By JODI SOKOLOWSKI
Buffalo Law Journal

A bill before the state Senate would expand the number of factors judges can consider when setting a defendant's bail. Currently, the single factor that judges are permitted to consider when issuing or denying bail is whether the person charged with a crime will reappear in court.

If enacted, the legislation known as Jilly's Law would permit the courts to consider other circumstances, such as the safety of the alleged victim and the nature of the offense - particularly in domestic-violence cases where the offender might be likely to repeat his or her behavior.

The bill is named for Jill Russell-Cahill, who was murdered by her husband in October 1998 while recovering from near-fatal injuries sustained when he beat her with a baseball bat six months earlier.

Despite an order of protection requiring that he stay away from his wife, Jeff Cahill, while out on bail, sneaked into the Syracuse hospital where Jill was being treated and poisoned her with potassium cyanide. At the time, she was a week away from being transferred to a rehabilitation facility.

"If this bill was in effect in 1998, my sister would still be alive," said Russell-Cahill's sister Debbie Jaeger, who lives in the Buffalo area.

The bill, sponsored by Sen. George Maziarz, R-North Tonawanda, was first proposed in 2004. The Senate passed the bill three times, but it has never made it past the Assembly's Codes Committee.

"The Assembly majority is more interested in protecting the rights of perpetrators of crime than they are victims," he said.

If the bill, S.112, is not passed by the end of the year, Maziarz said he plans to reintroduce it in January.

"It will take some horrific incident in New York City to move the Assembly majority to put pressure on the Assembly speaker if it gets on the floor," he added.

Cahill's 1999 conviction was overturned when the state Court of Appeals ruled the death penalty unconstitutional. He was sentenced to 38 years to life without parole upon being reconvicted in 2004.

"His explanation was he knew that Jill would never be the same and it was a mercy killing," Jaeger said. "(But) he never had any remorse."