they provided few concrete examples of changes they would support.
Crystal Lake police Chief James Black, testifying inhis role as president of the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police, said the bill would “destroy lawenforcement’s ability to keep our communities safe.”
Black went as far as suggesting that provisions allowing people in police custody more access to phone calls could have prevented his department from solving the case of 5-yearold AJ Freund, who was murdered by his parents in 2019.
“Do you want to stop law enforcement from finding murdered children?” Black said.
Sims. said Black was fearmongering.
“You pick one of the most extreme cases to say that justifies a deprivation of constitutional rights for an individual because there was a case where one person acted badly,” Sims said.
Despite repeated requests, the chiefs association did not provide any “serious proposals” for inclusion in the legislation, Sims said.
Although the opposition from police appears uniform, the effort has support among others involved in the criminal justice system.
Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx backs the criminal justice legislation. In a statement she sent to a lawmaker that was read during Saturday’s House committee meeting on the matter, she acknowledged it was “not perfect,” but that lingering concerns could be addressed with some adjustments.
The legislation “is meant to build trust in police departments across Illinois” while seeking to “alter unfair criminal justice policies rooted in systemic racism that result in our jails and prisons being disproportionately occupied by Black and Brown individuals,” Foxx said.
House Republican leader Jim Durkin of Western Springs issued a rebuke of Foxx for supporting the legislation, saying it “may be the most disappointing and irreconcilable breach of trust between State’s Attorney Foxx and the citizens of Cook County.”
“These anti-victim and anti-law enforcement proposals have no place in our society,” Durkin said.
Also during the House committee meeting, Robbin Stuckert, presiding judge of the 23rd Judicial Circuit in north central Illinois, called the changes the legislation would make to pretrial procedures “long overdue,” but urged delaying the date the new law, if passed, would take effect.
“An immediate effective date could be catastrophic for the system, and impede the very reforms all of us are seeking,” Stuckert said.
The proposed legislation says the Illinois Supreme Court may create a statewide risk assessment tool to guide establishing conditions for pretrial release in part based on the defendant’s likelihood of appearing for future court dates and whether they pose a threat to other people.
Distinguishing between a willful failure to appear in court and a failure because of lack of transportation or some other factor is key, Stuckert said.
Will County State’s Attorney Jim Glasgow said he’s not against most of the concepts within the legislation, but some of the language could create unintended outcomes in some cases with violent offenders.
“The biggest concern that we have as state’s attorneys is a murderer can come before the court, … he has killed all his victims, all the people that he might be a danger to are dead, so when I’m standing in front of the court, I can’t meet the burden to restrain him under this new statute,” Glasgow said. “A high likelihood of flight — I wouldn’t have evidence of that without a thorough investigation.”
Even in the face of such concerns, the sweeping proposal has the backing of the Illinois State Bar Association.
Recent events have highlighted decades of racial disparities that have eroded public trust in police and in the court system, said former Madison County Public Defender John Rekowski, testifying on behalf of the bar association.
“This is a big problem, and it requires a bold response. … This is not a moment for incrementalism,” Rekowski said.