Oppose House Bill 1226: Time To Tell The CCJJ To Go Back To The Drawing Board For several years the Colorado Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice (CCJJ) has been spending an inordinate amount of time in order to develop House Bill 1226 and their bail reform plan they planRead More →
Griffo, sheriffs speak out against criminal justice reforms (excerpt from Utica Observer-Dispatch Apr 5 2019) UTICA — State Sen. Joseph Griffo is calling out the state for the criminal justice reforms passed in the budget this week, referring to them as a “criminal bill of rights.” Those changes — whichRead More →
Backers want to save taxpayer money and keep people from “languishing” behind bars (excerpt from The Colorado Independent – April 4 2019) It’s probably not often that the bail industry, Charles Koch and progressive criminal justice reformers agree. But all three are backing a bill that would require Colorado courtsRead More →
Bail reform’s killer mistake: Criminal justice overhaul may have taken away important tool courts use to keep dangerous people off the streets (excerpt from Daily News – April 6 2019) Michael Cammarata and his girlfriend were charged Friday with the murder of Cammarata’s estranged wife Jeanine after the schoolteacher’s burnedRead More →
New Jersey Bail Reform, the Numbers Are In: State Spent Hundreds of Millions of Dollars to Get Worse Results As the New Jersey Courts take their annual trip over to the legislature to justify their budget this week, on the eve of the hearing they released a report that hasRead More →
Justified outrage as Atlanta man released after shooting at the police (excerpt from Law Enforcement Today – Mar 28 2019) ATLANTA, GEORGIA: Kenneth Gilbert and his father were driving around Atlanta earlier this month when they saw several police officers in an unmarked Atlanta Police S.W.A.T. vehicle. Unprovoked, and with noRead More →
Why the criminal justice system should abandon algorithms (excerpt from TNW Feb 6 2019) Here’s a choose-your-own-adventure game nobody wants to play: you’re a United States judge tasked with deciding bail for a black man, a first-time offender, accused of a non-violent crime. An algorithm just told you there’s aRead More →
U.S. Supreme Court Affirms Constitutionality of Money Bail and Bail Schedules For four long years, at the urging of former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, activist Plaintiffs lawyers have been suing small jurisdictions arguing that there is a right to an affordable bail in the United States and that theRead More →
The city of Atlanta is trusting potential shoplifters, pot users and illegal drivers to return to court, requiring nothing but their signature to get out of jail. (excerpt from The Reveal March 26 2019) ATLANTA — Donna Smitherman sits in clear view of the Atlanta Detention Center as she talksRead More →
Bail Reform—A View From the Bench (excerpt from New York Law Journal – March 27 2019) As a New York state court judge who has presided over felony criminal cases in Manhattan for the past 11 years, I am gratified that the Legislature and the Governor are on the vergeRead More →
