A California bill seeks to remove monetary requirements for bail.
16 replies, posted
http://amp.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article216681370.html
Before you panic thinking it will allow people to just flee after comitting a dangerous crime:
Senate Bill 10 would instead order the California Judicial Council, which oversees the state court system, to develop standardized “risk assessment tools.” Local agencies would use the system to evaluate any individual arrested on felony charges for their likelihood of returning for court hearings and their chances of rearrest, while most individuals arrested for misdemeanors would be released within 12 hours without assessment.
The goal is to remove inequality of justice behind wealth.
What they note at 12:00 seems like a good idea. Bail should be set at something the defendant would miss a lot if they failed to appear, but is actually something the alleged offender can actually afford. Naturally you would expect such a thing to be paired with a requirement you can't post any bail (no matter how large) for very serious offences.
I think the DoJ under Obama was working on GPS ankle band stuff among other schemes to address bail inequality that worked pretty well for non violent offenders.
Update, it passed:
https://www.npr.org/2018/08/28/642795284/california-becomes-first-state-to-end-cash-bail
Some longstanding allies of the effort also reversed their stance, declaring the new proposal a betrayal. San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi this week criticized the judiciary for co-opting the bill and giving judges “unbridled power” to determine whether an individual should be released.
“It’s a complete abomination of what bail reform set out to do,” he said in an interview. “Everything is focused on detaining a person
It's not actually a good win. To gain more votes it was drastically changed in such a way that it's incredibly likely that even more people will be stuck in jail now because of it. Judges are given discretion over public safety and flight risk status so the same problems with marginalized groups being disproportionately impacted will persist.
Fucking Illinois and California give Democrats a bad name.
But the law states it's based on a algorithm to be fair to all.
Those decisions will be based on an algorithm created by the courts in each jurisdiction.
I mean judges could set bail to whatever they wanted to begin with, meaning they could charge people thousands more than what they make to make sure they stay in jail or take the plea. Now, rich and poor are all held to the same standard of laws.
Maybe they could get rid of that system that charges inmates for their own incarceration as well.
Algorithms can be biased too, though.
But its purely back history, times they didnt show to court, and previous offenses. Before, if you even got a misdemeanor, you'd could pay hundreds in bail. Non violent offenders and misdemeanors are given leaner conditions while violent felons have harsher penalties. But now this applies to rich and poor. If you had the bail money, you could slap down a bundle of cash and walk out of jail.
Isn't that how it already was? If it wasn't the judge who had that ability, then who did? The Chief? DA?
Well that would've been useful for me before I had to post bail for almost 2 G.
Seriously, I had to give up 3k in bail after a man attacked me in my own front yard.
The police filed a report full of holes and took the statements of his gang-type buddies as "impartial witnesses".
Not to mention the ceaseless lawyers fees.
My point isn't to say that the current system is good. The way things are currently set up for folks is absolutely fucked. It's to say that this isn't really better. It's bad and leaves potential for other types of abuse. I guess it will all boil down to how the algorithm works in practice but including some more rich people in the list of those that might be unjustly held is not progress, as evidenced by the original endorsers of the bill removing their support. If all this did was get rid of bail then I would be incredibly excited but it's just too likely that this will ultimately destroy more lives.
http://amp.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article217517075.html
Local legal racketeering ring upset they can no longer get free money from the system. Bailbondsmen are the biggest pieces of shit that exploit the broken system to the fullest.
Peep that framed Joe Arpaio portrait, handcuffs, and signed Joe Arpaio brand boxers.
There's some deep irony in a parasite on the criminal justice system proudly displaying merchandise personally endorsed by a pardoned criminal whose crime was contempt of court for defying court orders to stop violating the human rights of prisoners.
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.