A woman jailed by a judge after she failed to appear in court at least five times for a stolen motor vehicle case is asking the Illinois Supreme Court to set her free.
After being arrested on December 29, 2023, Aimee Stewart, 38, missed court four days later and then again on March 21, June 5, September 4, 2024, and October 15, according to public records. She turned herself in on November 5 but was also charged with possessing a controlled substance for drugs she allegedly had when she surrendered, according to a court filing.
She has been in the Cook County jail since then because Judge Steven Rosenblum ordered her jailed for failing to appear in the stolen motor vehicle case, even though prosecutors didn’t file a detention petition, court records show.
“It does not matter how many times you release Miss Stewart, Miss Stewart is
not going to come to court,” Rosenblum found.
The judge appeared to take issue with the SAFE-T Act, which limits the amount of time a defendant can be detained for failure to appear to 30 days.
“It is impossible to administer justice to Miss Stewart under the present situation with the Pretrial Fairness Act. 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,” Rosenblum said.
According to Stewart’s defense attorneys, she was in the back seat of a car reported stolen by her own grandmother two days before Oak Lawn officers arrested her during a traffic stop. The grandmother reportedly told police she gave Stewart a ride to a train station and Stewart drove away with the vehicle.
During the November 5 hearing, Stewart told Rosenblum that she would not miss any more court dates.
“Oh, of course not,” Rosenblum replied. “I totally agree with you, Miss Stewart, it will not happen again because I am not releasing you.”
According to Stewart’s defense attorney, Rosenblum explicitly stated that he knew sanctions for failing to appear were limited to 30 days but argued the state legislature did not give him “an opportunity as a judge to administer justice.”
He said the SAFE-T Act, “as applied to a person like Miss Stewart is, quite frankly, unconstitutional.”
“I won’t just assess a sanction because I believe assessing a sanction under these circumstances does not allow the court to do their job, which is to move the case and to get something going on it. But every time we release Miss Stewart that opportunity disappears because she refuses to come back,” Rosenblum said.
In January, a month after new Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke took office, prosecutors decided to file a detention petition against Stewart under the SAFE-T Act’s flight risk provision.
However, Stewart’s attorneys argued that the petition was invalid because it was not based on any new information.
Rosenblum did not consider the petition and essentially invited a higher court to step in.
“So this is a case that needs to be decided by the Supreme Court,” Rosenblum said. “If the Supreme Court agrees with me that the statute has constitutional issues with it, then perhaps the legislature will fix it and we won’t have this problem. The judges will have the discretion to do their jobs.”
The judge commented that, as the SAFE-T Act is now interpreted, “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. So, either way, we will have the guidance that we need that is necessary in these cases.”
On Wednesday, Assistant Public Defender Rebecca Cohen argued before the Supreme Court, “It’s not the role of judges to rebound policy considerations because they think missing court is more serious than the legislature does.”
Special Asst. Attorney General Alan Spellberg countered, “When a judge is satisfied that the evidence shows that the defendant will not appear in court, regardless of the conditions, the judge has the inherent authority to deny pretrial release.”
The justices are expected to release a decision later this year.
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