Rock Island Today

Henry County State’s Attorney Cathy Runty has been granted a temporary restraining order to stop the SAFE-T Act from taking effect in the county on Jan. 1. 

Sixty-five Illinois counties have challenged the constitutionality of the Act. Henry County was among the 37 counties that did not join the lawsuit. 

“Henry County State’s Attorney Catherine Runty filed a Request for Temporary Restraining Order and Preliminary Injunction regarding the implementation of the pre trial release provisions of the SAFE-T Act that were found to be unconstitutional on December 28, 2022 in Kankakee County,” Runty’s office said in a Dec. 30 Facebook post. “That request was consolidated with similar requests from Whiteside County and Rock Island County. This afternoon, Judge Steines granted the request for Temporary Restraining Order and Preliminary Injunction. The pre trial release provisions of the SAFE-T Act will not go into effect in Henry County on January 1, 2023. Further hearing on the matter will be set through court administration.” 

The move comes days after Kankakee County Chief Judge Thomas W. Cunnington of the 21st Judicial Circuit Court of Illinois ruled the SAFE-T Act’s cashless bail provision unconstitutional.

“The administration of the justice system is an inherent power of the courts upon which the legislature may not infringe and the setting of bail falls within that administrative power, the appropriateness of bail rests with the authority of the court and may not be determined by legislative fiat,” the judge wrote in his decision.

Chicago-Kent College of Law criminal law professor Richard Kling noted that the ruling was a forgone conclusion.

“The arguments raised all had merit, they weren’t frivolous,” he told the Chicago Sun-Times.

The SAFE-T Act will still take effect on Sunday in the counties that were not included in the lawsuit. In those counties, thousands of inmates currently being held in jails while they await trial on serious crimes would be released. But after the recent ruling, the 65 counties involved in the lawsuit will not be subject to those provisions of the SAFE-T Act.

The Act underwent changes after a campaign communications blitz revealed several glaring errors in the law. No Republicans voted for the bill or the subsequent changes. When the Safe-T Act is implemented in the surviving counties, those charged with the most heinous crimes—such as robbery, kidnapping, arson, second-degree murder, intimidation, aggravated battery, aggravated DUI, aggravated flight, drug-related homicide, and threatening a public official—will be freed; as the Will County Gazette previously reported.