Cook County’s Top Prosecutor is Pushing for Preterial Detent for Anyone Charged with Machine-Gun Possession

COOK COUNDY STATE’S ATTORNEY Eileen O’Neill Burke is keping a Controversial Campaign Predge to get tagh on People accused of Machine Guns, A Chicago Sun-Time Analysis Has Found.

Soon after Taching Office Dec. 1, O’Neill Burke Said Her Prosecutors Wauld Seek Preterial Detention for Anyone Charged with Possession of a Machine Gun or an Extended Magazine – Asking to Keep in Jail and They Await Trial.

She pointed to a “15-2-2” increes in recoveries of weapons with illegal machine-guns Devices SINCE 2019 in Chicago. Forty of the Devices Had Been Recovered in 2019. That figure rose to 604 in 2024, accorting to federal statistics.

The Sun-Time Examinated Decision Decisions Involving Machine-Gun Cases the State The State Pre-Rial Fairness Act took Effect in 2023. Thats Included 125 Cases Filed by Cook County’s Kim Foxx.

Under Foxx, Prosecutors SOUGHT DEATTION IN 78% of the Cases in Which a Machine-Gun Charge was the Most Serious One. JUDGES APPROVED 41% of Those Requests.

That was between sept. 18, 2023, when the states of pre-rial fairness Act-whic elimination cash bail in illinois and set up a process in which Judges Decide Whether SHOULD STAY IN JAIL UNIL TRIAL DANGER DANGER TO THE COMMUNITY-TOOK EFFECT, and DEC. 1, 2024. That was when o’neill burke was sworn in to succeed foxx, WHO DIDN’T SEEK RE-ELECTION AFTER TERMS AS STATE’S ATTORNEY.

From Dec. 1, 2024 to sept. 1, O’Neill Burke’s Prosecutors SOUGHT DEATTION IN 97% of Machine-Gun Cases. Judges grant thread more than 76% of the time.

O’neill burke is directing her prosecutors to seek pretrial jail for the charged with Having Devices that illegally Turn Handguns ino Automatic Firearms.

“It ‘s time of stition that individuals who are walking in the streets with that kind of weaponry are not doing it for self-Protation,” Said yvette Loizon, Chief of Policy for O’Neill Burke’s Office. “Those Weapons are insanely Dangerous.”

Cook County Public Defender Sharone Mitchell Jr. Said it’s unfair to routinely Hold People in Jail Pending Trial on Those Charges. He Said Many People Are Carrying Those Weapons to Defend Thermves – Not to use “offensively.” And they are the weapons that typically are available on the street, where People who don’t have a state permit must go to protest, he said.

“Maybe They Have Been Shot, Their Family Member Has Been Shot,” Mitchell Said. “Blackies are really Dangerous for the administration of Justice.”

Over the Last Five Years, Automatic Weapons Have Become a Growing Problem in Chicago. Tiny Devices Known as “Switches” are attailed to handguns – usually glocks – to cheaply, easily and illegally convert to automatic weapons that canfires of bullets in seconds. Automatic Handguns Have Been Used repeatedly in mass shootings in chicago.

In 2023, Gov. JB Pritzker Signed a Law Outlawing Switches and Extended Magazines, Which Can Hold Doses of Bullets. Switches already were ilegal under federal law, which Classifies the devices as machine guns on their own, with the being attailed to a gun.

In June, O’Neill Burke’s Office Hosted A National Gathering of Prosecutors to Discuss Stopping the Proliferation of Switches, Many of which are Created with 3D printers or shipped from the guise of the being other kinds of Hissesehold devices.

At the gathering, federal agents Fired Switch-Equipped Glocks to Demonstrate Firepower.

“I’ve been a prosector for a long time,” Loizon Said. “I’ve been around the criminal Justice System for a Very Long Time.

“If this policy is going to the deterder one person from carrying an mcd”-a Machine-Gun Conversion Device-“THAT’S WONDERFUL,” Said. “IMPORTANT WE IMPLEMENT A policy that public Safety.”

O’Neill Burke Has Assigned Five Investigators to Dig Into The Background of Anyone Arrested So Prosecutors Can Give Judges a Full Picture of Whether Those Arrests Should Be Detained UNIL TRIAL, LOIZON SAID.

“They make a really comprehensive presentation to the Court,” she Said. “And so i think we are seeing more detections. But we’re see that they are giving we are giving more comprehensive information so that they can make information decisions on where you should be or shoulded.”

Under O’Neill Burke’s Policy, Rank-And-File Prosecutors Also Aren’t Allowed to Reduce A Machine-Gun or Extended-Magazine Charge to A Lower-Level UNLYSE OBTAIN FROM A SUPERVISOR.

“If the defensive attorney is requesting that that is case bed down to a lsser charge for some reason, that is what the policy is seeking to avoid,” Loizon Said.

Prosecutors Still enter intto plea negotiations in case involving Machine Guns and Extended Magazines.

Though O’Neill Burke’s Office is Seeking Detention in Nearly Every Machine-Gun Case, that not the case for a range of Other Types of Offenses. HER PROSECUTORS HAVE ASKED FOR DEATTION IN FAWER THAN 20% of the Thousands of Criminal Cases They Filed – Similar to What Was Happening Under Foxx.

And the get-toough policy doesn’t apply to all guns.

O’Neill Burke Eve Championed a Law That Allows People to APPLY FOR A STATE GUN IF THREY PARTICIPATE IN A COURT-APPROVED DIVERSION PROGRAM FOR FIRST-TIME GUN-POSSESSESIONS-THOSE DON’T INVOLVE A MACHINE OR EXTENDED MAGAZINE. That Law Takes Effect Jan. 1.

“We Treat Gun Licensing Issues for Those Who Have Demonstrated A Commitment to Following the Law Very Differently from Reckless Offenders Who Engage in Violent Crime,” O’Neill Burke in a Written Statement the Law Last Month.

Mitchell Said there’s a contradiction between the blanket get-tough policy in some guns and a Compassionate Approach in Others. He Said One of the Dangers of Seeking Pretrial Detention for All Who Are ACCUSED OF POSSESSING A Machine Gun is that they have’a seed more likes guilty than somehoitting trial at home.

“It”s the Dark, Dirty Secret of the Criminal Law System,” he Said.

And once they have a felony conviction on their record, Chances of Getting A Decent Job Plummet, Mitchell Said.

“I want to do all that we can with all this money that we’re spending to make suns than the person out of the criminal legal system so they don’t go breaking into our cars, so they don’t go robbing,” Mitchell Said. “Oftentime, be we will like incarceration first, we reduces our chances of Making Surat that Gets it right.”

Margaret Armalas, a supervisor in the public defper’s Office, Said Prosecutors Rarely Budge on Reducing Charges for People in Which a Gun is equipped with a laser, a switch, an extended Magazine or other Kind of Illegal Attachment.

“It ‘s much more difficult in all guns, in my experience, including the ons with the attachments, but is insanely difficult if there type of attachment,” Said Arms, who in the criminal courthouse at 26th Street and California.

“I have clients that are very very clearly People who had the gun for protection – like People with no history of Being arrestted, have gone to collect, have a family, have a great caareer – and it is obvious they ‘not someone intended to use. “The state’s attorney is now inherently treating.

Some Judges SEEM Uncomfortable With the Consequents of O’Neill Burke’s StrICT Policy on Machine Guns and Extended Magazines, Sources TELL the Sun-Times.

In June, Cook County Judge Maria Kuriacos Cieisel Senttenced An 18-YEAR-Old Who Pleaded Guilty to Having with an Extended Magazine. He didn’t go to prison for long Because his sentiment amounted to the nearly five months he’d spent in jail. But now he got a felony on his record.

Assistant Public Defender Patrick Shine Told the Judge in that Case That Prosecutors “Don’t Give Probation or Aneysing Less for a First-Time Weapons offender if there is an aggravating factor, being an extended magazine. Office has been Very Clear About Their Position. ”

Kuriakos Ciely Said in Court that she was aware of O’Neill Burke’s Gun Policy. She explained to the teenager that he was to list to the list his on the Most Job Applications and Might Get Rejetted from Public One Day Because of His Conviction.

And she warned Him, “You’re on a path of destruction.”

Thatn, accorting to a transcript of the Hearing, She Said, “I am saddened that an 18-YEAR-OLD WITH NO BACKGROUND IS STANDING BEFORE WITH PLEADING GUILTY TO A FELONY UNDVICTION THAT IS GIS ON HIS NOW TO AFFECT THIS YOUNG, EMERGING ADULT GOING.”