This article was written by the distinguished former judge John H. Wilson
There is no doubt that the majority of people held on bail while their criminal charges are pending are unable to pay the money necessary to gain their freedom. As of 2016, 1.6 million people were incarcerated in American federal and state prisons. Of these, 646,000 were being held in approximately 3,000 local jails. 70% of these were being held in pretrial detention, and of these, their 2015 median reported annual income was approximately $15,109 prior to incarceration.
Kalief Browder was 17 years old when he was arrested for felony assault in New York City. His bail was set at $3,000, an amount his family could not pay. After 3 years of incarceration awaiting trial, the case brought against him fell apart, and he was released. Several years later, at the age of 22, he committed suicide. His family blamed his death on the years of abuse and solitary confinement he suffered during his incarceration.
Based upon this tragic case, the City of New York instituted a program to allow nonviolent, low-level offenders to be released without posting bond. However, bail reform proponents were not satisfied with this process. To address the perceived injustice of pretrial detention of poor people, the Bail Project was born.
Begun in 2007 as the Bronx Freedom Fund, this service has grown into a nationwide organization that posts cash bonds on behalf of indigent persons. Their mission? “To combat mass incarceration and racial disparities at the front end of the system.”
How exactly has this altruistic plan worked out so far? That depends upon who you ask.
In general, the effort of judges in New York to release criminal defendants without the posting of cash bail had led to a series of repeat offenders being given the opportunity to offend again. For instance, Robert Scott was arrested earlier this month in Manhattan for assault on a woman who was a stranger to him. Two days after his release, Scott was again arrested for the attempted rape of a woman on the Upper West Side.
The Bronx Freedom Fund was involved in a similar case in 2018. Lynneke Burke was released on a $1,000 bond paid by the Freedom Fund after assaulting a stranger. The following week, Burke was arrested for the rape of a high school teacher.
Recently, the Bail Project posted the $5,000 bond of a St Louis man in a domestic violence case. The same night he was released, Samuel Lee Scott is alleged to have gone to the home of his wife and killed her. “A probable cause statement from the St. Louis Circuit Attorney’s Office said (Scott) threatened that he ‘might as well finish what (he) started since (she) was going to contact the police.’”
These horror stories point to the obvious repercussions of posting bond for people based on a perception that these offenders are minorities, caught up on an unfair system, that punishes them for their racial background and poverty. In fairness, it should be pointed out that since instituting bail reform, “New York City’s jail population has dropped from nearly 22,000 in 1991 to about 7,800 this year, making it the least incarcerated major city in the United States.” Further, “New York’s lower reliance on bail hasn’t led to defendants not showing up in court. The city’s return-to-court rate is 86 percent versus about 75 percent nationally.”
But these statistics only tell part of the story.
As the Night Court judge for Brooklyn from 2005 to 2010, I made release and bail determinations for approximately 60 to 100 arrestees per night. Depending upon who you ask, I was either (a) fair (b) biased (c) the best judge (d) the worst judge – ever ( e) usually Mostly ED medication starts working in 30 minutes and lasts for about 48 hours, compared to viagra pills canada which lasts up to about 4-5 hours. It is surely a silent epidemic which needs to buy viagra prescription be controlled. The attractive circular broken will be a common health problem affecting men of all ages, however is additional common with increasing cialis on line age. Leave a viagra buy australia note in your partner’s pocket and tell her not to be late tonight as there would be someone eagerly waiting for her. right (f) never right. Regardless, I always used several standards when I assessed whether or not someone should be released without bond.
First and foremost, I looked at their record. I looked for prior crimes of the same nature, and I looked for their history of returning to court. If I saw someone who had a recent history of arrests for the same offense, particularly in a short period of time (such as turnstile jumping, robbery or domestic violence) they were far more likely to have a bond. If someone had a bench warrant outstanding, they were usually going to be held.
In particular, what I was looking for, and what the Bail Project and other bond reformers ignore, is recidivism. Under the criterion used by those who argue that bond is used to punish the poor, it does not matter that the same person has been repeatedly arrested for the same offense. It only matters that they return to court.
Thus, I was excoriated by the defense every time I set bond on a defendant who returned to court with a new arrest, even after I had warned that same defendant that if he or she was rearrested, I would set bond.
In those cases, I specifically stated, for the record, that by being rearrested, the defendant had violated the bond conditions I had imposed upon him or her at the time that I set a new bond leading to his or her incarceration. If you were to ask why I did not cite public safety as my basis, there is a simple reason – New York does not recognize public safety as a basis for setting bond on a criminal defendant, no matter the crime or strength of the evidence.
New York Criminal Procedure Law Section 510.30(2) lists the factors and criterion a court may use in a discretionary order of release or the setting of bail. These include the person’s character, reputation, habits and mental condition; his employment or financial resources; his family ties and length of residence in the community; his criminal record; and his previous record of responding to court appearances. But no where does the statute authorize a New York Court to hold a defendant in the interests of public safety.
Maybe a large number of the defendants given bonds in criminal matters can be trusted to return to court. But can they be trusted to lead law-abiding lives, and not come back with a new and sometimes more serious arrest? Until the issues of recidivism and public safety are addressed, groups like the Bail Project will continue to free dangerous individuals, allowing them to prey on the public, while justifying their actions with the limited standards they use to achieve a false sense of “social justice.”
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