Legislation Backed by Toni Preckwinkle Would Undercut Police Investigations

Bizarre Progressive legislation would turn police into servants for criminals.

A powerful anti-police political alliance aiming to hold power in the upcoming elections for Cook County State’s Attorney is also trying to sneak in legislation that would further criminalize the police and give free rein to criminals.

A bill under consideration in the Illinois State Assembly drafted by Cook County President Toni Preckwinkle would compel police officers to allow arrestees the right to make three phone calls within an hour of being taken into custody. If officers fail to allow the suspect to place the three phone calls within the hour, the officer could be charged with official misconduct, according to the proposed legislation.

The bill, HB4796, is sponsored by Representative Justin Slaughter (D-Chicago) and is supported by the Cook County Public Defender’s Office.  

If passed, the legislation would severely undermine police investigations. A one-hour cutoff time would prevent investigators from speaking to other witnesses, identifying available evidence, and engaging the suspect to obtain further details and cooperation.

If the bill becomes law, more serious offenses like murder, shootings, rape, carjackings, and robberies that require initial and substantial legwork on the front end by investigators will be completely jeopardized.

How did such an impractical bill ever reach Springfield?

In situations when the arrest and processing of a suspect take more than the allotted one-hour limit, officers will likely lose the ability entirely to engage the suspect and actually complete a thorough, fair investigation. In instances when multiple offenders are arrested at once, a suspect suffers from mental or physical illness, or a suspect’s own resistant or combative behavior causes a delay in the booking process, as well as when officers need to conduct a lineup to ensure police have the right person in custody, or officers conduct a show-up to allow the victim to identify a suspected attacker would all likely surpass the one-hour time limit.

The result will be fewer lawfully obtained confessions, reduced ability to hear potentially exculpatory information from the suspect in custody, and an even lower clearance rate.

Finally, codifying this bright line one-hour time limit removes the criminal court’s discretion to assess each unique investigation on a case-by-case basis.

In short, this legislation would largely make fair, thorough police investigations impossible.

It would also make criminals out of the police, including officers attempting to conduct a full investigation and make certain they have the offender in custody. There are crippling penalties against officers who fail to get arrestees into the station and on the phone within an hour of when the handcuffs go on. The statute contains a Class Three Felony (2–5 years) Official Misconduct charge for officers who fail to adhere to the one-hour phone call time-frame requirement. That’s right, the official misconduct conviction requires termination of employment, and the felony conviction will result in forfeiture of the officer’s pension. With such a threat hanging over an officer’s head, what officer would want to make an arrest, and if he or she did, wouldn’t the primary incentive be to get the phone calls, not complete the investigation?

The proposed legislation comes as Chicago is already reeling from increasing levels of chronic violent crime. Preckwinkle acolyte, Cook County State’s Attorney Kimberly Foxx, is already under fire for her anti-police platform and decisions, chief among them the Jussie Smollett case. Her support of policies like bail reform is also drawing intensive criticism.

A recent study from researchers at the University of Utah attacked bail reform measures advocated by Foxx:

“Using all this information, we believe it is reasonable to estimate that Cook County’s expanded pretrial release procedures led to about 930 additional crimes against persons in the fifteen month ‘after’ period compared to the ‘before’ period,” read part of the study’s findings.

But Preckwinkle and Foxx’s war on the police is waged with the disconcerting assistance of Chicago’s monolith, the progressive media machine. Indeed, such bizarre legislation as the bill compelling police investigators to the impossible right of getting every arrestee three phone calls within an hour of arrest should generate at least some coverage, if not outright scorn.  

So, too, would the larger scandals of the Foxx administration, which include releasing convicted killers on the claim of wrongful conviction despite the fact that Foxx’s predecessor, Anita Alvarez, deemed the convictions legitimate and despite the fact that overwhelming evidence still points to the guilt of these men.

These suspicious exonerations were sometimes granted to men represented by law firms that contributed to Foxx’s campaign, a fact that cries out for some serious investigative journalism in the city. Despite the fact that these exonerations are based on murders and rapes, Chicago’s media continued to distract the public with persistent stories about Jussie Smollett and alleged police misconduct. Wherever Foxx goes, she repeats the claim that Chicago is the false confession capital of the country, ignoring the growing evidence that Chicago has become the false exoneration capital of the world.

As the Chicago media dutifully keeps the Chicago public distracted by the Jussie Smollett case, look for Preckwinkle and her progressive allies to sneak in more legislation and policies criminalizing the police and making victims of even the most brutal criminals.

[ilga.gov]