A trio of experts discussed changemaking pieces of legislation at a community event Tuesday at Heartland Community College. The forum held by the League of Women Voters of McLean County profiled new laws aimed at transforming Illinois' criminal justice system.
Casey Costigan is the Chief Judge of Illinois’ 11th Judicial Circuit, encompassing Ford, Livingston, Logan, McLean and Woodford Counties. During his presentation, Costigan said a new law reforming the state's public defense system is a value-add—if the state can figure out how to pay for it.
The Illinois Supreme Court has appointed Costigan to serve as a judicial liaison on the committee overseeing the law's implementation over a two-year period. He said he likely got that job by registering concerns.
“We’re going to get a pool of experts. That’s going to cost a lot of money,” he said. “We’re going to hire more attorneys. Again, money. We’re going to go ahead and provide office staff. Money.”
The Funded Advocacy and Independent Representation, or FAIR Act establishes a statewide public defender’s office with the goal of capping caseloads for public defenders and providing oversight and independence.
Counties are required to fund public defense under the new law. The state is expected to chip in but hasn't said where the money will come from.
“[Counties] are still responsible for the salaries. You’re still responsible for the operating costs of the public defenders.”
Those costs are funded by real estate taxes and, to some degree, through an intergovernmental Mental Health and Public Safety Fund.
“The county cannot cut any budgets,” Costigan said, “but they’re going ahead and saying there are additional obligations you do have.”
Currently, public defenders are selected by judicial appointments. The law removes local control and aims to reduce bias.
“Now, I’m not saying much about Illinois politics, but I will say, most of our last governors have gone to prison for corruption,” Costigan said.
Judges will be able to advise the state public defender on countywide appointments, but Costigan said he remains concerned about state lawmakers or the governor currying favor to get a young lawyer appointed as a local public defender.
Another concern: counties with populations under 35,000—that includes Ford and Logan Counties—perhaps ironically leaving off areas of the state which could most benefit from state support in the legal system.
Costigan said the law is aspirational and has about a 50/50 chance of succeeding.
“It’s an ambitious law,” he said. “It passed strictly on party lines. I’ve checked with our local public defender. They’ve said, ‘I don’t know. Probably not much is going to change for us.’ But we’ll see.”
Pretrial Fairness Act
Associate circuit judge Amy McFarland discussed the Pretrial Fairness Act, which made Illinois the first state to implement cashless bail.
“The intent and the focus is to take our attention away from financial resources and focus more on public safety considerations,” she said.
The law, which took effect in 2023, provided judges and prosecutors with a list of detainable and non-detainable offenses.
“If the charge is non-detainable, the court has no discretion about whether to detain that person no matter what the public safety risk might be, and the state has no discretion to seek detention as it relates to that charge.”
When a person is arrested, they're now entitled to appear before a judge within 48 hours. That's where judge McFarland comes in. She hears a lot of misdemeanor cases and thus presides over a lot of pretrial detention hearings.
“It depends on the day,” she said at Tuesday’s forum. “We don’t know how many people are going to be in our court any given morning until we see who was arrested the night before. We may have nine; today I had zero. It was a great day. And so, you just don’t know what you’re walking into each morning.”
Clean Slate Act
Toy Beasley focuses on the opposite end of a legal process. As president of the McLean County Reentry Council and an advocate with the Illinois Coalition to End Permanent Punishments, he lobbied for the Illinois Clean Slate Act, recently signed into law.
The law provides an automatic pathway for some people to have their criminal records sealed three years after they've served their sentences.
“What we’re saying is that once a person completes their sentence, comes home—whether it’s probation or parole—it should be over with.”
Beasley said he spoke to one lawmaker who voted against the Clean Slate Act without fully knowing what was in the bill.
“And then I began to share my story with her,” he said. “I began to share with her how I got caught up in the crack epidemic in the ‘80s and I ended up going to prison.”
The legislator incorrectly thought Beasley charge would come off his record in 10 years.
“If we really want true change in our community around people who’ve been impacted by the criminal justice system, we’ve got to change policy,” he said.
Beasley said the Clean Slate Act is a first step to reducing barriers to employment and housing once a person has paid their debt to society. Next, he's pushing for legislation that would allow formerly incarcerated people to run for public office.
“We’re trying to get people that have had arrest records to begin to use their voices. To begin to spread the word,” he said. “The more that we build power in the community, we get people together in one voice, we can make change.”
Promoting change
During question and answer with the panelists, one attendee suggested a way to pay for the FAIR Act is to curb waste in the prison system.
“I’ll give you an example,” she said. “A foster son of ours of many years ago just got out. He was seven years for driving on two DUIs and a revoke[d license]. In the seven years that he was in prison, he got not one second of help with being an alcoholic. Not one second.”
Costigan said the courts are aware of limitations in the Department of Corrections.
“Toy [Beasley] could probably talk for a couple hours on this subject,” he said.
Costigan said diversion programs like specialty courts are designed to try to keep people out of prison and “flood them with treatment.
“We do take measures to do our best,” he said. “Our probation department has numerous programs set up to where we attempt to prevent someone from going to prison. I don’t disagree with what you’re saying in terms of the limitations. But I will say that the courts understand those limitations and do our best to look at the totality of the circumstances and put measures in place to best prevent recidivism.
