Trial courts across California may be required to consider a person’s ability to pay when setting bail after the state’s high court late Wednesday bolstered the landmark opinion in a case challenging the constitutionality of the state’s cash bail and pretrial detention system.
Read moreThe Nevada Supreme Court ruled Thursday that setting bail in an amount that a defendant is unable to pay infringes on a person’s liberty interest since it results in continued detention.
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A federal judge did not adequately weigh a new Missouri Supreme Court rule for cash bail bonds before issuing an injunction prohibiting the practice in St. Louis city courts, the Eighth Circuit ruled.
Read moreThe Nashville Community Bail Fund sued the Clerk of the Davidson County (Tenn.) Criminal Court in federal court, claiming he violated the Eighth Amendment by exploiting cash bail as a means of exacting payment for fines and fees.
Read moreHarris County District Attorney Kim Ogg, the Houston-area’s chief prosecutor, has burnished her progressive bona fides with programs that have dropped marijuana arrests by 80%. But her Democratic primary election opponent says her resistance to bail reform is out of sync with a county moving away from mass incarceration.
Read moreA private-ankle monitoring company did not extort daily fees from inmates by threatening them with re-arrest for nonpayment, a federal judge ruled Friday.
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A lawyer for four people who claim they were held in a debtors’ jail in St. Louis argued before an Eighth Circuit panel Thursday that a recent change in bail procedures does not make their case moot.
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A Tennessee county argued Tuesday before the Sixth Circuit to overturn an injunction requiring it to provide bail hearings for indigent defendants who would otherwise be unable to secure their release from jail after being arrested.
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A federal judge on Thursday approved a settlement mandating most misdemeanor arrestees in Houston be released promptly from jail without paying bail, brushing off concerns of prosecutors and police that it will endanger public safety.
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San Francisco’s new district attorney is the latest in a string of big-city chief prosecutors to win the office by promising sweeping reforms and a shift away from the traditional law and order punitive approach to criminal justice issues.
Read moreA proposed settlement to end cash bail for most misdemeanor arrestees in Houston emerged seemingly unscathed from a fairness hearing Monday, despite concerns from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton that it will give a free pass to undocumented immigrants.
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Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris took aim Monday at the criminal justice system with her latest campaign plank, proposing to eliminate cash bail, private prisons and the death penalty.
Read moreThe Houston area’s top prosecutor sent her chief of staff to meet with local NAACP officials Thursday to assure them she supports bail reforms to keep poor misdemeanor arrestees out of jail, but she has concerns with a proposed settlement she says will endanger domestic violence victims.
Read moreThe city of San Francisco ended its stalemate Friday with pretrial detainees fighting the money bail system in the city.
Read moreIt’s been five months since U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers declared San Francisco’s bail schedule unconstitutional. But with talks on a replacement plan between the sheriff and attorneys representing pretrial detainees grinding to a halt, she’s fed up and willing to let political pressure force the local court and law enforcement to act.
Read moreThe Judicial Council of California approved $68 million Friday to fund pilot projects in 16 trial courts aimed at releasing more arrestees from jail while they await trial.
Read moreFacing an existential threat to their industry, bail agents are fighting back with a double-edged attack on a law that abolishes bail in California.
Read moreThe Second Circuit ruled that a defendant’s bail application was property denied, after he offered to pay for private armed security guards to supervise his home confinement, because the Bail Reform Act does not permit a system in which “defendants of lesser means are detained pending trial while wealthy defendants are released to self-funded private jail.”
Read moreSamuel Scott spent five days in the St. Louis city jail on a misdemeanor domestic violence charge claiming he hit his wife, Marcia Johnson. Days after a nonprofit posted his bail, she was dead.
Read moreThe Michigan chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union filed a federal class action Sunday against six judges and the sheriff in Detroit, claiming the state’s largest district court unconstitutionally ignores a defendant’s ability to pay bail before they are detained.
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