HOUSTON (CN) – Harris County, Texas, officials refused Tuesday to buckle to public pressure to settle a lawsuit in which a federal judge ordered the county to release poor misdemeanor defendants from jail within 24 hours, and instead filed an appeal to the Fifth Circuit.
U.S. District Judge Lee Rosenthal issued a preliminary injunction on April 28 ordering Harris County to release misdemeanor defendants on personal bonds within 24 hours after they sign an affidavit stating they cannot afford cash bail.
Harris County Attorney Vince Ryan took issue with an aspect of Rosenthal’s order at a Harris County Commissioners Court meeting on Tuesday, saying he believes it unconstitutionally takes away the authority of the county’s 16 criminal court judges to set bail.
Starting on May 15, Rosenthal ordered, Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez must release all misdemeanor defendants--who are not subject to immigration, mental health or family violence holds—from jail on a no-fee bond if the defendant has not had a probable cause hearing within 24 hours.
“The judge’s order, as I’ve stated very publicly, shifts judicial authority to a non-judicial officer to release people from jail,” Ryan told the commissioners court, the county’s five-member executive board, before a standing-room only crowd.
“It shifts some of these judicial decisions of release in a way I personally think is a very awkward manner, to the sheriff’s office. At the same time from a practical standpoint, a lot needs to be done even if we were able to implement that. So we think on the law it needs to be appealed and on practical matters it needs to be appealed,” he added.
Though as administrator of the jail Gonzalez is a defendant in the lawsuit, he has stated in an affidavit he agrees with the plaintiffs that Harris County’s bail system unconstitutionally jails people only because they can’t afford bail.
Harris County, with 4.4 million people, is the most populous county in Texas and also runs the state’s biggest jail in downtown Houston, its seat. There’s an average of 9,000 inmates in the jail each day, 75 percent of whom are waiting for their case to be adjudicated, according to court records.
Gonzalez told the county commissioners that he could use more time to prepare his office for the changes mandated by Rosenthal’s order.
“We would have to come up with a temporary process on the 15th. It would not be the most efficient, but we could definitely roll something out. … Ideally in a perfect world if we had some additional weeks to implement it would be a lot smoother,” Gonzalez said, flanked by six sheriff’s deputies who lined the walls of the meeting room, their black service uniforms standing out against its wood-paneled walls.
The commissioners voted 4-1 to approve Ryan’s request for funds to appeal Rosenthal’s order to the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans.
Gonzalez told reporters after the meeting that he opposes an appeal. He said he would rather work out a settlement and ask Rosenthal to extend the deadline to implement her order.
Seemingly before Tuesday’s meeting adjourned, Harris County had filed an appeal with the Fifth Circuit and an emergency motion asking Rosenthal to stay her order pending the appeal.