Open Letter to the Cook County State’s Attorney: Coalition of 136 Organizations and Community Members Oppose the Felony Review Bypass Program
This morning, a group of 38 organizations and 98 community members, including 8 Chicago Police District Councilors, sent an open letter to Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke urging her to end the Felony Review Bypass Program for gun possession cases in Chicago Police Department Districts 5 (Englewood) and 7 (Calumet), which include neighborhoods that are over 90% Black.
The Felony Review Bypass Program allows the Chicago Police Department (CPD) to bring forth felony charges for gun possession allegations without independent review by prosecutors, which is required for almost all other felony charges. The letter explains that gun possession cases typically rely solely on the testimony of police officers, which make these kinds of charges especially unsuitable for police to file.
In Chicago, Black and Latine people account for 97% of people charged with, convicted of, and incarcerated for gun possession offenses since 2011. These arrests are commonly due to licensure errors—such as when people who carry firearms forget to renew their Concealed Carry License, or don’t realize they need one in addition to their Firearm Owners Identification (FOID) card—and are regularly the result of minor traffic stops. By eliminating felony review, the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office (CCSAO) has removed a critical step in limiting prosecutions resulting from legally dubious arrests.
The letter’s signers are especially concerned about the effects of the Felony Review Bypass Program in conjunction with the CCSAO’s blanket policy to seek pretrial detention in most gun possession cases. Together, these measures mean that people facing felony gun possession charges in the 5th and 7th Districts are more likely to be incarcerated pretrial, potentially for many months, regardless of any mitigating circumstances. People jailed pretrial are much more likely to take a plea in an attempt to avoid risking their livelihoods and the well-being of their families. The State’s Attorney’s decision to bypass felony review for the same cases in which they plan to seek pretrial detention will inevitably lead to more convictions regardless of guilt. In Cook County, charges for gun possession most often end in guilty pleas, which typically result in over 3 years of incarceration.
The Felony Review Bypass Program poses serious risks to due process and police oversight, and it disproportionately harms Chicago’s Black and Brown communities. For those reasons, these 136 signers call on Cook County State’s Attorney O’Neill Burke to immediately end the program and reinstate felony review by prosecutors in all gun possession cases.
Read the letter below or visit bit.ly/FelonyReviewBypass_Letter.
The letter is signed by the following organizations, listed alphabetically: ACLU of Illinois, Actions for Justice, Asian Americans Advancing Justice | Chicago, Better Government Association, Cabrini Green Legal Aid, Cannabis Equity IL Coalition, Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts, Chicago Area Fair Housing Alliance, Chicago Council of Lawyers, Chicago Democratic Socialists of America, Chicago Justice Project, Chicago Torture Justice Center, Chicago Votes Action Fund, Children’s Best Interest Project, Civil Rights & Police Accountability Project of the University of Chicago Law School, Illinois Alliance for Reentry & Justice, Juvenile Justice Initiative, Kintsugi Psychotherapy PLLC, Liberation Library, Live Free Illinois, Lucy Parsons Labs, Mamas Activating Movements for Abolition & Solidarity (MAMAS), Mothers Against Wrongful Convictions, Network to Advance Abolitionist Social Work (NAASW), Nikkei Uprising, Parole Illinois, Prison Policy Initiative, Restore Justice, Social Change, Southsiders Organized for Unity and Liberation (SOUL), Stick Talk, The People’s Lobby, Trinity United Church of Christ – Chicago, Unitarian Universalist Prison Ministry of Illinois, Uptown People’s Law Center, National Lawyers Guild – Chicago, Rainbow PUSH Coalition, and YMCA McLean.
The letter is signed by the following Chicago Police District Councilors: Lovie Bernard (4th District – South Chicago), Teresa Chandler (7th District – Englewood), Dion McGill (7th District – Englewood), Ponchita Moore (5th District – Calumet), David Orlikoff (14th District – Shakespeare), Elizabeth A Rochford (17th District – Albany Park), Erin Vogel (9th District – Deering), and Joseph Williams (7th District – Englewood).