UPDATE: Commentary on the “Fact Checkers” Pritzker Relies Upon to Defend the Democrats’ SAFE-T Act

Reprinted with permission from John Ruberry of Marathon Pundit:

Pritzker falls back on misleading fact-checks, including one that cites his press secretary, to defend pro-criminal SAFE-T Act

UPDATE October 3:

Nate Trela of USA Today on Friday offered us his fact-check of the SAFE-T Act.

Not surprisingly, he rates the catch-and release claims from prosecutors and others as false.

I’ll give him credit, he actually did his job, get both sides of a story.

Well, sort of. Trela interviewed by email and telephone J. Hanley, the Republican state’s attorney of Winnebago County, and noted that Hanley opposes the SAFE-T Act.

“The new law says suspects charged with felonies designated as Class 3 or above can still be detained before trial if prosecutors can demonstrate they pose a risk of fleeing,” Trela notes as a point of agreement between Hanley and Sarah Staudt, the director of policy at the Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts, s liberal do-gooder group.

Trela also spoke with Sharlyn Grace, a senior policy adviser in the Cook County Public Defender’s office.

Let’s just say that Grace is not likely a lock ’em-up-and-forget-you-did-so type. 

The Rockford Register Star, like USA Today, is owned by Gannett.

Odd thing, well, actually it isn’t.

Trela doesn’t even reference Hanley’s op-ed, which is accompanied by this headline, “More than half of Winnebago County Jail to walk out door Jan. 1.”

From Hanley’s piece:

Under the new law, entire categories of crime, such as aggravated batteries, robberies, burglaries, hate crimes, aggravated DUIs, vehicular homicide, drug induced homicides, all drug offenses, including delivery of fentanyl and trafficking cases, are not eligible for detention no matter the severity of the crime or the defendant’s risk to a specific person or the community, unless the People prove by clear and convincing evidence the person has a “high likelihood of willful flight to avoid prosecution.”

Additionally, in cases involving non-probationable forcible felonies, such as murder and armed robbery, judges may only detain a defendant under the new law if the prosecution proves by clear and convincing evidence the defendant “poses a real and present threat to the safety of a specific, identifiable person or persons.”

As I mentioned in my post last week at Da Tech Guy, John Curran, a former Cook County assistant state’s attorney who is now a Republican state senator, dismissed the flight risk defense.

“The problem with that, Curran told John Kass in a Chicago Way Podcast episode, “is to show that someone is a willful flight risk the prosecutor has to prove that they are planning or attempting to intentionally to evade prosecution by concealing oneself. That is never going to happen.”

He added, “You literally have to catch them with the plane ticket in their pocket going to the airport.”

Related post:

Hey fact-checkers: Where is the mother who Pritzker said “shoplifted diapers for her baby, who is put in jail and kept there for six months?”

John Ruberry at the State line.

Despite continuing denials from Governor J.B Pritzker and other Illinois Democrats, the SAFE-T Act, which goes into effect on New Year’s Day, will almost certainly lead to an increase in Illinois’ already high crime rate.

The bill eliminates all cash bail in the Land of Lincoln.

Even the fact-checkers, a propagandistic lot, agree on the end of cash bail.

Where will that lead?

Well, there’s a divergence in opinion.

More on the fact-checkers in a bit.

James Glasgow, the state’s attorney for Will County told Fox Chicago’s Mike Flannery earlier this month,

“There are forcible felonies that are not detainable: burglary, robbery, arson, kidnapping, second degree murder, intimidation, aggravated battery, aggravated DUI, [and] drug offenses.” 

Of Illinois 102 county prosecutors–their formal title in Illinois is state’s attorney–100 of them oppose the SAFE-T Act.

At least three of them have sued to prevent the law from being implemented, claiming the SAFE-T Act is unconstitutional. 

And last week in his Chicago Way podcast, former Cook County assistant state’s attorney, John Curran, slapped down the liberals’ knee jerk defense that flight risks can be locked up while they await trial under the SAFE-T Act,

“The problem with that,” Curran, who is now a Republican state senator, explained to Kass, “is to show that someone is a willful flight risk the prosecutor has to prove that they are planning or attempting to intentionally to evade prosecution by concealing oneself.

“That is never going to happen,” adding, “You literally have to catch them with the plane ticket in their pocket going to the airport.”

The commercials from the People Who Play By The Rules PAC and the mailing of newspapers critical of Pritzker, which focus on crime, must be having an effect, as the governor, who is up for reelection in November, is pushing back.

Dan Proft’s McHenry Times campaign paper printed these mug shots of inmates who he says will be released from jail on January 1, 2023. It and similar displays are driving the Democrats nuts.

Along with Illinois’ attorney general, Kwame Raoul, Pritzker is saying that he is open to amendments to the SAFE-T Act.

But they offer no specifics, so it’s safe to assume the Dems simply want to run out the clock.

Illinois’ lapdog media won’t press Pritzker on that, which is not surprising, as the SAFE-T Act has not been seriously vetted by them.

Fact-checkers, which operate as kind of an Oracle of Delphi for the media, have weighed in. And Pritzker is using them to bolster his argument. 

Madison County state’s attorney Thomas Haine, in a letter to residents, said the SAFE-T Act would be the “greatest jailbreak” in history. [Emp;hasis added.]

That led Pritzker to respond,

“But your reading of the law has been debunked by multiple non-partisan fact checkers, including the Associated Press, Snopes, and PolitiFact.”

Pritzker, a lawyer who I am unsure if has ever practiced law, then goes on to say why the prosecutor is wrong.

About those fact-checks.

The least awful of them, by Nur Ibrahim of Snopes, is accompanied by the headline, “Does Illinois’ SAFE-T Act Make Some Violent Crimes Non-Detainable Before Trial?” 

It’s rated “mostly false.”

She doesn’t interview anyone, but she references the far-left Center for American Progress and a state agency, the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority. 

At PolitiFact, Jeff Cercone laughably utilizes as one of his experts, Jordan Abudayyeh, who is Pritzker’s press secretary, in his fact-check, titled “Under new Illinois law, these crimes are ‘nondetainable’: ‘Burglary, robbery, arson, kidnapping, DUI offenses, even DUI involving a fatality, most drug offenses, and even 2nd degree murder.'” 

Cercone also cites two criminology professors in that fact-check.

“Mostly false” is PolitFact’s rating of the concerns about the SAFE-T Act.

I was unable to locate an Associated Press fact-check of the SAFE-T Act.

However, I found one at AFP USA, which didn’t label it “true or false,” but here is the headline of Natalie Wade’s piece, “Misleading claims about Illinois cash bail law circulate online.” 

Like Cercone, she interviewed three people, including one of the criminology professors the PolitiFact fact-checker interacted with, and one of the co-sponsors of the SAFE-T Act, as well as a public defender in Cook County. 

None of these fact-checkers spoke to prosecutors, county sheriffs, or any police officials, current or retired. Fair and balanced? [Emphasis added.]

C’mon man!

Which adds even more fuel to my solid belief that fact-checkers are first and foremost propagandists. 

Related post: 

Hey fact-checkers: Where is the mother who Pritzker said “shoplifted diapers for her baby, who is put in jail and kept there for six months?”


Comments

UPDATE: Commentary on the “Fact Checkers” Pritzker Relies Upon to Defend the Democrats’ SAFE-T Act — 11 Comments

  1. In the 1990s, I was living in a small town about 80 miles south of Rochester in the Finger Lakes region.

    It was a peaceful town with citizens ranging from the very rich to the very poor, but even the poor areas were clean, neat, and kept up.

    Then, some black families moved in.

    The whole place changed within two months.

    Suddenly, there were stabbings, drugs being sold on main street in broad daylight, fights, screaming, vulgar arguments all over, a lice epidemic in the school, etc.

    Now, we had our problems before but it would be one thing here, another there; nothing more.

    The blacks brought a permanent “escalation” of social problems with them.

    The cops were at their homes almost every day.

    A record number of protective orders were filed against these new arrivals and their friends.

    These orders banned them from the local grocery store (shoplifting), two of the bars (drunk and disorderly, fighting), picking their kids up at the school (fighting, a stabbing, drugs), several of the local stores (shoplifting, assaulting owners), and the bowling alley (drunk and disorderly, fighting, stabbing, stealing).

    They had to be removed from a local festival five times in one night.

    They were caught slashing tires, keying cars, and breaking windows.

    Stolen bikes, lawn mowers, patio furniture, car radios, were recovered from their house and garage.

    They blamed others for setting them up because we were all “racists.”

    They didn’t seem to realize small town people would give testimony against them and all had shotguns.

    They finally moved after telling us we didn’t know how to have fun or party and calling us all “racists” for banning them from so many places.

    They went back to Rochester.

    We didn’t miss them.

    In just eight months they destroyed the trailer (condemned and torn down) they had rented and turned a nice, homey, old farmhouse into a ghetto with no yard left, porch driven into, windows busted out, and garbage everywhere.

    They turned the town on its ear.

  2. So according to Pritzker, state’s attorneys will be able to request no bail for certain offenses.

    If that’s accurate, then what we will see is that Kim Foxx will hold nobody while suburban states attorneys will hold who they can.

    Once the criminals realize this hopefully they stay in Crook County.

    Could work out in the end, I’m like 40 miles from this nonsense.

  3. Just more Cannon Fodder for Bailey to throw at the D.A.’s… hot dog eater… he knows he is already breaking our laws so whats one more?

  4. Fact checkers? Really?

    How are they fact checking?

    Googling?

    That will lead you down the path the thought police want you to believe. What a joke.

    Maybe these idiots can fact check Biden and the Ho once in a while.

    Oh that’s right, fact checking only goes one way.

  5. How long did it take Kenneally to chime in on this?

    Only after he was told to most likely as he said nothing until it was advantageous personally.

  6. “Pro Criminal” term is correct for the Pritzker/Democrat Legislature grossly misnamed, SAFE-T ACT.

    As always, trust no democrat ever, never, anywhere, everywhere in the U.S.

  7. I didn’t know fact checkers were judges.

    It makes zero difference how they read the law what matters is how a judge will read it. ”

    As written almost nobody will be able to be detained period.

  8. >his belief that fact checkers are propagandists
    >”belief”

    smh what the heck?

    Just call them propagandists.

    No belief is necessary that’s what they are.

    Is this what passes as wise punditry on the GOP side?

    Be a little sharper.

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