On Sept. 18, Illinois will become the first state in America to abolish the practice of automatically keeping low-income criminal defendants locked up before they are convicted of anything while letting those who are accused of the same crimes — but who have more resources — buy their freedom.

That's not how advocates for cash bail generally define it, but that's ultimately what it is. Cash bail is a fundamentally unfair concept that has nothing to do with justice or public safety. Illinois now has the opportunity to demonstrate to Missouri and other states that justice systems can safely function without it.

Illinois lawmakers in 2021 passed, and Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed, a law ending cash bail in criminal cases throughout the state. Judges will still have the option of keeping defendants locked up while awaiting trial if they're found to pose danger of violence or flight risk. But money is removed from the equation — as it should be. The Illinois Supreme Court upheld the law Tuesday, clearing the way for its implementation this fall.

Americans are so used to the concept of cash bail that we generally fail to consider what an unjust non sequitur it is: What does the size of someone's bank account have to do with the question of whether that person should await trial in a cell or in the comfort of home?

Earlier experiments with reducing use of cash bail in the District of Columbia and New Jersey found no significant uptick in defendants failing to show up for their court hearings. This is unsurprising, given that such failure is a crime in itself, putting the defendant at further risk.

As for the argument that releasing a criminal defendant while awaiting trial poses a danger to the public, that — again — is an issue that should be decided separately from the issue of whether the defendant has the financial resources for a get-out-jail card during the weeks or months that a poorer defendant would be locked up under the same charges.

Opponents of the new law have flooded the zone with misinformation, including the false claim that it will force judges to release potentially dangerous defendants. The law has a mechanism for detaining defendants accused of the most serious crimes. It also gives judges discretion to detain suspects accused of lesser felonies based on case-by-case determinations of risk of violence or flight.

In a nation where "innocent until proven guilty" is the fundamental principle of the justice system, defendants who don't pose a substantial risk of flight or danger to society don't belong behind bars before their trials, no matter how impoverished they are.

And the argument works both ways: Defendants who do pose substantial risk should be detained before trial, no matter how wealthy they are. Money shouldn't factor into it.

This newspaper has never endorsed the misguided concept that no one should be detained before trial. That's a naive stance that ignores real-world instances in which defendants have clearly demonstrated a threat of violence or flight risk.

But the issue of pre-trial detention should be determined by those issues alone — threat of violence or flight risk — and not by a defendant's financial bottom line. It is now up to Illinois' court system to show the rest of the nation that society no longer needs the plutocratic anachronism of cash bail.

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