Logan County Sheriff Landers and other Illinois law enforcement officials weigh in on HB 3653

 

[January 30, 2021] 

Sheriff Landers issued a press release through his office via Law Enforcement Support Staff Alison Wright on January 28, 2021. His purpose is to inform the public of his specific concerns regarding police departments and their ability to protect citizens with examples of what would take place if Illinois House Bill 3653 is signed by Governor JB Pritzker.

Landers wrote, "There are good things in this bill and many that we support. The unfortunate truth is that it was pushed through during the lame duck session (quickly). Law Enforcement stakeholders were not involved in the drawing up of the bill’s final provisions. Law Enforcement was communicating and working with the Attorney General’s office on language regarding HB 841 and language was crafted and agreed upon as it related to officer certification and decertification, as well as investigations into misconduct. HB841 was then jammed together with HB163 into a different house bill, HB 3653. There is language in this bill that contradicts itself causing confusion on major issues. (i.e., duty to intervene)

Some of the positives in the bill include a first responder deflection program. Law enforcement has consistently advocated for more money to help treat people and deflect mental health and addiction issues away from incarceration.

• We in law enforcement have always been on board for additional training when it comes to our officers and correctional staff, but the mandates for training come with no funding sources and this will fall on our communities and taxpayers.

• We support the language regarding submitting "Use of Force" information to the FBI's database as well as not condoning the use of deadly force for property crimes.

• We support the language in the bill that speaks to the duty to intervene outlined in the section of the bill associated with decertification as well as the duty to render aid as outlined in that section as well

• We support increasing the amount of money crime victims are entitled to.

• We support many of the provisions associated with the expansion of the decertification process to get rid of the bad apples in law enforcement

• We support the Whistleblower protections outlined in the bill as well.

Some specific things in HB 3653 that concern Sheriff Landers:

• This bill prevents law enforcement officers from taking immediate, potentially life-saving action in critical situations.

• The no-cash bail provision makes it difficult to keep people locked up who are awaiting trial. Without bail, many dangerous offenders will walk free within hours of their arrest.

• This legislation places numerous mandates on police agencies with no funding source for local communities. Because of this, it will reduce the amount of funding available for actual 'on the street' police protection and or cause the county boards and city councils to come up with funding for these mandates.

• This bill allows for anonymous complaints against officers without having to swear that those complaints are true. Those complaints would remain in the officer’s file and good officer’s career’s can be ruined by anyone willing to anonymously submit lies.

Other law enforcement officials from around the state weighed in with concerns about HB 3653:

Kendall County Sheriff Dwight Baird:

"I have been asked what issues or problems I see with the recently passed HB 3653. One major issue involves what law enforcement can do on behalf of victims. There are several offenses in the Illinois Compiled Statutes that are class B and C misdemeanors for which we will no longer be able to make a physical arrest, unless the suspect poses an obvious threat to the community or any person (page 326 of HB 3653). An officer’s discretion to make an arrest is an important tool utilized every day, and I believe the vast majority of situations can be resolved without taking someone to jail. However, many situations benefit from an officer taking an offender into custody and restoring peace.

Scenario #1:

A person enters onto your property. You tell them to leave and they refuse. You call the police, we tell the person to leave and they again refuse. This normally constitutes trespass (class B misdemeanor), for which we can no longer make an arrest. We issue the offender a citation and give them a court date within 21 days. If they still refuse to leave we cannot physically remove them, so instead we leave. We have taken enforcement action, but the problem is unresolved and the victim is left to live with the issue.

Scenario #2:

You begin receiving repeated phone calls from a subject, perhaps dozens or hundreds in a day. They could be immediate hang ups, harassing or lewd in nature. As mentioned in Scenario #1, once a suspect has been identified all we can do is issue a citation for Harassment by Telephone (class B misdemeanor) and give them a court date within 21 days. While you the victim have been harassed, perhaps made to feel unsafe, and inconvenienced by having your phone overloaded with meaningless (or worse) calls, the offender has only received a citation and could potentially continue this course of action with fear of only repeated citations.

This scenario would play out for numerous other offenses, some of which include Interference with Emergency Communications, Assault, Computer Tampering, Residential Picketing and Disorderly Conduct.

Additionally, in HB 3653 a person can no longer be arrested for Resisting or Obstruction a peace officer, firefighter, or correctional institution employee (a class A misdemeanor) unless the underlying offense made the person subject to custodial arrest to begin with (pages 274 & 275 of HB 3653).

From DuPage County State’s Attorney Bob Berlin:

Page 283-284: Peace Officer's Use of Force in Making Arrest

In addition to a police officer being justified in using deadly force only when he reasonably believes that such force is necessary to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or such other person, the bill adds the following language: or when he reasonably believes, based on a totality of the circumstances, both that (1) Such force is necessary to prevent the arrest from being defeated by resistance or escape; the cause great bodily harm to another: and (2) The person to be arrested just committed or attempted to commit a forcible felony which involves the infliction or threatened infliction of great bodily harm...

Consider the change in the law in the following scenario:

A police officer responds to an active shooter in a school. The officer sees the suspect shooting innocent children. The officer can use deadly force to stop the shooter, but if the shooter slips out the door of the school the officer is now only justified in using deadly force if he/she reasonably believes the shooter cannot be apprehended at a later date. Since almost anyone can be apprehended at a later date, the officer would be required to let the shooter go. Additionally, there is no definition of "just" in paragraph 2 of the bill. Does "Just" mean 2 minutes? 5 minutes? 30 minutes?

Page 286: The bill adds a definition of "imminent" to the Peace Officer's Use of Force in Making Arrest law.

The bill states, "A threat of death or serious bodily injury is "imminent' when, based on the totality of the circumstances, a reasonable officer in the same situation would believe that a person has the present ability, opportunity, and apparent intent to immediately cause death or serious bodily injury to the peace officer or another person. An imminent harm is not merely a fear of future harm, no matter how great the fear and no matter how great the likelihood of the harm, but it is one that, from appearances, must be instantly confronted and addressed."

Consider the following scenario:

The police respond to an armed offender that just committed a crime with a gun running toward a schoolyard with children. Under current law, they would be authorized to use deadly force to stop him. Under the new definition of "imminent" however, they cannot stop the subject and would have to wait for him to actually get to the school yard and threaten the children and potentially shoot one before they could use deadly force to stop the subject.

These drastic changes to the Officer's Use of Force statute will result in more bloodshed and more lives lost.

Page 82-83: The bill amends the Body Camera Statute (50 ICS 706110-20) by stating that the recording officer may not access and review recordings prior to completing incident reports or other documentation. This puts the recording officer in a precarious position. If the officer's report differs from the body camera video the officer is in jeopardy of being charged with the newly created offense of Law Enforcement Misconduct (page 306-307). We want officers to be truthful in their reports and include all relevant details. If they cannot review their body camera footage prior to writing their report, then every time an officer writes a report, they run the risk of incriminating themselves.

Page 410-41 1: Right to Communicate with Attorney and Family

The bill states that persons who are in police custody have the right to make 3 phone calls within three hours of being taken into police custody. This will severely impede the ability of the police to question suspects. The insertion of an arbitrary time limit of 3 hours will prevent police from discovering additional evidence that may be critical in an investigation. The result will be fewer cases charged. This means many guilty suspects will get away with their crimes. The goal of the criminal justice system should be to hold criminals accountable for their actions and obtain justice for victims of crime and the community. This provision will have the opposite result.

There are also major inconsistencies in the Pretrial Release portion of HB 3653. On page 336 the bill states that "detention only shall be imposed when it is determined that the defendant poses a specific, real and present threat to a person, or has a high likelihood or willful flight." On page 337,the bill states that "at each subsequent appearance of the defendant before the Court, the judge must find that continued detention or the current set of conditions imposed are necessary to avoid the specific, real and present threat to any person or of willful flight from prosecution to continue detention of the defendant."

On page 370 the bill says that for forcible felonies, a person cannot be detained unless their pretrial release "poses a specific, real and present threat to any person or the community." On page 372, in order to detain a person for a list of enumerated gun offenses, the People must allege the defendant's pretrial release "poses areal and present threat to the physical safety of any specifically identifiable person or persons." What is the correct standard? If judges are required to find that a defendant is a "specific, real and present threat to any person or persons," then a husband who murders his wife must be released because we cannot determine he poses a "specific, real and present threat to any person or persons," because his victim is dead. However, a husband who attempted to murder his spouse could be detained, because his victim is still alive.

In its current form, the bill all but mandates the release of sex offenders, drunk drivers with numerous priors, and drug dealers, irrespective of their likelihood of re-offending; and the most important factor, the danger they pose to the general public, cannot be considered under this legislation."

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Sheriff Landers concluded this short press release with the invitation to call him if you have any other questions or need clarification at 217-732-4159. There are more law enforcement comments on social media sites and on a commentary site (www.hb3653.com) regarding the content and passing of the bill as well.

[Jim Youngquist]