Tweaks vs. moratorium: State’s attorney candidates weigh in on cashless bail
A year after Illinois moved to a cashless bail system, Kane County State’s Attorney Jamie Mosser still has issues with the legislation, but says she will continue to work with her colleagues to “make this law better.”
Her Republican opponent in the November election is calling for an entirely different approach.
During a recent interview with the Daily Herald Editorial Board, Andrew Sosnowski, a former prosecutor, said he would “get state’s attorneys together, not to tweak the law and practice on our time, but to say, ‘Let's put a moratorium on this. Let's stop this until we figure the problems out and make it safe for our communities.’”
Mosser was one of the only Democrats “allowed to be at the negotiation table to fix a law that had good intentions but was poorly written,” she said at a League of Women Voters forum.
Sosnowski called the SAFE-T Act, which among other things put an end to cash bail, “a horrible piece of legislation” and said that he “would ask the governor to put a moratorium immediately on that act.”
Under the law, felony defendants don’t have to post money to be released from custody. However, judges can order detention for defendants facing certain charges, including first-degree murder, criminal sexual assault and others that require a mandatory prison sentence, if convicted. In addition, judges can order defendants held in custody if prosecutors convince them the individual poses a flight risk or is a threat to someone else or the community at large that cannot be addressed with conditions of release.
“We have seen that the people who are a danger to our community that are being held are staying in jail,” said Mosser, who is seeking her second term. “And that’s the most important thing to understand about the cashless bail system because, before, we can ask for a high bail amount, and they could get out of jail, and they commit further crimes.”
Mosser said she’s been part of a negotiation team with other state’s attorneys that created trailer bills “that have significantly fixed the SAFE-T Act.”
“With that being said, we’re still working with the legislators because we need to expand the detention list,” she said, adding that “there should never be a situation where I, as the prosecutor, can’t come in with facts and say this person is a danger. Right now, I am limited in that.”
Sosnowski said the old “bond system in Illinois was not bad,” though he acknowledged it was “misapplied in some situations, and it did cause some racial division sometimes.”
“When I was a prosecutor and they had bond, if the bond was too high, somebody could not be released, you know what was happening? The defense attorney and the prosecutor were working that case out,” he said. “We were talking. We weren't leaving somebody in jail for weeks and months at a time.”
Mosser dismissed the idea of a moratorium.
“I’m going to continue to work with my colleagues to make this law better,” she said, “because the positivity of it, not letting somebody get out who should not get out, is worth everything.”