48 Comments - Jocko - Tuesday, Apr 30, 24 @ 10:41 am: Did the Daily Herald or Megan Hickey ask Bob where the gun came from? It sounds like they took Winston at his word at the pretrial hearing (on 4/16) and didn’t give it a second thought when he turned in his FOID card the next day. - IML lover - Tuesday, Apr 30, 24 @ 10:41 am: “detainable offense” and “poses a real and present threat to the safety of any person” aren’t the same thing. It’s likely that the SAO reviewed the facts, determined that pretrial detention couldn’t be supported, and didn’t request it. - Rich Miller - Tuesday, Apr 30, 24 @ 10:43 am: ===It’s likely that=== It’s more likely that he’s pointing at a state law to divert from his office’s failure. - Protocol Droid - Tuesday, Apr 30, 24 @ 10:44 am: Doubling down when he’s wrong isn’t new for Berlin. He tends to get away with it because no one challenges him. - TJ - Tuesday, Apr 30, 24 @ 10:50 am: When in doubt, pass the blame. - TNR - Tuesday, Apr 30, 24 @ 10:53 am: I just assumed most states attorneys would reflexively ask for detention on every qualifying domestic violence case and let the judge make the decision. Not sure that’s the best way to administer justice, but it’s the best way for an SA to CYA. Apparently they’re not doing that into DuPage, but I bet they do from now on. - Cool Papa Bell - Tuesday, Apr 30, 24 @ 10:55 am: =He’d just been released from jail on domestic battery charges and why the DuPage County State’s Attorney is pledging to fix the system as a result. […] = ADDING TO EDIT: However, domestic battery is a detainable offense under the state’s SAFE-T-ACT. We asked the DuPage County State’s Attorney why they didn’t ask for him to be held. As Rich notes, reporters need to know the list of detainable offense and directly ask SA’s if the judge declined to hold an offender. Get them on the record for having asked or not. - Aaron B - Tuesday, Apr 30, 24 @ 10:55 am: ===It’s likely that the SAO reviewed the facts, determined that pretrial detention couldn’t be supported=== No reason not to try to make a case for pretrial detention for someone who was arrested for a violet attack on their wife while also holding a FOID card. I don’t see how a detention request wouldn’t be made in this case when the SAO made 177 other similar requests. If they had tried to detain the suspect and had the detention request denied then this would be a much different conversation. Berlin is just trying to CYA and blame the SAFE-T act for his office’s oversight. - JoanP - Tuesday, Apr 30, 24 @ 10:56 am: = he did not meet the criteria for detention = How so, Mr. Berlin? - Larry Bowa Jr. - Tuesday, Apr 30, 24 @ 10:57 am: “It sounds like they took Winston at his word at the pretrial hearing (on 4/16) and didn’t give it a second thought when he turned in his FOID card the next day.” Exactly what happened. Hard to imagine anything more performative and meaningless than taking a FOID card in these situations but not taking guns. Congratulations DuPage County law enforcement, that FOID card is never going to hurt anyone again. - Garfield Ridge Guy - Tuesday, Apr 30, 24 @ 10:58 am: I think it plays into Republican hands to say that any time a released offender commits a crime, it was an avoidable problem–otherwise, we’re encouraging no pretrial release for any offender, and if you follow that line of logic, why not just life sentences for everyone? “The optimal number of offenses committed by folks released before trial is not zero” isn’t something any politician has the courage to say, but it’s probably the right way to think about the issue. It’s like saying that we should make the speed limit 3 miles per hour to prevent traffic deaths–sure, but there are other costs too. Either we want prosecutors and judges to get discretion, or we don’t. Gotta be consistent. - Quizzical - Tuesday, Apr 30, 24 @ 11:04 am: It’s hard to see how cash bail would have helped here. The guy shot himself after his wife, so I don’t think he would have been worried about forfeiting whatever he needed to put down to get out. - The Dude Abides - Tuesday, Apr 30, 24 @ 11:04 am: =Either we want prosecutors and judges to get discretion, or we don’t. Gotta be consistent.= Then SA’s need to also be consistent in shouldering the blame when their discretion leads to outcomes like this. - TheInvisibleMan - Tuesday, Apr 30, 24 @ 11:11 am: “It’s likely that the SAO reviewed the facts, determined that pretrial detention couldn’t be supported” Then that’s also a failure on his part. He’s not a judge, he doesn’t get to make that determination. His job is to present the evidence he has to a judge, not be both prosecutor and judge. He either doesn’t understand the law, or is having a hard time giving up his pretend judicial authority. His ego is not making things better for himself, or anyone else for that matter. - Big Dipper - Tuesday, Apr 30, 24 @ 11:12 am: ==pledging to fix the system== fix the system = fix my own incompetence - Rich Miller - Tuesday, Apr 30, 24 @ 11:21 am: Anonymous posts are deleted. Please use a name. - Occasionally Moderated - Tuesday, Apr 30, 24 @ 11:25 am: The sheer number of appellate cases arguing justification for detention demonstrates pretty clearly that there is not agreement between prosecutors and judges regarding who needs to be detained. I have read a bunch of them. I’m surprised how often judges don’t want offenders detained. I don’t blame prosecutors most of the time. I think judges have received the message loud and clear that politicians don’t want offenders detained. Judges couldn’t care less what the public or even victims want. That mystifies me. - Dan Johnson - Tuesday, Apr 30, 24 @ 11:37 am: This is a powerful line: We don’t want more laws named after domestic violence victims—we want fewer domestic violence victims. - JS Mill - Tuesday, Apr 30, 24 @ 11:44 am: =I think judges have received the message loud and clear that politicians don’t want offenders detained.= Please cite your evidence. - Rich Miller - Tuesday, Apr 30, 24 @ 11:44 am: === I think judges have received the message loud and clear that politicians don’t want offenders detained=== This law was specifically designed to make it much easier and more likely to detain domestic abusers, including for misdemeanors. So, if that’s what the judges were thinking, they’re just flat-out wrong. More likely though, it’s you. - Aaron B - Tuesday, Apr 30, 24 @ 11:44 am: Is the statement in the update to this article available online? I tried to find a link to it but wasn’t able to find anything. - Rich Miller - Tuesday, Apr 30, 24 @ 11:55 am: ===Is the statement in the update to this article available online? === Not sure. It was sent to me in an email. - Lincoln Lad - Tuesday, Apr 30, 24 @ 11:59 am: ===Politicians don’t want offenders detained…=== You must have been the ASA who decided to not bother to request detention with flawed thinking like that. Your lack of understanding of the law amazes me. - Anon221 - Tuesday, Apr 30, 24 @ 12:01 pm: Rep. Hirschauer’s response is online- https://ilhousedems.com/2024/04/29/rep-hirschauer-responds-to-villa-park-tragedy/ - Nope. - Tuesday, Apr 30, 24 @ 12:10 pm: ===It’s likely that=== It’s more likely that he’s pointing at a state law to divert from his office’s failure. So, he should just ask for detention in all cases of DV? This was a punching and hair pulling act of DV. If you ask in all cases does it not look disingenuous? What exactly are you suggesting is the failure? - RamblerFan - Tuesday, Apr 30, 24 @ 12:13 pm: Public information on how often prosecutors seek detention (and how often it is granted) is readily available for 4 counties (Cook, DuPage, Kane and McHenry) through public data dashboards in those counties. Analyses of those data by Loyola University found petitions to detain those charged with domestic violence vary alot across those 4 counties but in the end less than 13% of those charged with domestic violence cases are actually detained under the pretrial fairness act. https://loyolaccj.org/blog/petitions-to-detain-for-domestic-violence-cases - PublicServant - Tuesday, Apr 30, 24 @ 12:15 pm: Can someone take the shovel from Berlin, please? The hole is deep enough. - Duck Duck Goose - Tuesday, Apr 30, 24 @ 12:17 pm: This is a “quirk” in the drafting of the PFA. Each detention petition must show (1) a detainable offense and (2) an articulable threat of danger. On the one hand, this means that the nature of the offense can’t, itself, be the basis for finding a danger threat–otherwise, step 2 would not be required. On the other hand, it would appear that there could be a valid danger threat, but you would have to release that dangerous person if the charges didn’t include a detainable offense. That seems weird. In any case, there’s no detention without showing an articulable threat of danger. Maybe that proof was present in this case; maybe it wasn’t. None of the news stories address this. But if the expectation is that every person charged with a detainable offense is automatically detained until trial, then we will need to start building a lot more jail space. - Rich Miller - Tuesday, Apr 30, 24 @ 12:21 pm: === If you ask in all cases does it not look disingenuous?=== They filed 177 detention petitions as of March. What’s disingenuous is a state’s attorney deflecting blame to a state law that has, in reality, made it much easier to detain these people, which he admitted just last month. - RamblerFan - Tuesday, Apr 30, 24 @ 12:30 pm: Rich, based on the data dashboard referenced above in DuPage County there were almost 1,000 “arrests heard in First Appearance Court” for domestic violence act offenses from when the law went into effect until yesterday, and of these there were around 325 petitions to detain filed by the state’s attorney’s office. Of those 325, around 120 were actually detained. See https://www.18thjudicial.org/pfa.html - Non-Attorney Spokesperson - Tuesday, Apr 30, 24 @ 12:33 pm: If only Berlin would have cited a state law or two last week instead of relying again on DuPage mythology to protect himself and his friends. - Jocko - Tuesday, Apr 30, 24 @ 12:44 pm: ==What’s disingenuous is a state’s attorney deflecting blame== Yup. It appears Berlin’s office simply went through the motions and it cost Julie Elguezabal her life. I would be curious what ‘facts’ the SA collected before kicking Winston loose. - Mission Tiger - Tuesday, Apr 30, 24 @ 1:07 pm: Watch the video of last week’s DuPage County Board meeting. The board received a report regarding the implementation of the Pretrial Fairness Act, including detention statistics. Berlin presented a slide on what he termed “violent crimes”, ranging from murder to threatening a public official, and noted that petitions for detention had been granted in every one of those cases. Then he presented a slide dealing with what he termed “other crimes”, including domestic battery, for which the detention statistics were much lower. Board member Yeena Yoo, a domestic violence attorney, drew attention to the high number of domestic battery cases for which detention petitions were not filed at all. - One suggestion - Tuesday, Apr 30, 24 @ 1:21 pm: In domestic violence contexts, a condition of release could include requiring that the defendant consent to a police search of his residence and vehicles to locate and impound firearms. - Occasionally Moderated - Tuesday, Apr 30, 24 @ 1:34 pm: ===Please cite your evidence.=== Julie Elguezabal And again, the glut of third and fourth district appellate cases that prosecutors appealed pre-trial release. ===This law was specifically designed to make it much easier and more likely to detain domestic abusers, including for misdemeanors.=== Hard to be against that. A guy who grabs a woman by the hair and punches her in the face should be detained. The gate keepers are the judges. It wasn’t the states attorney that “ordered the offender stay away from his wife” and threw an ankle monitor on him. It was the judge. If he wants the guy detained, he will be detained whether the states attorney’s office asked for it or not. No one can predict the future. If Safe-T makes it easier to detain domestic abusers, lets do it. Offenders cant re-offend from a jail cell. - Big Dipper - Tuesday, Apr 30, 24 @ 1:45 pm: Punching a woman in the face four times is serious. Any one of those blows could have killed her. Does Berlin only seek detention if someone is shot or stabbed? - Donnie Elgin - Tuesday, Apr 30, 24 @ 1:48 pm: JB’s got it right “But in the instance where you’ve got to go confiscate the firearm, literally you have to bring sometimes four officers to one situation in order to remove the weapon” Add to that the fact that there is no database of what weapons a person may own so the police would not know what to look for, additionally, many FOID card holders do not own any weapons themselves. - thechampaignlife - Tuesday, Apr 30, 24 @ 2:24 pm: ===it’s quite difficult to remove a firearm from somebody=== Best case scenario would be the survivor leading the police to the firearms while the defendant is being held. That should be prioritized by the police and judge, with cooperation of the defendant under police escort from the jail to the firearms prior to release from custody the next best option. Police arriving days, weeks, or months later is the worst option…other than the currently predominant practice of not even trying. - RamblerFan - Tuesday, Apr 30, 24 @ 2:28 pm: ====Occasionally Moderated The gate keepers are the judges==== The pretrial fairness act does not allow for judges to detain someone unless the state’s attorney files a petition to detain. That is one aspect of the law that judges do not like–the state’s attorneys are truly the gatekeepers in this process. - Suburban Mom - Tuesday, Apr 30, 24 @ 2:52 pm: === “poses a real and present threat to the safety of any person” aren’t the same thing. It’s likely that the SAO reviewed the facts, determined that pretrial detention couldn’t be supported=== There is literally no such thing as a DV offender who doesn’t “pose a real and present threat to the safety of any person.” DV victims are in the MOST danger after the police become involved, because that’re highly incentivized to beat their victim into recanting and it’s one of the times they’re most likely to kill their victim, in order to save face. Domestic Violence crimes are ALMOST ALWAYS REPEATED and unusually likely to escalate to death. Again, detaining ALL domestic offenders is an easy, sensible win. There is no such thing as a misdemeanor domestic. There is only “a domestic that hasn’t yet escalated to a felony” or “a domestic the abuser downplayed enough in front of the cops to get a misdemeanor charge.” IML Lover, you can just SAY you don’t care about the safety of women when it conflicts with violent men’s convenience. You don’t have to pretend you have some legal justification beyond that. Women absolutely understand that men — in the justice system and outside it — who try to downplay or excuse DV offenses just don’t care about women. We get it. We’ve lived our whole lives in this society and many of us have had delightful first-hand experience of how the justice system handles violent men with kid gloves, as long as they choose a female intimate partner to beat on. - low level - Tuesday, Apr 30, 24 @ 3:54 pm: Berlin was always held up as the hero of those opposed to the SAFE-T act. He messed up badly here. - TheInvisibleMan - Tuesday, Apr 30, 24 @ 4:00 pm: –the justice system handles violent men with kid gloves, as long as they choose a female intimate partner to beat on.– Sometimes, the system even punishes the victim. It wasn’t too long ago when a Will County judge put a DV victim in jail on contempt for refusing to testify, because she feared for her own safety - and through experience she knew the county wasn’t capable of or even willing to, protect her. What many men still fail to grasp, is there are other men who not only are fine with DV, they will actually participate in punishing other women if she dares put up a challenge. Some of those men are still judges and prosecutors. - Excitable Boy - Tuesday, Apr 30, 24 @ 4:50 pm: - Berlin was always held up as the hero of those opposed to the SAFE-T act. He messed up badly here. - The adulation given to Berlin by cops and right wingers around here nauseates me. This won’t change a thing for them because they can’t be bothered with facts. - yinn - Tuesday, Apr 30, 24 @ 6:13 pm: ==So, he should just ask for detention in all cases of DV? This was a punching and hair pulling act of DV.== Yeah, pretty much. - One suggestion - Tuesday, Apr 30, 24 @ 7:46 pm: If a defendant refuses to cooperate with surrendering all firearms to police custody then yes they should be detained. As someone posted, the significant other victim can probably help identify the weapons that need to be impounded. - Makes Sense to Me - Wednesday, May 1, 24 @ 1:36 pm: I find it interesting (sad and hilarious at the same time) that proponents of the law only quote half of it when they are talking about how good it is. It appears from reading the actual statute that not only does a criminal have to commit a detainable offense and not only do they have to meet the dangerous standard, but the prosecutor also has to be able to prove that “no condition or combination of conditions (other than detention) can mitigate the real and present threat to the safety of any person or persons or the community.” The drafters of the bill specifically used the term “mitigate” not “eliminate”. How is this standard ever met? Any condition a judge would put on would mitigate the threat! The threat is certainly still there if a person has to give up their guns, etc, but at least it’s mitigated! If you want to pretend that you passed this law for victims, at least take out the nonsensical language before you make that claim! - Rich Miller - Wednesday, May 1, 24 @ 1:39 pm: === If you want to pretend that you passed this law for victims=== Every single domestic violence organization in the state supported this bill because it gets much tougher on abusers. But the law requires state’s attorneys to DO THEIR FREAKING JOBS. - dui lawyers - Thursday, May 2, 24 @ 1:33 am: At Sevens Legal Criminal Lawyers, we specialize in defending your rights throughout Southern California and San Diego County. With over 40 years of combined expertise in litigation, our team, led by Samantha Greene, a recognized expert in criminal law, is dedicated to providing you with the highest level of legal defense. Leveraging the valuable perspective of a former prosecutor, we ensure that you are well-informed about your rights and the best strategies for achieving a favorable outcome in your case. Our mission is to significantly increase your chances of having charges dismissed or lessened. Trust us to be your top legal defense experts. Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.