As SAFE-T Act goes live, murder suspects previously eligible to post bond are held in jail
By BETH HUNDSDORFER
& HANNAH MEISEL
Capitol News Illinois
news@capitolnewsillinois.com
In courtrooms around the state early this week, judges conducted the first hearings under a new system that determines whether a defendant will be jailed while awaiting trial based on dangerousness and risk of fleeing prosecution, rather than their ability to post bail.
The abolition of cash bail was included in the SAFE-T Act criminal justice reform of 2021 and originally slated to take effect Jan. 1, though court challenges delayed its implementation until Monday.
In St. Clair County Circuit Court, where nearly 2,000 felony cases and more than 3,400 misdemeanors are filed annually, at least one person was released from jail to await trial on the second day the SAFE-T Act’s bail reform provisions were in effect.
A woman accused of aggravated domestic battery for hitting her partner with a piece of wood was released on Tuesday morning. A mother of a newborn, she was released after a detention hearing found she was not a flight risk or a threat to the public or a specific person.
St. Clair County held three detention hearings Monday morning. All three were previously held on cash bail in cases filed before the SAFE-T Act went into effect. The new law entitled defendants held in lieu of bail prior to Monday’s effective date to petition to have their cases moved to the new system.
Two of those defendants stand accused of first-degree murder and another was being held on firearms charges. The hearings resembled detention hearings held in federal court – which has not used cash bail as a detention method since 1984 – with testimony focusing on whether the person is a flight risk or a danger to the public or a specific person.
“We are all going to make some interesting law this morning,” St. Clair County Judge John O’Gara said as he began the first hearing in his courtroom on Monday morning.
In a basement courtroom in the Kane County Judicial Center — the county’s St. Charles-based criminal courthouse — six defendants were called before Judge Salvatore LoPiccolo for initial appearance hearings Monday morning.
Of the six, all but one of whom had been arrested since Kane County’s last-ever bond call ended around noon on Sunday, four were released after their initial conditions hearing. Two remained in custody until the afternoon detention hearings, at which prosecutors asked the judge to keep them in jail.
Bond hearings have historically been quick affairs, often with no defense attorneys present for indigent defendants who wouldn’t get assigned a public defender until later in their case. But detention hearings in Kane County on Monday afternoon took about 15 minutes each. Both the state’s attorney and the public defender assigned to handle this week’s hearings laid out their cases for whether the defendant should continue to be held in Kane County Jail or released.
All parties and the judge also had access to the defendants’ criminal history, a practice that isn’t new in either Kane or St. Clair county courts, but is a novel development in many counties that have been working with the Office of Statewide Pretrial Services, which has been staffing up to compile those reports for the better part of a year.
DETENTION FOR MURDER SUSPECT: O’Gara, in St. Clair County, presided over the detention hearing for Darrayvia Crump, who was charged with first-degree murder in connection with the shooting of Ivan Marshall in the back of an O’Fallon restaurant last year.
Crump did not fire the gun, Assistant State’s Attorney Erica Mazzotti said during the detention hearing, but did drive the vehicle to the location even after one of her co-defendants said they were “going to rob the dude.” Crump continued to drive her two co-defendants to the scene, making her legally accountable under Illinois law.
Cheryl Whitley, Crump’s attorney, said her client provided information that aided the investigation and would agree to home detention with a monitoring device.
O’Gara found Crump ineligible for release.
After the hearing, Crump was returned to the St. Clair County Jail where she will be held until her trial. She has been there since May 2022. Her bond was previously set at $1.5 million, of which she would have needed to pay 10 percent, or $150,000, to be released.
DETENTION FOR MURDER SUSPECT: In the second St. Clair County hearing, Assistant Public Defender Tom Philo, who represented Trevon Raymond, requested his release. Raymond is charged with first-degree murder in connection with the shooting death of Michael Triplett in East St. Louis on Sept. 21, 2021.
Months after the murder, Raymond was involved in a high-speed chase on the Stan Musial Bridge after shots were fired at an East St. Louis gas station. Raymond crashed his car, allegedly tossed a gun into the weeds and fled on foot. He was arrested, Assistant State’s Attorney Dan Lewis said during the hearing, and ballistics later tied the recovered pistol to the murder.
O’Gara also denied his release, finding there were no conditions that would mitigate the risk to the public or Raymond’s potential flight from prosecution. Raymond will now be held until his trial, set for late October. Previously, he could have freed himself by paying 10 percent of his $1 million bond.
O’Gara told the defendants that they had the right to appeal his decisions and, if they could not afford an attorney, a public defender would be appointed for them.
St. Clair County Public Defender Cathy MacElroy filed motions for detention hearings under the SAFE-T Act for all the clients she represents who were jailed in lieu of bail prior to Monday. She anticipates there will be hundreds of hearings in the coming month.
“It’s day one and I can already see that I will need more help,” MacElroy said as she moved between courtrooms with her arms full of files on Monday morning.
In addition to the detention hearings, defendants that are detained must be tried within 90 days – 30 days shorter than the previous 120-day speedy trial requirement. Extensions requested by the defense do not count against that timeframe, however.
DETENTION FOR FIREARMS OFFENSE: In the third St. Clair County case, Bernard Cherry faced possession of a stolen firearm, unlawful possession of a firearm, aggravated unlawful use of a weapon, resisting a police officer and two counts of unlawful possession of a weapon by a felon. He was arrested in June. His bail was set at $250,000.
He, too, will return to the St. Clair County Jail until his trial.
St. Clair County Chief Judge Andrew Gleeson said on Monday that he expects more hearings later this week. Three were held on Tuesday morning, two of which resulted in detention for the defendants.
Gleeson said he set aside a courtroom for those hearings and reassigned a judge from traffic and misdemeanor court to preside over detention hearings.
The SAFE-T Act was a response to the cash bail system, which the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights found disproportionately impacts minorities. In St. Clair County, MacElroy said 30 percent of criminal defendants are Black.
To the north in Madison County, they had their first detention hearing on Tuesday afternoon. Matthew Kelly was accused of aggravated stalking and criminal damage to property. The judge ordered that he be held in county jail until his trial.
RELEASE FOR VIOLATION OF ORDER OF PROTECTION: In Kane County, the two detention hearings were for violation of an order of protection and domestic violence charges – two areas where the SAFE-T Act sought to give judges greater authority to detain individuals if requested by the state’s attorney’s office.
Standing in an orange Kane County Jail uniform in the windowless courtroom, Tudor Marcel Stoica was read the charges against him after having been arrested the night before for allegedly violating an order of protection from his 80-year-old next door neighbor. Assistant State’s Attorney Christine Bayer pointed to Stoica’s history of breaking that stalking/no-contact order, resulting in a few other pending cases against him.
Stoica was out on bond twice for those previous violations.
“He poses a danger and a threat to our victim in his case,” Bayer told the judge. “Based on that, we’d ask that he’d be detained.”
In response, the public defender listed mitigating factors, like the fact that Stoica has full custody of his 11-year-old son and that he’s studying engineering at Northern Illinois University. In a prior life, Stoica was a physician — a “laparoscopic hernia repair specialist,” he reminded the public defender.
After a bit more back-and-forth, Judge LoPiccolo ruled that the state hadn’t shown “clear and convincing evidence that he poses a real and present physical threat to his neighbor,” given that their verbal altercation on Sunday night didn’t include any physical threats of violence.
Afterward, Bayer asked that the judge order an alcohol-related condition on Stoica’s release, as the police report had indicated Stoica had “an odor of alcohol” when he was arrested. LoPiccolo agreed.
“I will order that you’re not to consume alcoholic beverages and I’ll take it one step further,” he said. “I will order that you submit to random alcohol testing through pretrial services as well.”
The random alcohol testing order is an example of a condition Kane County Chief Judge Clint Hull said in an interview last week he expected to see less frequently under the SAFE-T Act, given the law’s mandate that defendants be placed under the least-restrictive conditions necessary while still ensuring they show up to court.
While Hull said he’s heard concerns from law enforcement predicting fewer opportunities to reach those who may need drug or alcohol treatment, he said he understands one of the SAFE-T Act’s many goals is to limit judges giving “conditions just for conditions’ sake.”
“This is the biggest criminal justice change since the code was written in 1963, so there’s a lot of things that we don’t know,” Hull said. “But I don’t look at that as a negative. We’re just gonna have to see what happens and I have complete confidence in the court system … if we have to adapt, we will adapt under the confines of the law.”
DETENTION FOR DOMESTIC VIOLENCE: The second Kane County detention hearing on Monday ended in continued detention of a man accused of a pair of Class A misdemeanor domestic battery charges — one of the so-called “detainable offenses” laid out under the new law, and the type of case Hull predicted would be the most common to appear in detention hearings.
In the charging documents, Adrian Jowers denied he put his girlfriend in a headlock during an argument over a Link card. In court on Monday, Jowers stood as his criminal history was read, including a battery charge for allegedly punching a person on the street, and a Kendall County charge for reckless discharge of a firearm.
The public defender responded that Jowers’ previous criminal history had no bearing on the domestic violence charge that brought Jowers to court on Monday and asked the judge to release him so he’d be able to continue looking for work and helping provide for his two children, with whom he doesn’t live.
However, LoPiccolo said he was relying on Jowers’ criminal history to make the determination “that no conditions or combinations of conditions can mitigate” Jowers’ threat to public safety, especially to an identifiable victim, and ordered he be held in Kane County Jail. He’ll appear in court again next week.
Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service covering state government. It is distributed to hundreds of print and broadcast outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation, along with major contributions from the Illinois Broadcasters Foundation and Southern Illinois Editorial Association.
Local News
Kenny Jager’s running powers Chicago Christian to semifinal win
At 5-foot-7, height isn’t something that Chicago Christian running back Kenny Jager has much of. In terms of heart, however, the senior running back possesses that in abundant amounts. Last Saturday afternoon, Jager carried 37 times for 217 yards and three touchdowns as the Knights defeated host Farmington 34-20 to earn Chicago Christian’s first trip…
Richards’ season ends with semifinal loss to East St. Louis
EAST ST. LOUIS – Often the end is sudden, unexpected. Great plans are made and then upended. So it was on Saturday for Richards. The Bulldogs walked into Clyde C. Jordan Memorial Stadium hopeful, knowing they were playing a fleet favorite in the East St. Louis Flyers, but believing they had a chance in the…
Kenny Jager, Christian Flutman lead Chicago Christian to Class 2A state title
NORMAL – They’ve been playing football at Chicago Christian since 1968, when the Knights, long a basketball power, kicked off with a sophomore team. The varsity squad began in 1969. The IHSA began the state football playoffs five years later. For a long time, Chicago Christian and football championship games were mutually exclusive concepts. Friday,…
Southwest Regional Publishing basketball roundup, Nov. 27
Boys Benet 66, De La Salle 47: Charles Barnes had 19 points for the host Meteors (2-1) in the pool-play loss at the De La Salle-St. Ignatius Tournament. De La Salle will play for third place at home at 2:30 p.m. Saturday. Brother Rice 79, Zion-Benton 25: Jack Weigus’ 18 points led the two-time defending…
Southwest Regional Publishing basketball roundup, Nov. 26
Boys Argo 54, Stagg 50: Kassam Saleh scored 16 points and Syncere Westbrook had 15 as the Argonauts (2-0) edged the host Chargers (0-2) at the McBride Classic. Domas Narcevicius scored a game-high 18 for Stagg. De La Salle 68, King 48: Charles Barnes scored 19 points to help the Meteors move to 2-0 overall…
Southwest Regional Publishing basketball roundup, Nov. 22-25
Nov. 25 Boys Argo 67, Nazareth 64: Kassam Saleh had a game-high 22 points and Darron Greer Jr. added 15 as the Argonauts edged the Roadrunners in the McBride Classic at Stagg. Matthew Callahan’s 1 points led Nazareth. Brother Rice 67, Thornwood 45: Marcos Gonzales scored a game-high 18 points as the Crusaders opened play…
Grandma’s legacy: Patsy’s gaming and golf brings fun and community to Palos Heights
Jim Ostry grew up in Evanston, across the street from Northwestern University. He spent his summers of his youth working as a caddy at Westmoreland Country Club. “That was when I started golfing and fell in love with the game,” said Ostry, of Lakeview. Ostry turned his passion for golf into a career with a…
Orland Park Seasons 52 opens in time for Thanksgiving feasts
Seasons 52 Fresh Grill and Wine Bar opened a new restaurant in Orland Park in early November, just in time for Thanksgiving. The restaurant, located at 15610 S. LaGrange Rd., is preparing to serve feasts for customers dining in or taking meals home. Thanksgiving is the eatery’s second busiest holiday after Mother’s Day, and its…
Manga artist Sanzaki Kojika to headline Orland Park Library Fan Fest
As an illustrator and writer specializing in manga-style art, Sanzaki Kojika immerses readers in worlds of fantasy and folklore. Her work spans both digital and traditional mediums, with several graphic novels and novels to her credit. This July, Kojika’s longest-running series, Zos Kias, marked its 18th anniversary. She has also contributed to Antarctic Press with…
Neighbors
Southwest Regional Publishing basketball roundup, Dec. 4-5
Dec. 5 Boys TF North 67, Argo 52: Kassam Saleh scored 15 for the Argonauts (2-3, 0-1 South Suburban Red). Girls Reavis 49, Tinley Park 25: Emily Grochola scored 13 points to lead the Rams (4-2, 1-0 South Suburban Red) past the Titans. Shepard 52, TF South 49: Jessica Manley’s 21 points helped the Astros…
Richards’ Myles Mitchell signs with North Dakota State
Myles Mitchell is one of the state’s premier running backs, with a bright future with one of the nation’s best FCS programs. But the path hasn’t always been easy for the Richards senior, who made his college commitment to North Dakota State official during a signing ceremony on Dec. 4. “Eighth grade was kind of…
Brad Johnson Jr. finds range, leads Curie past Lane
Facing what was literally a tall task against Lane on Dec. 5, Curie was in serious need of a spark. Brad Johnson Jr. provided it. Led by 6-foot-10 Penn recruit Dalton Scantlebury, Lane is one of the area’s biggest teams. Curie was undersized by comparison in the Public League Red Shield opener and trailed by…
Orland Park Christmas parade lights up the season
“Even in the cold, this parade warms your heart,” said Cathy Garner, an Orland Park resident who joined her twin daughters in Sunday’s Christmas Parade. With temperatures hovering at 25 degrees but feeling like 15 due to the wind chill, residents bundled up in blankets, winter coats, and hats for the beloved tradition. The parade…
Southwest Regional Publishing basketball roundup, Dec. 2-3
Dec. 3 Boys Andrew 72, Argo 50: Darron Greer Jr. led the Argonauts (2-2) with 14 points. Evergreen Park 70, U-High 58: Keshaun Vaval had 25 points to lead the Mustangs (3-1). Lonnie Mosley added 17 points and Camryn Dandridge grabbed 14 rebounds. Lemont 65, Stagg 35: Omar Barakat scored 17 for the Chargers (0-4).…
Football signing day: Local recruits
Here is a list of football players in the Southwest Regional Publishing coverage area committed to Division I schools. Please email additions or corrections to mikeclarkpreps@gmail.com. Brother Rice Tyler Lofton, RB, Illinois State Jimmie Maxson, WR, North Dakota Charlie Stec, Edge, Western Illinois Lyons Tyler Chambers, OL, Northern Illinois Travis Stamm, WR, Illinois State Marist…
Michael Oliver Jr. offers veteran presence for new-look Curie
There are a lot of new faces at Curie this winter. Gone are the five senior starters from a 31-3 team that won the Public League title and lost by two points to eventual Class 4A champion Homewood-Flossmoor in the Elite Eight. But veteran coach Mike Oliver is back and so is his son, junior…
Boys basketball notebook: Kassam Saleh, Argo aiming high this season
Kassam Saleh is ready to set the tone for Argo. “As time goes on you gain the most experience on the team and become that leader for everyone else,” said Saleh, a senior guard. “They follow you.” The Argonauts finished runner-up in the John McBride Classic at Stagg, falling 50-44 to Plainfield South on Nov.…