Exhausted U.S. cities face another challenge: A surge in violence (excerpt from StarTribune – July 9 2020) Police officials in New York City and elsewhere say the recent bloodshed has shown there are consequences to some reforms they see as misguided, particularly on bail reform, enacted before the protests happenedRead More →
Bail funds under scrutiny after nationwide protests (excerpt from News Press Now – June 20 2020) The decisions of bail funds, often used to help low-level offenders out of jail, are under scrutiny by the American Bail Coalition following nationwide protests over George Floyd’s death. Jeffrey Clayton, executive director ofRead More →
Minneapolis looters sprung from jail without bail (excerpt from The Washington Times, June 10 2020) Hundreds of rioters arrested by the Minneapolis police during the George Floyd protests were immediately back on the streets when authorities refused to press charges and released them without bail. Law enforcement advocates said theRead More →
Unregulated Charitable Bail Funds Upending the Criminal Justice System and Federal Immigration In Wake of Anti-Criminal Justice Momentum While Minneapolis simply considers eliminating the police department altogether, the unregulated Minnesota Freedom Fund is not so quietly making their mark on criminal justice: wealthy donors are giving millions of dollars toRead More →
Ohio Supreme Court Did Not Disallow Risk Assessments In Ohio—They Were Made Mandatory By Legislative Edict A Decade Ago Recently, the Ohio Supreme Court sent over bail reform rules to the legislature that did not include, in the body of the rules, the mandatory use of a pretrial risk assessmentRead More →
California Court Of Appeals Rules The Emergency Statewide Bond Schedule, Like Other Bail Schedules, Do Not Bind California Judges On April 6th, the California Judicial Council issued a statewide emergency order setting a statewide bail schedule in California to $0.00 for most misdemeanors and many felony offenses. The measure wasRead More →
Arrested 4 times in 3 weeks: L.A. police blame zero bail for rise in repeat offenders (excerpt from Yahoo News, April 30, 2020) Eric Medina has been arrested four times on suspicion of grand theft auto in the last three weeks. It began with the theft of a Ford vanRead More →
Texas Governor Says No to Get out of Jail Free Policies Due to COVID-19; Texas Supreme Court and a Federal Judge Agree Bail reform activist groups are not being shy about using the recent pandemic to advance their cause. Even in jails where the rate of infection within the entireRead More →
Washington State Governor Unleashes Wave Two Of The Coronavirus: 1,100 Hardened Offenders Walking Out Of Prison We always hesitate to get into prison issues, because our mission is to guarantee the right to bail and also ensure accountability as part of that process. But in the case of Washington state,Read More →
Child abusers eligible for immediate release under California’s new $0 cash bail emergency mandate (excerpt from Fox 11 Los Angeles – April 21, 2020) SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. – The San Bernardino County Sheriff is blasting California’s new $0 cash bail emergency mandate after he says he was forced to release a repeatRead More →
