Do You Think The System Will Protect You?

The System™ can't be bothered about domestic violence cases. Judge who released man suspected of murdering wife is reassigned to traffic court - CWB Chicago

The State's Attorney's office couldn't be bothered to make a complete presentation of the facts. The courts GPS monitoring system didn't note when the defendant entered an area he was forbidden from entering. The judge in question couldn't bring himself to hold domestic violence suspects pending trial.

The judge:

We found 85 cases during that period when prosecutors asked Nowinski to keep a defendant jailed. He approved just 34 of those petitions, or 40%. By comparison, a roster of judges who handled similar domestic cases during weekend court sessions granted petitions 57% of the time during the same period.

The GPS system:

The investigation also found problems in the court’s GPS electronic monitoring program, “an apparent failure” by a GPS technician to notify the court that Beldi had entered an area he was ordered to avoid just one day after he appeared before Nowinski.

Beldi, the defendant, appeared before Nowinshi, the judge, in October. In November he killed his wife. (Alleged) The stabbing was witnessed by an off-duty Chicago cop.

There is no mention of what happened, if anything, to the assistant state's attorney in this case, but there is a pledge to make sure that judges get updated and complete criminal histories before they rule on such matters in the future. And why wasn't that already the case?

As for the GPS monitoring system, it is listed as understaffed and underfunded, and they will try to address that.

This all adds up to a system that is seriously flawed, and people are dying because of it.