More than 200 defendants with ankle monitors in Chicago and the county in which it sits are in the wind, a newly elected judge revealed as he tries to fix the broken system.
Cook County Chief Judge Charles Beach’s bombshell report revealed that an estimated 8% of defendants out on electronic monitoring are “actively being searched for right now,” WGN reported.
There are currently 3,048 defendants being electronically monitored while on pre-trial release, so roughly 244 of them in Illinois’ most populous county, and the second-most in the US, are untraceable.
Data from the Circuit Clerk of Cook County obtained by WFIN showed that many defendants out on pre-trial release are accused of violent crimes, including a whopping 173 charged with aggravated battery and another 103 for sexual assault.
It’s not clear what charges the missing defendants are facing.
Alphanso Talley, a seven-time convicted felon, was on electronic monitoring awaiting trial in a carjacking case when he opened fire at two Chicago cops escorting him at the Endeavor Health Swedish Hospital in late April.
One officer was fatally shot in the head. The other was shot in the neck, but survived and was moved to a rehabilitation facility on Thursday.
At the time, Talley was supposed to be in at-home confinement. His ankle monitor stopped transmitting weeks before the shooting.
In the wake of the devastating shooting, Beach is accelerating the process of issuing warrants for AWOL defendants and alerting authorities to search for those who pose threats.
Even so, Beach wouldn’t necessarily call Talley’s initial release a “mistake.”
“The judge made the best decision with what was in front of them at the time, right? Unfortunately, you know, we’ll go back to that concept: How do you predict what another human being is going to do?” Beach told WGN.
Beach reiterated Talley’s presumption of innocence until proven guilty, noting it is the judge’s duty to take the defendant as they are when “he stands in front of you at that moment.”
Beach also insisted that Illinois’ shift to popularize cashless bail isn’t jeopardizing the county — or its staggering 5.2 million residents.
“When monetary bail existed we had people who posted monetary bail who went out and committed atrocious offenses. It happened. It happened frequently. We no longer have monetary bail. We have other factors. Those things are still happening, right? That is the nature of a system that is designed with the presumption of innocence,” Beach told the outlet.
Other worst-of-the-worst reoffenders who wreaked havoc while out on monitored pre-trial release include 50-year-old Lawrence Reed, who set a young Chicago straphanger on fire.
Reed had tallied up more than 70 arrests, but only served time twice for a measly two and a half years total.
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