Samuel 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.
Read moreAdopting a number of criminal-justice reforms with the 2020 budget, New York paved the way this weekend for the state to nix cash bail in the vast majority of cases.
Read moreIn an Oakland courtroom Thursday, a federal judge announced her plan to toss out the age-old practice of money bail for the City and County of San Francisco, saying it unfairly keeps impoverished arrestees behind bars.
Read moreA federal judge declined Wednesday to certify a class of pretrial detainees challenging the Cook County sheriff’s policy delaying the release of jail detainees, pending his personal review, even though they have already posted bail.
Read moreThe 10th Circuit upheld New Mexico’s bail reform efforts Monday, finding the rules that allow the state to either bar bail before arraignment or let more people go with no bail at all are constitutional.
Read moreA group of bail bond companies claim Harris County criminal court judges and the Harris County sheriff unconstitutionally changed bond requirements for individuals arrested on misdemeanor charges, threatening their business.
Read moreFacing extinction after lawmakers set wheels in motion to outlaw the practice in 2018, the bail industry has qualified a referendum that will ask voters whether to scrap or restore California’s money bail system.
Read moreA federal judge will likely rule San Francisco’s bail schedule unconstitutional, saying at a hearing Tuesday she could find no justification for the amount of money it demands arrestees pay to avoid sitting in jail.
Read moreA class action challenging Galveston County’s bail system as rigged to keep poor arrestees in jail has the same legitimate due process claims as litigation that transformed pretrial detention in Houston, a federal magistrate ruled Monday.
Read moreCalifornia ushered in a new era for criminal justice in August when Governor Jerry Brown signed into law a bill that eliminates money bail as a way of keeping pretrial defendants being bars. On Friday, the Judicial Council met to hash out how the courts will actually put it into practice.
Read moreDallas County’s automatic money bail system violates poor defendants’ civil rights by not considering their ability to pay, a federal judge ruled late Thursday.
Read moreDespite the recent passage of a law banning the money bail system in California, a federal judge will still have to decide whether bail is constitutional in a legal challenge of the practice.
Read moreFlanked by lawmakers and state’s chief justice, Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill Tuesday doing away with California’s money bail system – enacting criminal justice reforms that have been lauded in the Legislature but sharply criticized by civil rights advocates for not going far enough.
Read moreWeathering another round of criticism from opponents, a bill to fundamentally change California’s pretrial money bail and detention system cleared its second-to-last hurdle in the state Senate on Tuesday.
Read moreAmid heated debate, the California State Assembly voted Monday to pass a bill that would reform the state’s money bail system, though criminal justice reform organizations criticized risk assessment tools central to the legislation.
Read moreLawmakers advanced a controversial bill Thursday that aims to reform California’s money bail system though recent amendments have alarmed advocates who say the current bill could authorize prosecutors and judges to promote indefinite pretrial detention.
Read moreMisdemeanor court judges in Houston urged a Fifth Circuit panel Tuesday to scrap a federal judge’s injunction they say is to blame for a spike in people failing to show up for court.
Read moreAssembly-line, lock-them-up criminal justice is a thing of the past in Texas’ biggest county, thanks to a federal judge who has mandated the prompt release, starting July 30, of some poor defendants charged with petty crimes with no payment of bail.
Read moreCriminal justice reform in Texas’ biggest county took another tortured step forward Thursday, as combatants in litigation over the county’s bail policies laid out their differences before a federal judge who is narrowing her injunction in the case.
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