Carbondale Reporter

In a Dec. 1 Facebook post, Rep. Patrick Windhorst urged his fellow lawmakers to vote against amendments to the SAFE-T Act, because it is still unworkable, despite the work that has been done.

"I have been a leading voice in opposing the end of cash bail, as I believe it will lead to an increase in crime in our state," Windhorst said. "I have also been a staunch opponent of the SAFE-T Act's provision that potentially forces victims of violent crime to appear at pre-trial detention hearings within 48 hours of the crime that was committed against them, putting them back in the same room with their perpetrator. I believe allowing anonymous complaints against police officers and using those anonymous complaints to fire police officers denies our law enforcement officials due process. The SAFE-T Act still contains unworkable and unsafe flaws despite all of the follow-up bills that have come through the House and Senate since 2021. I have sponsored legislation that would repeal the original SAFE-T Act and believe that because of the many problematic parts of the law that will remain in place, repeal is the best way to ensure the safety of our communities going forward."

Patrick Windhorst was first elected to the Illinois House in 2018. A Republican, their legislative experience includes serving on the Restorative Justice Committee and Judiciary-Criminal. Windhorst is a state representative who resides in Metropolis, according to the Illinois House. In a video posted with his statement, Windhorst addressed his fellow legislators and urged them to vote against the SAFE-T Act's amendments.

"Throughout this process, the proponents have that the elimination of cash bail and the SAFE-T Act is an effort to give judges discretion to detain those who judge is considered to be dangerous or likely to flee the jurisdiction but that's not what the SAFE-T Act does and that's not what this bill does," Windhorst said. "What we are doing is adding to a laundry list of potentially detainable offenses. We've created a detention net - that detention net still has holes. If we want judges to have discretion, give them discretion. Allow judges to hold individuals that they believe are dangerous. Instead, we've chosen a different route and what that means is we'll see those holes in the detention net, and we'll be back in a year to try to patch the hole and then we'll find another hole we back in a year and try to patch that hole."

Windhorst wants to give more power to judges in the sentencing process.

"Just give judges discretion, which is what you claim you want this bill to do," Windhorst said. "We have a 90-day trial provision in the detention statute which conflicts and is inconsistent with our long-held 120-day speedy trial provision. There was ample opportunity to fix this, but we didn't, and we should have fixed it, but instead we're creating scenarios where a 90-day clock may run when a 120-day clock didn't run, and it will be a problem for the court system. Also, there's a provision of this bill which really hasn't gotten much discussion, but we have taken certain mandatory consecutive sentences and made them discretionary. These mandatory consecutive sentences were for repeat offenders - people who committed crimes while on pretrial release or people who committed crimes while in detention, crimes against correctional officers, crimes against other inmates, crimes against society when they were released. instead of leaving those as mandatory consecutive sentences we make it discretionary so when we talk about the pretrial fairness aspect of the bill we're lessening penalties for repeat offenders that's not gonna help public and we still haven't addressed the constitutional issues probably because we can't the constitution envisions a cash bail system under article 1 section 9 we should let the court rule on that provision before we start doing anything with implementing this act that's the responsible thing to do ladies and gentlemen this bill it does not go far enough to protect public SAFE-T I urge you to vote no."

Windhorst also spoke to WTTW about the issues he sees in the recently-passed bill and the SAFE-T Act.

“For the last several months, we have been accused of misleading people, being disingenuous, being fear mongers. And then I read this amendment and most of the issues that we raised are included,” he said. “Detainable versus non-detainable offense, we were told ‘there’s no such thing.’ And then you read specific offenses we mentioned as listed in the bill. We were correct in what we were saying in raising those flaws.”

Windhorst voted against House Bill 1095, which has been sent to Gov. J.B. Pritzker for signing.