CHICAGO – Nearly 20% of people arrested and charged with crimes in Chicago have already been released on pretrial release for another pending criminal case, a number that appears to be significantly higher than during a comparable period last summer when Illinois was still on a bail system worked.
That’s a finding from a deep dive CWBChicago conducted into Cook County court cases as the state approaches the one-year anniversary of the cashless bail era.
Our research also found that the likelihood of a crime suspect being thrown in jail rather than going home varies widely depending on which judge presides over the first court hearing.
Increased recidivism
Officials often talk about the percentage of people remanded in custody charged with a new crime (about 13%). But there is no publicly available data that reveals the percentage of new felony cases generated by people who already have cases pending.
In other words, it is easy to find out how many people who have been provisionally released are accused of new crimes. It is impossible to find out what percentage of new crimes are (allegedly) committed by people in pre-trial detention.
We’ve asked every player in the county’s justice system to provide us with that information. What percentage of murders are committed by people in pre-trial detention? What about the percentage of robberies? Shoplifting? No office or agency has been able to provide that information and some offices have told us that from the county can’t generate the information because the court’s data system does not allow this.
So we rolled up our sleeves and got to work, reviewing every case filed between July 1 and September 12 for crimes committed in Chicago, not including domestic.
We tracked the number of defendants remanded in custody for a misdemeanor or misdemeanor and recorded every initial detention decision made by the nine judges assigned to the court’s Pretrial Division at 26th and California.
According to court records, 12% of new felony cases were filed against people already in pretrial detention. Another 6.1% of criminal cases were filed against people in pre-trial detention. That means a total of 18.1%, almost one in five new felony cases, are filed against someone with an active criminal case.
How does that compare to the bail era? To find out, last July and August we dusted off copies of the Central Bond Court manifestos kept by attorneys at the Cook County Public Defender’s Law Office.
These documents showed that only 8.5% of defendants facing new bail violation charges were identified.
It is important to note that year-to-year comparisons are not perfect. Our 2023 data does not include cases handled by private attorneys or cases heard on weekdays in Branch 66, the courtroom where the most serious crimes such as murder and assault are heard. Human error also plays a role, for example if someone has not noted a violation on a manifest.
Throwing the dice
Perhaps more surprising than the increasing number of felony charges filed against people while other cases are pending is this: Some Chicago judges are much less likely to grant prosecutors’ detention requests than their colleagues.
Under the SAFE-T Act, if someone is accused of committing a crime serious enough to warrant being held in jail pending trial, prosecutors must first file a request for detainer so the judge can consider it.
Between July 1 and September 12, Chicago pretrial judges granted 66% of about 600 detention requests filed by prosecutors, the data show.
But the chances of a suspect being apprehended varied greatly depending on which judge was handling his case.
Judge David Kelly approved only 46% of the detention requests he received between July 1 and September 12, court records show. Judge Caroline Glennon-Goodman approved only 53% of the detention requests, while Judge William Fahy granted 59%.
On the other end of the spectrum, Judge Shauna Boliker approved detention requests 84% of the time. Judge Susana Ortiz, the division’s supervising judge, awarded 81%, while Judge Deidre Dyer signed off at 80%.
A note
In the coming days, officials will be talking a lot about Illinois’ first year without bail. Some of those from Cook County will surely boast that 88% of all defendants appeared in court as required.
That is the number published in court latest dashboard: 88% have “not received a warrant for failure to appear during pretrial release,” according to the dashboard, claiming this number means “88%” [are] Meets scheduled court dates”
By comparison, when cash bail ended last year, the compliance rate for misdemeanors was flat just under 80%. So, at first glance, it appears that compliance is better without cash bail.
However, the numbers are not apples-to-apples.
Under the current system, judges often must notify defendants who miss court dates by mail before an order can be issued.
As a result, the number of people who fail to appear is substantially higher than the 88% who ultimately end up in warrant status. But because – like these people – they received a postcard instead of a warrant, the chief judge considers them “in compliance with the scheduled court dates” even though they were not.
Several months ago we asked the Chief Judge’s office if they would consider changing the label from “in accordance with scheduled court dates” to “not in warrant status.” The office did not respond and the label remained the same.
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