During a recent public appearance, Cook County Public Defender Sharone Mitchell recalled the early days of working to pass, defend and then implement Illinois’ historic bail reform law amid intense furor.
“When I got a call from my aunt in North Carolina asking me if I was involved in a law that legalized murder, I knew it was crazy,” Mitchell said.
The state’s sweeping bail reform measure took effect nearly a year ago, eliminating money as a factor in whether a defendant is released from jail while awaiting trial and ushering in broad changes in how pretrial justice is handled.
Its passage and eventual implementation took an arduous path, with controversy over the law reaching a fever pitch and yielding misinformation campaigns as well as legal challenges.
“There was so much information, research, data, evidence proof but we were stuck on fake narratives about what was going to happen,” Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx said at the same public summit about the Pretrial Fairness Act. “We don’t need 20 years to talk about what happened with the Pretrial Fairness Act. We don’t need 20 years to talk about the use of the term ‘purge’ … I just feel compelled in my time left in office to say truths that need to be spoken. It was racist. It was racist.”