PEORIA, Ill. (WMBD) — A trio of appellate court judges on Tuesday said a McLean County judge got it wrong when they denied pretrial release to a person accused of grooming a child.
Khalid Mohamed Farah could have been released under certain conditions that would have “mitigated” the potential danger he posted to the community, states the order from the 4th District Appellate Court in Springfield.
The end result is that the case will come back to Bloomington, where a judge will have to decide what conditions must be put upon Farah while he’s free and awaiting trial.
Farah was one of six people arrested during a sting operation by the Illinois State Police in January. The agency said at the time they were targeting human trafficking.
Since Illinois abolished cash bail under the SAFE-T Act, such hearings — akin to a mini trial — are held daily across the state. Many charges are not eligible for detention and when a person is found to be eligible, prosecutors must show a judge why the presumption for release should be overcome.
And that’s what happened in January when McLean County Judge J. Jason Chambers who sided with prosecutors, but it appears the appellate judges weren’t pleased with how he went about it.
“Simply parroting the statutory requirement that specific findings must be made does not constitute the making of specific findings,” wrote Judge Eugene Doherty, with James Knecht and Peter Cavanagh concurring. “Regardless of the circuit court’s reasons, we conclude that the record does not support its ultimate findings that defendant posed a threat to the community or that there were inadequate conditions to mitigate any such threat.”
And the trio found Chambers didn’t do that.
“Here, virtually all of the reasons for detention articulated by the circuit court and advanced by the State would apply to any defendant charged with these offenses; this would turn the statutory presumption on its head,” they said in the order. “Mitigation of a risk— especially when there is weak evidence that a risk exists—does not require the elimination of any conceivable risk.”
And as such, the case will come back to McLean County Circuit Court for another detention hearing. At that hearing, it appears that the appellate court judges want a local judge to “consider conditions of pretrial release.”
His case is set for trial later this month. If convicted, he faces up to five years in prison.
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