Hooray!
Posted on 08/30/2018 9:49:42 AM PDT by servo1969
Governor Jerry Brown has just signed a sweeping reform bill that makes California the first state in the nation to abolish bail for suspects awaiting trial.
An overhaul of the state's bail system has been in the works for years, and became an inevitability earlier this year when a California appellate court declared the state's cash bail system unconstitutional. The new law goes into effect in October 2019.
"Today, California reforms its bail system so that rich and poor alike are treated fairly," Brown said in a statement, moments after signing the California Money Bail Reform Act.The governor has waited nearly four decades to revamp the state's cash bail system. In his 1979 State of the State Address, Brown argued the existing process was biased, favoring the wealthy who can afford to pay for their freedom, and penalizing the poor, who often are forced to remain in custody.
Under the previous bail system, a person could pay a fixed amount of bail money, the amount of which was set by a judge who calculated in factors such as the seriousness of the crime and previous criminal history. After the appropriate bail was paid, the suspect was released from custody awaiting trial. With the new law, judges can make the determination with what the bill refers to as "pretrial assessment services" which will do a "risk assessment."
These new pretrial assessment services will release people arrested or detained for nonviolent misdemeanors within 12 hours of booking. Felonies will be evaluated by these new guidelines into "low," "medium" or "high risk" categories.
With some exceptions to be determined locally and sometimes even case by case, "low risk" individuals will be released, "medium risk" individuals could be released depending on the decision of the local assessment agency and "high risk" individuals will remain in custody as determined by a judge. Detained individuals will still have a chance for a hearing to argue for their release.
Interestingly, several organizations including Human Rights Watch, the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, and the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department are opposing the changes.
Human Rights Watch Advocacy Director Jasmine Tyler, an organization which has advocated for years for changes to the bail system, wrote an Aug. 23 letter to Governor Jerry Brown opposing the new law.
"The new SB 10 is simply not bail reform; it replaces one harmful system with another," Tyler wrote. "In fact, it will make many of the problems we revealed in our report even worse."
The letter criticizes the way the profile based risk assessments may be developed and challenges the objectivity of the assessors. Tyler says the new law will "massively" increase preventative detention instead of lowering pretrial incarceration rates.
"The bill then sets up a system that allows judges nearly unlimited discretion to order people accused of crimes, but not convicted and presumptively innocent, to be held in jail with no recourse until their case is resolved," Tyler wrote.
How is it likely to work out? About as well as other laws coming from Sacramento nowadays, if the example of a similar bail system used in Washington D.C. is any guide.
But approximately 11 percent of defendants in Washington, D.C., are rearrested for separate violations before trial. Approximately two percent are rearrested for violent crimes, according to D.C. Department of Corrections data.
Examples of that two percent of cases include a man arrested for shooting someone to death in the summer of 2016 between his arrest for another crime and the subsequent trial. Quincy Green avoided being tracked by a court-ordered monitoring device by having it attached to his prosthetic leg and removing the leg.
The ink on this law had barely dried when the bail industry joined other opposing parties to launch another state referendum campaign.
A coalition of bail industry associations, crime victims groups and other opponents have launched a voter referendum drive in an attempt to block the implementation of the new law. They have roughly three months to collect and submit an estimated 366,000 signatures to qualify the measure.
If they are successful, the law would be put on hold and weighed on the November 2020 ballot.
I would like to remind my fellow Californians that voting in different politicians would be much easier than launching expensive, time-consuming referendums! As it is, there will likely be plenty of propositions on future ballots attempting to undo Brown's legacy.
The California flag has a bear and a red star. Adopted 170 years ago, and prophetic
The Russians were in California at that time.
I am the optimist looking at this as a glass half full. There are a lot of burglaries in the West LA Brentwood area. Rich liberals and celebrities are coming home to ransacked houses. This will make it worse for them.
Good point. But those were czarist Russians.
It is very common for a police officer in California to stop someone for a traffic infraction and then end up arresting the person because the have a “failure to appear” warrant. My guess is the number of people who fail to appear will skyrocket under the new system.
They might be able to block before it is active next year. A petition for a referendum could postpone it till 2020 election. But I look of it as a gift! Stuff like this just get might the attention of some voters just how crazy Sacramento has become.
I guess now they will use pinky-swear promises.
“The Russians were in California at that time.”
Proof that California’s Democrats are colluding with Russia!
Didn’t Governor Brown just Commute the Life without Parole Sentences for some Murderers? This is just more of the same.
they don’t call him MoonBeam for nothing...........
Criminals take note, move west young criminal move west.
California is bankrupt due to inflated salaries and benefits for state and local workers.
This ‘no bail’ scheme is just another get out of jail free card for criminals who were previously locked up because they could not post bail. Moonbeam and his Leftist Loonies are only interested in reducing their prison costs so they can continue handing out fat paychecks to state and local workers.
Moonbeam and his Leftist Loonies could care less if these guys do not show up for trial or commit another crime while on the loose.
I am sure glad I left California 35 years ago.
I like the way you think.
Seems like there is a conflict of interest..
He doesn’t give a rat’s arse bout the safety of this state’s citizens and legal residents and most sane folks do.. or the rule of law.
can’t wait for his next comeback,, maybe he can rescue white farmers in Zud Afrika from their new overlords.
it would keep him busy and out of our hair for a long time.
Just another action to help the
illegals and homeless of California,
while the citizens of the state suffer
the consequences.
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