COOK COUNTY, IL, Dec. 29, 2022 - Last night, a judge in Kankakee County issued an opinion that part of the SAFE-T Act is unconstitutional. The judge’s ruling impacts the Pretrial Fairness Act, the portion of the SAFE-T Act that reforms pretrial release conditions and ends money bond.
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CHICAGO, IL, Dec. 28, 2022 – There are few practices in the criminal legal system more abhorrent than using access to wealth to determine whether someone is jailed while awaiting trial.
The use of money bond has always been an affront to several basic Constitutional principles, making a mockery of the presumption of innocence and reducing critical decisions to mere guesswork about what may or may not be in someone’s pocketbook.
The Cook County Public Defender’s Office is pleased to announce the swearing in of 25 new attorneys who are now Assistant Public Defenders in our office. This group of attorneys joins our professional family and our mission to protect the fundamental rights, liberties and dignity of each person whose case has been entrusted to us by providing the finest legal representation.
The Safety and Justice Challenge (SJC) is a national initiative supported by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to safely reduce the overutilization of jails and address racial and ethnic disparities in the criminal legal system. After receiving two planning grants in 2015 and 2016, Cook County received implementation grants in 2017, 2019 and 2021 to collaboratively develop strategies to reduce the Cook County jail population and disparities within it.
The Pretrial Fairness Act (PFA) is the part of the larger SAFE-T Act that was signed into law in February 2021. The law makes reforms to Illinois' criminal justice system centered on increasing Safety, Accountability, Fairness and Equity.
We are being inundated with misinformation about the Pretrial Fairness Act.
Click here for a fact sheet.
The calls come in day and night, seeking legal help for someone who has been arrested.
The Cook County Public Defender’s Arrest Hotline – 844-817-4448 – operates 365 days a year, 24 hours a day, taking calls and providing vital legal representation for people being detained by law enforcement anywhere in Chicago and Cook County.
No matter what the hour, an Assistant Public Defender immediately makes themselves available by phone or in person to provide expert legal assistance.
Do you need help getting back your suspended or revoked driver's license?
The Cook County Public Defender's Office is proud to co-host the seventh installment of the Driver's License Reinstatement Expo. The expo is September 17 at Malcolm X College and volunteer attorneys from our office will participate. People seeking help to get back their suspended or revoked driver's license should register ahead of time at pilsenneighbors.org/dlre
(To read this piece on the Chicago Tribune website click here.)
By Assistant Public Defenders Margaret Armalas and Megan Tomlinson
Sharone Mitchell, Jr., is the public defender for Cook County, which includes Chicago, a city with some of the strictest gun laws in the country. Growing up on the South Side, Mitchell was raised to believe that guns are dangerous and harmful, a view that was reinforced by his experiences as a public defender and gun control advocate. But those experiences have also led him to believe that gun-permitting laws are harmful, as he explains to Lulu Garcia-Navarro in this episode of the New York Times First Person podcast.