Aimee Stewart spent more than six months in the Cook County Jail after a judge refused to release her under Illinois’ Pretrial Fairness Act, declaring the cashless bail law unconstitutional. But now, the state’s highest court has struck down that decision, ordered Stewart freed, and made it clear that trial judges cannot use “inherent authority” to sidestep the state’s no-cash-bail system.
Stewart, 38, was charged after police said she stole her grandmother’s car in late 2023. The grandmother reportedly told police she gave Stewart a ride to a train station and Stewart drove away with the vehicle.
Oak Lawn officers arrested her two days later, finding her in the back seat during a traffic stop. Prosecutors charged her with possession of a stolen motor vehicle, a Class 2 felony that is not detainable under the Pretrial Fairness Act, better known as the SAFE-T Act. Stewart was initially released with conditions.
But she repeatedly missed court—on January 2, March 21, June 5, September 4, and October 15, 2024—leading to a string of warrants. She turned herself in on November 5, 2024, and was also charged with possessing a controlled substance for drugs she allegedly had when she surrendered, court filings show.
At her hearing, Stewart promised not to miss another court date. But Judge Steven Rosenblum was unmoved.
“Oh, of course not. I totally agree with you, Miss Stewart, it will not happen again because I am not releasing you,” he said from the bench.
Rosenblum made it clear he was taking direct aim at Illinois’ no-cash-bail law.
“It is impossible to administer justice to Miss Stewart under the present situation with the Pretrial Fairness Act,” he declared. “This court will no longer go along with that situation. It is four warrants before we even get to an arraignment date on Miss Stewart. So I am not releasing her. Defendant is to be detained.”
According to Stewart’s defense attorneys, Rosenblum knew sanctions for failing to appear were capped at 30 days but he reasoned that lawmakers had stripped him of the discretion he needed.
“The statute does not give me an opportunity as a judge to administer justice,” he said in court. “As applied to a person like Miss Stewart, [it] is, quite frankly, unconstitutional.”
Prosecutors under newly elected State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke tried a different tack in January 2025, filing a detention petition under the law’s “flight risk” provision. Stewart’s attorneys argued the move was improper because it wasn’t based on new information. Rosenblum declined to consider the petition and essentially invited a higher court to intervene.
“So this is a case that needs to be decided by the Supreme Court,” he said, adding that perhaps legislators would “fix it” if the justices agreed with him.
“I don’t know where we’re going with ever getting justice because somebody could be out there for 20 different warrants and they would have no discretion except for to do a [30 day] sanction,” Rosenblum said. “So, either way, we will have the guidance that we need that is necessary in these cases.”
The case reached the Illinois Supreme Court this spring.
Assistant Public Defender Rebecca Cohen argued, “It’s not the role of judges to rebound policy considerations because they think missing court is more serious than the legislature does.”
Special Assistant Attorney General Alan Spellberg countered that judges retain “inherent authority” to deny release when convinced a defendant won’t appear no matter the conditions.
On May 21, the Supreme Court ordered Stewart’s immediate release while the case was pending. In its full opinion issued September 18, Justice Lisa Holder White wrote for a unanimous court that the Pretrial Fairness Act “does not violate the separation of powers clause” and that Rosenblum “had no authority, under the Act or the Illinois Constitution, to indefinitely detain petitioner pending trial.”
The court said Rosenblum ignored available tools such as sanctions, modified release conditions, and even the ability to proceed with trial in absentia.
“To allow a court to circumvent the Act as an exercise of its inherent authority to detain a defendant indefinitely pretrial would render the Act optional,” Holder White wrote.
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