North Aurora to prosecute some DUIS, retail thefts itself
North Aurora is going to handle some misdemeanor DUI, traffic and retail theft prosecutions itself.
Doing so should reduce the time police officers spend going to court, officials said, and could increase the amount of money the village receives from fines.
The village has hired Geneva-based attorney Peter Buh to prosecute misdemeanor DUIs, for $275 a case, instead of having a state's attorney prosecute them. The cases still will be heard at a court in St. Charles.
Police Chief David Fisher said prosecutors currently don't take police officers' schedules into account when scheduling cases, and cases frequently are continued several times. In addition, officers often are paid overtime for their appearances.
Fisher said Buh will coordinate with officers' schedules and officials hope he can handle the cases in fewer court dates.
Misdemeanor DUIs are typically those where the offender has no history of DUIs and registered a blood-alcohol level of .20 or less. Such offenders still will be subject to orders of the court for alcohol-use monitoring, counseling, fines and fees.
The board also decided to prosecute misdemeanor retail thefts through an adjudicative hearing instead of in court.
It hired attorney Victor E. Puscas as the hearing officer for retail thefts, traffic and other village code violations. He will be paid $175 an hour, with a two-hour minimum.
The hearings will be on the third Wednesday of each month, starting Sept. 1, at the North Aurora Police Department.
Retail theft and traffic charges currently are prosecuted by the Kane County state's attorney's office.
Fisher said the change will allow the village to prosecute theft cases where the store does not want to sign a complaint. He said stores often won't pursue charges against a thief if they get the merchandise back and it wasn't a high-value theft.
The minimum fine for retail theft was set at $200, and at $300 for retail theft using an alarm-detection shield.
If a person doesn't want to go through a hearing, they can simply pay the fine.
With the change, the village will get to keep more revenue from the fines. The village also anticipates saving money because police officers won't have to travel to court in Aurora or St. Charles for contested cases. They won't even have to attend the adjudication hearings.
The village already uses Puscas to hear cases involving towing tickets and property code violations. But he does so at the Sugar Grove Village Hall and the Batavia Government Center, when he hears those towns' cases.