By: David Jackson, Todd Lighty, and Gary Marx
Cook County Chief Judge Timothy Evans for months has defended the bail reform he ordered by citing an analysis produced by the office he runs.
His report, released in May, noted that Chicago saw no increase in violent crime after judges began implementing those reforms by reducing or eliminating monetary bail for many pretrial defendants. Far more of these defendants were released from custody, yet only “a very small fraction” were charged afterward with a new violent offense, the report states.
But a Tribune investigation has found flaws in both the data underlying Evans’ report and the techniques he used to analyze it — issues that minimize the number of defendants charged with murder and other violent crimes after being released from custody under bail reform.
One central conclusion of Evans’ analysis was that only 147 felony defendants released from custody in the 15 months after bail reform went on to be charged with new violent crimes, or 0.6% of the total. He has called this a “rare” occurrence.
But Evans’ definition of violent crime, while acceptable to criminologists under some circumstances, was limited to six offenses and excluded numerous others, including domestic battery, assault, assault with a deadly weapon, battery, armed violence and reckless homicide.
Hundreds of these charges were filed against people released after bail reform took effect, according to data Evans provided after the Tribune filed a public records petition to the Illinois Supreme Court. If those charges were included in the analysis, the total would be at least four times higher, the Tribune found.
But Evans’ definition of violent crime, while acceptable to criminologists under some circumstances, was limited to six offenses and excluded numerous others, including domestic battery, assault, assault with a deadly weapon, battery, armed violence and reckless homicide.
Hundreds of these charges were filed against people released after bail reform took effect, according to data Evans provided after the Tribune filed a public records petition to the Illinois Supreme Court. If those charges were included in the analysis, the total would be at least four times higher, the Tribune found.
The report’s underlying data also was flawed in multiple ways that led to an undercount of murders and other violent crimes allegedly committed by people out on bail.
In one example, the Tribune identified 21 defendants who allegedly committed murder after being released from custody in the 15 months after bail reform. Evans’ report said there were three.
Among the reasons for that disparity:
· Evans’ analysis included only those defendants whose initial charge was a felony; it excluded those charged with a misdemeanor, which is far more common. Five of the murder defendants found by the Tribune had bonded out of jail on misdemeanor charges. Four of them had past felony convictions from attempted murder to armed robbery, and three had served prison time.
· The analysis counted only the first new charge against defendants after they were released from custody. The Tribune identified two people who were released, charged with another crime, released again and then charged with murder, all within the time period being examined. Those later murder charges were not entered into the database used for the report.
· Evans excluded three murder defendants whose first charge occurred before bail reform — even though they were released on bond after the reforms took effect in September 2017.
·Mistakes in data entry and incomplete court records marred the data set used in the analysis.
In one case, a reputed gang member released on a no-cash bond after a felony gun charge allegedly shot and killed a city Streets and Sanitation worker who was driving home to his three children, in what prosecutors called a case of mistaken identity.
That defendant was not included in Evans’ analysis because a pretrial risk assessment was not entered into the data set, the Tribune found. At least 2,334 felony defendants did not receive an assessment — to gauge the likelihood they will commit a crime or fail to reappear if released — and were not part of Evans’ analysis, his office acknowledged.
“You always think that if they didn’t release him my son would still be alive, and my grandchildren would still have their father,” said Michelle Jones-Vincent, the mother of the victim, Terrell Jones. “That’s always going through your head. I always wonder if the outcome would have been different if he would have remained incarcerated and not released on bail.”
“You always think that if they didn’t release him my son would still be alive, and my grandchildren would still have their father,” said Michelle Jones-Vincent, the mother of the victim, Terrell Jones. “That’s always going through your head. I always wonder if the outcome would have been different if he would have remained incarcerated and not released on bail.”
Responding to questions from the Tribune, Evans’ office stood by the analysis, its methods and its conclusions.
“In no way does this report intend to minimize new criminal activity,” his office said in a statement.
Evans’ office said the analysis tracked only felony defendants because “they are the largest drivers of the jail population.” All government data sets have quality problems, the office said, and they are working on ways to capture more complete information.
In an earlier interview with the Tribune, Evans said: “My heart goes out to the families who’ve been victimized by crime.”
But, he added, “The only way you can guarantee that no one will commit a crime while their case is pending, and that no one will miss a court date while their case is pending, is to keep them all in jail. … That’s not the solution.”
Evans’ bail reform initiative reflects national bipartisan support for efforts to reverse generations of economic and racial inequities in criminal courts, where nonviolent defendants can be confined to jail simply because they cannot post a cash bond.
Bail reform, Evans’ report said, has enabled “more pretrial defendants to remain in their communities pending resolution of their cases where they can work, pursue education, and support their families without an increased threat to public safety.” His report has been cited nationally in campaigns to craft similar policies in New York state and other jurisdictions.
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, Sheriff Tom Dart and other law enforcement officials have championed the intent of Chicago’s reforms. But they also have warned that there are consequences when judges release people with violent charges and backgrounds into neighborhoods already shaken by crime and gunfire.
“The low bails give those dangerous criminals a sense of impunity and make their victims less likely to cooperate with police,” Lightfoot said at a news conference as she stood beside police after the July 4 weekend, when 66 people were shot, five fatally.
In defending bail reform, Evans has gone beyond the technical language of his report to make sweeping assurances.
“It’s not by magic that we haven’t had any horrible incident to occur using this new (bail) system,” Evans said at a Cook County budget hearing in November.
Criminologists said the Tribune’s findings underscore why the official responsible for a reform initiative might not be the best person to analyze its effects.
“There is always a concern about bias when an entity who implements a particular reform then conducts the study of whether that reform was successful,” two University of Utah criminologists told the Tribune after being asked to review Evans’ report. “In this case, it appears that many dangers stemming from the reforms were not carefully or fully assessed.”
Paul Cassell, a former federal judge who teaches law, and economics professor Richard Fowles said biases were apparent in the report.
“What jumped out at us on initial examination, was that every assumption that was made — and every time frame and statistical device used — seemed to all be cutting in the direction of minimizing the crimes committed by post-reform releasees. That to us is a red flag,” they told reporters in an email.
To independently compare how cases were handled by the courts before and after bail reform, the Tribune reviewed thousands of police and court files on murders, armed robberies and other crimes.
The Tribune also has been requesting the underlying data used by Evans since he released his report in May. But the data he released in response omitted any information that could identify criminal defendants whose cases had not resulted in a conviction. Only about a quarter of the cases had complete information; the rest lacked case numbers, defendants’ names and other critical facts. He also withheld the names of judges setting bail.
The Tribune filed a petition to the Illinois Supreme Court in December that challenged Evans’ refusal to release complete data.
Within weeks, Evans announced to the Tribune in an interview that he would fulfill its data requests and reverse a long-standing policy that prohibited the bulk release of court docketing data that identifies all defendants. He also said he would release judges’ names.
To date, Evans has provided the Tribune with new data on 39,000 court cases from the post-reform period, and said his staff was working to make additional data available, including records from previous cases.
“I am changing that policy,” Evans told the Tribune. “This is a new day.”
Violent crime: What charges qualify?
According to a study by Cook County Chief Judge Timothy Evans’ office, 147 felony defendants released on bond between Oct. 1, 2017, and the end of 2018 were charged with new violent crimes, out of a total of 24,504 people. But the Tribune found hundreds more defendants were charged with crimes that many people would consider acts of violence.
Conclusions and questions
Evans’ major bail reform effort dates to September 2017, when he issued an administrative order directing local judges to impose nonmonetary conditions of release instead of cash bail whenever possible. Before setting bond amounts, judges also were to consider defendants’ ability to pay. Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, State’s Attorney Kim Foxx and other officials supported his efforts.
After the reforms took effect, cash bonds were used less often, the report from Evans’ office states, and the median bond amount for felony defendants — the amount of cash they had to pay to be released — fell from $5,000 to $1,000. The number of felony defendants released on no-cash bonds doubled, from about 7,500 to more than 15,000. And the jail population dropped sharply, from 7,443 to less than 6,000.
In the news release accompanying the report, and in subsequent media appearances, Evans has repeatedly sought to reassure county residents that the changes did not put them at higher risk.
“The increased release of defendants from jail did not increase the threat to public safety in Cook County,” the release said.
The report noted that the percentage of people released after being charged with a violent felony “did not substantially change,” rising from 43.2% before reform to 46.5% afterward.
The analysis also cites FBI statistics indicating that reports of violent crime in Chicago declined by nearly 8% from the first half of 2017 to the first half of 2018.
But criminologists said it was simplistic to conclude from those statistics that bail reform had no effect on crime, noting that many other factors are in play.
For example, a historic 2016 spike in Chicago homicides and shootings led to significant policing changes, which can affect city crime. Hundreds of new police officers were hired, federal agents were deployed, and shot-spotter technology was rolled out in high-crime neighborhoods.
Another issue with the analysis, according to University of Cincinnati criminologist John Paul Wright, is that when Evans analyzed outcomes before and after reform, the time periods being compared were not equal.
The 15 months prior to the reforms included more summer months than the post-reform period, which spanned two winters, for example.
“This is actually problematic methodologically because there is clearly more violent crime in the summer and less in winter. You would expect seasonal variation,” said Wright, who was asked by the Tribune to review the report.
The two periods are also unequal because the defendants released prior to reform were tracked over a longer period of time. The pre-reform defendants were out on bond for an average of 243 days, while the post-reform defendants were free for only 154 days on average, according to the report.
Simply put, that means they had far less time to violate their bonds through new arrests.
Simply put, that means they had far less time to violate their bonds through new arrests.
“That’s not apples to apples even at a statistics 101 level,” Cassell and Fowles wrote. “It is well recognized that the longer the time frame, the larger the number of new crimes.”
In fact, Evans’ own online “dashboard” of court statistics, which tracks the outcomes of cases for felony defendants released after bail reform, shows that as defendants spent more days on the street, the percentages who missed court appearances or were charged with new crimes increased.
In early 2018, only 11% of felony defendants released since the reforms had failed to appear in court and 9% had been charged with new crimes, according to the dashboard. But the percentage of defendants who missed court climbed to 17% by fall of last year, and the percentage rearrested while out on bail rose to nearly 18%.
Responding to questions from the Tribune, Evans’ spokesman said the report cited the decline in Chicago crime “to dispel the false notion that bail reform led to an increase in crime.” Spokesman Patrick Milhizer also defended the definition of violent crime used in the analysis, saying it was “consistent with the federal Uniform Crime Reporting Program.”
Calling it “a logical choice” to compare the two 15-month periods that bookend the reforms, he said the report acknowledges that the first group of defendants had more time in the community than the second group. And despite the seasonal disparities, he said, the two groups of felony defendants seen in court before and after the reforms had similar characteristics.
Armed robbery, before and after
One common but terrifying crime is armed robbery. To independently compare how such cases were handled by the courts before and after Evans’ bail reform, the Tribune reviewed court files on all 432 arrests Chicago police made for armed robbery with a gun in 2016 and in 2018.
In these crimes, the defendants are usually accused of using a firearm to take a person’s wallet, cellphone or other valuables, or to stick up a store.
This set of cases, evenly divided between the two years, suggests that bail reform may have had a more complicated impact on safety than Evans’ report acknowledges, said Jennifer Doleac, a Texas A&M economics professor and director of its Justice Tech Lab, who reviewed the Tribune’s numbers and Evans’ report.
Bond amounts dropped dramatically in these armed robbery cases, from an average of $31,000 cash in 2016 to $9,000 in 2018, and the number of defendants who were freed rose from 36 to 54. At the same time, the number charged with a new crime after being released climbed from eight to 13.
“Four hundred is not a lot of cases (statistically), but this is striking,” Doleac said. “This is the sort of comparison you want to use to get a sense of what the trade-offs are for the community.”
Evans has repeatedly said that under bail reform, judges are safeguarding the public by holding the highest-risk defendants without any bail. “Judges issued eight times the number of no-bail orders in felony cases since the order took effect,” according to the news release announcing his report.
The Tribune found that trend held true for armed robbery cases: The number of “no-bail” orders increased from 20 pre-reform to 107 post-reform.
But the real-world impact was negligible because, pre-reform, many defendants’ bails were set so high that they were never released, including seven armed robbery defendants who would have had to post $100,000 or more.
One armed robbery defendant was freed from custody in January 2018 after he allegedly pistol-whipped and robbed a taxi driver of $130. Released to his Northwest Side community on electronic monitoring after posting a $10,000 bond, Ayuub Ararsa was arrested eight months later after he and an accomplice allegedly held up a teenager at gunpoint, taking $250 and a set of Beats headphones.
According to police and court records, the accomplice warned the victim: “Don’t try and follow us, we’ll shoot you.” Police later found Ararsa, 19, in his backyard with the electronic monitoring bracelet still on his right ankle. He now is in custody awaiting trial in both cases.
“Why did they let him out?” asked the first victim, cabdriver Lamine Kane. “That’s very wrong.”
A flimsy safeguard
As more defendants are released on cash bonds, Evans’ report notes that judges can impose various additional safeguards to protect the public, including ankle bracelets that alert the sheriff’s office with a radio signal if defendants leave their home or tamper with the equipment.
Like Ararsa, 18-year-old Eduardo Venegas was ordered to wear one of these electronic monitoring bracelets when he was released from custody.
A reputed gang member with a juvenile record that included a gun charge, Venegas was arrested in a 2018 car theft, then released on a no-cash bond on his own recognizance, but with the ankle bracelet as an extra precaution.
A month later, Venegas was arrested after he allegedly killed a former friend, Rigoberto Rodriguez, during a fight in the Brighton Park neighborhood. Armed with a .40-caliber handgun, Venegas fired multiple times at Rodriguez, prosecutors said. While awaiting trial, he was also charged with a second murder, the fatal shooting of Dylan Zavala in August 2018. Venegas has pleaded not guilty in both cases.
In response to Tribune questions, Evans’ office provided figures stating that the number of felony defendants released on monetary bond with electronic monitoring rose from 49 in the 15 months before bail reform to 1,122 in the post-reform period.
Dart, the county sheriff, has been a vocal advocate for bail reform but long has called the ankle bracelets a flimsy safeguard.
The bracelets typically are not equipped with GPS trackers, and Dart says he does not have enough staff to follow up quickly on alerts involving the roughly 2,200 defendants wearing the bracelets on any given day.
Using information obtained through public records requests to Dart’s office, the Tribune identified 1,264 felony defendants who allegedly committed new crimes while released pretrial on electronic monitoring in 2018 and the first five months of 2019.
At least four were charged with murder while out on bond, and at least two others were charged with attempted murder. Hundreds were charged with armed robbery, aggravated battery or other gun and drug crimes.
Sorted by ZIP code, the defendants who were charged with new crimes while on electronic monitoring were clustered in communities already struggling with violence, a Tribune analysis found.
The ZIP code with the highest rate of electronic monitoring defendants per 100,000 population was 60624, which covers East Garfield Park and is 92% African American, according to U.S. census figures. Ninety-four electronic monitoring defendants who picked up new charges after being released were hosted inside that ZIP code, the Tribune analysis found.
In his Tribune interview, Evans acknowledged for the first time that he believes the electronic monitoring program is flawed. Data that his office provided later indicated that the number of felony defendants charged with new crimes after being released on a cash bond with electronic monitoring had risen from four pre-reform to 195 afterward.
“I’ll surprise you; I’ll shock you,” Evans said. “I do not believe the public is as secure using electronic monitoring as I’d like to see.”
Evans also revealed in the interview that he is exploring a new approach to safeguarding the public and changing the lives of defendants awaiting trial. “I believe that electronic monitoring is not a viable alternative for us in the future,” he said. “I believe that a better system is cognitive behavioral therapy.”
Assigning therapists to pretrial defendants could be costly, Evans acknowledged, but he said it would result in safer communities by helping the defendants make better choices while out on bond.
“It is designed to change what they might think that they should do,” Evans said. “It’s telling them not to do their first thought. It’s having them think through the alternative, to consider the consequences of their actions.”
‘It’s a hurting feeling’
Terrell Jones was shot to death in March 2018 while driving through the Back of the Yards neighborhood with his cousin. They were taking a shortcut home.
Prosecutors say Albaro Guerrero-Garcia and another man were armed with assault-style rifles hunting for rival gang members to attack that night.
Guerrero-Garcia had been released from custody on a personal recognizance bond following a felony weapons charge. He did not have to put up any money.
He is now back in jail, awaiting trial in Jones’ murder — one of the 18 post-reform murder defendants Evans did not include in his analysis. Guerrero-Garcia has pleaded not guilty.
Jones was married to his high school sweetheart, and the impact on their three young children has been “indescribable,” said his mother, Jones-Vincent.
“It’s horrible. It’s horrible. He was a hands-on dad. He helped with their homework. He helped with dinner. He picked the children up from school,” she said. “They know that their dad is in heaven, but all the time they say, ‘I miss my daddy.'”
Evans said such stories are agonizing but it is impossible for judges making bail decisions to see into the future. The presumption of innocence, he said, is a foundation of the American criminal justice system.
“Whoever is accused of (murder) is entitled to a trial before we convict that person,” he said.
The period covered by Evans’ analysis ended in December 2018. In the nine months that followed — as Lightfoot, Foxx and others debated the impact of bail reform — 12 more homicides were allegedly committed by felony defendants who were out on bail, the Tribune found.
Among the victims was off-duty police Officer John P. Rivera, who was shot to death in March as he sat in a car outside a River North tavern in what police called a case of mistaken identity. Two of the three men accused in Rivera’s death were out on bond at the time, records show.
Another victim, 15-year-old Jaylin Ellzey, was hit by seven bullets sprayed from a passing car in May in the Roseland community.
His alleged attacker, Antawan Smith, had earlier been released on a $6,000 cash bond after police said they caught him with a loaded semi-automatic handgun and six plastic bags of crack cocaine following a car chase. Smith has pleaded not guilty in Ellzey’s murder.
Smith’s criminal history includes convictions for drug dealing and illegally carrying a gun, court records show.
“If he (Smith) had been locked up on the case he already had, my son would be here,” said Sabrina McCauley, Ellzey’s mother. “It’s a hurting feeling, burying your child.”
Also among the homicides identified by the Tribune was West Side mother Brittany Hill, 24, who was shot fatally in May while shielding her toddler daughter, Ja-Miley, from gunfire on the street. Prosecutors called Hill an inadvertent victim.
“My baby was only 1 year old. She is not going to feel her mother’s love,” said Ja-Miley’s father, Jacob Jones.
The alleged shooter, Michael Washington, had been released on a no-cash, personal recognizance bond after being charged with misdemeanor resisting an officer, and had violated that bond by failing to appear in court. Washington, who has pleaded not guilty in Hill’s murder, had numerous prior convictions including second-degree murder and was on parole at the time after serving prison time for drug dealing.
Judges who make the decision on bonds are “living in a high tower” and don’t pay a price for their decisions, said Hill’s father, James Hill, while he and other West Side residents are “living in the valley.”
“There should be something that keeps them in.”
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