An appellate court upheld the SAFE-T Act detention of a Glendale Heights man charged with the 2023 attempted murder of a Joliet police officer.

In a 2-1 decision Dec. 17, the 3rd District Appellate Court in Ottawa found Will County Judge Art Smigielski was correct to deny the pretrial release of 44-year-old Francisco Alvarez.

Alvarez is charged with the April 29, 2023, attempted murder and aggravated battery of Joliet police officer Yuliana Lopez. His case has not yet gone to trial, and he is scheduled for another court hearing Jan. 13.

Smigielski’s decision to keep Alvarez in the Will County jail was supported by Appellate Court Justices Liam Brennan and William Holdridge.

Appellate Court Justice Linda Davenport disagreed with her fellow justices.

“The state presented no evidence of an ongoing mental issue, no evidence of a violent propensity and no evidence of an inability to mitigate a safety threat through conditions of release,” Davenport said.

During the 2023 incident, officers responded to a 911 call made by Alvarez, who thought “someone was outside” the house he was staying in and believed someone was “out to get him,” Will County prosecutors have said.

After Lopez unsuccessfully tried to get Alvarez to leave a closet inside the house, an ambulance was called to the scene for a “possible mental health evaluation,” prosecutors said.

When Lopez and officer Lesly Sigala opened the closet door, Alvarez “came out with a knife” and stabbed Lopez in the vest and lower left abdomen, prosecutors said. She also suffered another puncture wound to her body.

The appellate decision delivered by Brennan noted that Alvarez refused to cooperate with his pretrial risk assessment after his arrest.

“Without more information, [Alvarez’s] mental health issues, combined with his use of illicit substances, certainly support concluding that [the] defendant is a danger to the community that cannot be mitigated short of detention,” Brennan said.

But Davenport argued that the evidence “fell short” of the legal requirements under the SAFE-T Act.

Prosecutors are required to present “clear and convincing” evidence from which a judge may find no “condition or combination of conditions” would mitigate the risks of Alvarez’s pretrial release, Davenport said.

Davenport said Alvarez was likely to comply with any conditions of pretrial release based on his lack of disciplinary issues at the jail and his successful completion of probation and court supervision in unrelated cases.

Davenport said Alvarez had a “nonviolent and limited criminal record” marked by a 15-year gap before the attempted murder case.

Davenport said the evidence showed that Alvarez allegedly committed the offenses against Lopez during an “isolated mental health episode” that may have been exacerbated by drug use.