Chicago City Wire

A retired Cook County Judge says the SAFE-T Act has taken away a judge's ability to protect the public from violent criminals.

Former Judge Daniel Locallo, who served 24 years on the bench after working five years as a Cook County state's attorney, told Fox 32 Tuesday that judges are crystal clear about the act's impact: it neuters their power and forces them to release accused criminals they otherwise wouldn't.

Judges are concerned because they believe their discretion has been taken away. The court on its own cannot make a decision," Locallo said. "In the past, a judge could analyze a situation and make a decision as to whether he was going to set a high bond. Now, a judge cannot act on his own."

"The final say is not in the judge’s prerogative. Detention…is out of the hands of the judge," he said.

Locallo challenged Gov. J.B. Pritzker's claim that the SAFE-T Act doesn't make offenses "non-detainable."

"There are certain crimes that a judge can not detain somebody," Locallo said. "By way of example, forcible felonies like robbery, burglary, arson. Unless the crime is a situation where you can only get imprisonment, the state (prosecutor) has to file a petition for crimes that they have to go to jail."

These would include kidnapping, attempted sexual assault, carjacking and possession of deadly fentanyl, Locallo said.

He said an out-of-state drug dealer arrested with "a bag of fentanyl" couldn't be detained by an Illinois judge,.

"The exception wold be if prosecutors could show he had willful intent to flee. But prosecutors are not mind readers," Locallo said.

Locallo served as a Cook County Circuit Court Judge from 1986 to 2009 and, before that, as a Cook County assistant state's attorney, from 1978 to 1983.

In March, he slammed Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx for claiming Jussie Smollett was innocent and had been prosecuted by "mob justice" over his "MAGA Subway" hoax.