In Felony Bond Court in Chicago
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You can't make this stuff up.
And one of those judges, Kelly McCarthy, gave an eye-popping performance in felony bond court Friday.
McCarthy set bail for 27 defendants during the session. She gave 22 of them recognizance bonds — including two charged with felony robbery. She refused to grant prosecutors’ requests to have several defendants held without bail, including one charged with attempted murder for allegedly beating, stomping, and choking his pregnant girlfriend for 20 minutes.
But that’s not all. In one case, even though nobody asked for it, McCarthy took the unprecedented step of ordering a robbery victim to show up in court to be served with an order to protect the man who allegedly robbed her at gunpoint.
In another case, prosecutors said a convicted felon admitted that a gun police found inside a purse in a car he was driving was his. Despite the alleged admission, McCarthy ruled there was no probable cause for the man to be detained because “obviously it’s not his purse.”
And when prosecutors made routine requests for her to hold defendants without bail for violating the bond terms in pending felony cases, McCarthy refused. Twice.
McCarthy is no stranger to the courts. Before being elected to the bench last year, she was a lawyer and supervisor in the public defender’s office. And, as strange as her decisions may seem, her Friday bond court session may provide Chicagoans with a glimpse of what lies ahead when Illinois outlaws cash bail in 2023.
In one case, a man who has a felony gun case pending in “restorative justice court” appeared before McCarthy to face a new gun charge. Cops last week saw him stuff a gun down his pants and run away, prosecutors said. The officers caught him and recovered the weapon, they said.
Prosecutors made a routine request of McCarthy: To have the man held without bail for violating the terms of bond in his pending case. Judges almost always grant such requests in felony cases. But not McCarthy.
“It is concerning to the court that he has a pending gun case and then picked up this matter,” McCarthy said. She then refused to hold him without bail for the violation and said he could go home on electronic monitoring by posting $2,000.
The details of her "judgments" are in the link.
Just amazing.
"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08
The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.
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I've never understood why the US elects judges.
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You can't make this stuff up.
And one of those judges, Kelly McCarthy, gave an eye-popping performance in felony bond court Friday.
McCarthy set bail for 27 defendants during the session. She gave 22 of them recognizance bonds — including two charged with felony robbery. She refused to grant prosecutors’ requests to have several defendants held without bail, including one charged with attempted murder for allegedly beating, stomping, and choking his pregnant girlfriend for 20 minutes.
But that’s not all. In one case, even though nobody asked for it, McCarthy took the unprecedented step of ordering a robbery victim to show up in court to be served with an order to protect the man who allegedly robbed her at gunpoint.
In another case, prosecutors said a convicted felon admitted that a gun police found inside a purse in a car he was driving was his. Despite the alleged admission, McCarthy ruled there was no probable cause for the man to be detained because “obviously it’s not his purse.”
And when prosecutors made routine requests for her to hold defendants without bail for violating the bond terms in pending felony cases, McCarthy refused. Twice.
McCarthy is no stranger to the courts. Before being elected to the bench last year, she was a lawyer and supervisor in the public defender’s office. And, as strange as her decisions may seem, her Friday bond court session may provide Chicagoans with a glimpse of what lies ahead when Illinois outlaws cash bail in 2023.
In one case, a man who has a felony gun case pending in “restorative justice court” appeared before McCarthy to face a new gun charge. Cops last week saw him stuff a gun down his pants and run away, prosecutors said. The officers caught him and recovered the weapon, they said.
Prosecutors made a routine request of McCarthy: To have the man held without bail for violating the terms of bond in his pending case. Judges almost always grant such requests in felony cases. But not McCarthy.
“It is concerning to the court that he has a pending gun case and then picked up this matter,” McCarthy said. She then refused to hold him without bail for the violation and said he could go home on electronic monitoring by posting $2,000.
The details of her "judgments" are in the link.
Just amazing.
@george-k said in In Felony Bond Court in Chicago:
Before being elected to the bench last year...
I'd say this is exactly what Chicagoan's voted for. And they are getting exactly what they voted for.
Kinda hard to have sympathy for the voters. Maybe they need to choose more wisely in the future.
Elections have consequences.
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CWBChicago noted her behavior on March 17.
“I'm now convinced that a certain bond court judge intentionally "forgets" to start her YouTube stream to minimize scrutiny of her work…” the organization tweeted a the time.
