More Judicial Stupidity

The "Safe-T Act" is producing stupid results all over the place:

• Illinois appellate courts, where criminal cases go on appeal, are not immune from the regressive effects of the SAFE-T Act euphemistically styled as “reform.”  

  The Second District of the Illinois Appellate Court (which hears cases from Kane, Lake, McHenry, Dekalb, and Kendall Counties) published an opinion pending in McHenry County involving a defendant who was charged with twenty-five offenses, including aggravated identity theft, a class 3 felony, and aggravated fleeing and eluding a peace officer, a class 4 felony. 

  The aggravated fleeing and eluding charges arose after the defendant allegedly led officers on a high-speed car chase from Spring Grove, Illinois across state-lines into Wisconsin. 

  After he was arrested, the State sought to hold the defendant pretrial under the SAFE-T Act arguing the defendant was a risk of “willful flight” because he literally fled from the police in a car at high speeds in order to avoid arrest.  The trial court agreed with the State’s argument and detained the defendant pending his trial.

  On March 19, 2024, the appellate court reversed the trial court and ordered the defendant to be released.  The court adopted the reasoning of another court making the finest of distinctions that though “evading arrest could be viewed as obstructing the criminal justice system, it did not reflect a ‘thwarting of the judicial process to avoid prosecution.’”  In other words, fleeing from police to avoid arrest is not evidence of a defendant being a risk of “willful flight.”

Really? Fleeing and eluding isn't evidence of "willful flight."

The mental gymnastics required to sit on the bench while remembering to breathe and not $hit your pants - a bar that even president Potato can't hurdle - are amazing.