James SlateBlockedUnblockFollowFollowingDec 3

Our country is having a robust debate about “criminal justice reform.” While there are many aspects of our criminal justice system that should be examined — notably, the increasing number of statutes both federal and state in which individuals can be convicted of violations without actually “intending” or “knowingly” breaking the law — there are other issues where proposals for reform would make our system worse than it is presently.

One of the areas where reformers would make the criminal justice system worse is so-called “bail reform.” Opponents are targeting the use of bail, which is where defendants post a bond and promise they will appear for trial.In California, Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill fully abolishing cash bail in the Golden State.This is the logical conclusion of the BS “right on crime” movement of the Kochs that has been quietly and surreptitiously dismantling our criminal justice system for the past decade.

These so-called reformers seek to eliminate this option altogether claiming that it would be better to either detain individuals prior to trial or else release them with no financial bond of any kind prior to trial. They argue that the use of bail makes it harder for poorer defendants to stay out of jail prior to trial. The problem with that is: there are a number of companies and services that will assist you in getting a bond. Only in extreme cases are those options not available.

On the other hand, if bail is no longer an option, prosecutors and judges will increasingly exercise the option of seeking detention prior to trial. The problem with this option is that the costs of greater detention will have to be borne by taxpayers and the broader society.

Some observers think that’s the plan all along. Overwhelm the criminal justice system and simply stop jailing people. Crimes like burglary, robbery, and battery would be relegated to being minor offenses like traffic violations since holding almost all defendants would be prohibitively expensive.

There’s a big problem with this approach. Assault, robbery and burglary aren’t minor crimes and they are treated as serious crimes as a way to prevent their occurrence. If punishments and accountability recede, just as night follows day, a surge in these crimes of violence would occur.

This is obvious to most Americans. It’s for that reason that organizations with this radical vision try to downplay their goal. Take the Houston-based Laura and John Arnold Foundation. They’ve been traveling across the country promoting what they call their Public Safety Assessment tool — a means of scientifically sorting defendants into categories for either pre-trial detention or release with no bond.

Their “tool” overwhelmingly recommends release with no bond. And in the places where it’s been tried the results have been very disturbing. Take New Jersey — after the program was set up and financial bail was eliminated Jersey City police officers complained about a rash of rearrests of people with a history of gun violence who’d been released rather than detained.

A murder of a famous San Francisco photographer made international news last year when it was discovered that his assailant had been released thanks to the Arnolds’ pre-trial detention tool.This summer, a 23-year-old in South Carolina charged with felony handgun possession was given a no-bond release and ended up stealing a police car from the jail parking lot.And earlier this year a New Mexico a 22-year-old with a lengthy prior record who’d been arrested for auto theft was released with no bond and, in less than a week, violently raped a 59-year-old.

Under our long-standing English common law tradition, bail was the best way to balance the freedom of those presumed innocent unless proven guilty and the concern of public safety. While suspects have the opportunity to remain out of jail pending trial, they also have a strong incentive to show up or risk loss of property. Moreover, the commercial bondsmen have an extra incentive to help ensure a flight risk is apprehended and brought to trial. Donald Verrilli, Obama’s solicitor general, said it well in 1982: “Bail acts as a reconciling mechanism to accommodate both the defendant’s interest in pretrial liberty and society’s interest in assuring the defendant’s presence at trial.”

Now, as part of the growing criminal leniency movement, several states have pursued policies abolishing bail in some cases. Some state and federal courts, as always, have already said our 300-year tradition is unconstitutional in certain forms.California’s S.B. 10, as signed into law, will abolish monetary bail in all cases, making California the first state in the nation to do so. This means that criminals will either be detained automatically before trial or released unconditionally. Given that these liberal judges will never be caught dead detaining people without bail, which in many cases would be ruled unconstitutional anyway, it means they will be releasing most criminals.

As is the case with sentencing reductions and early release efforts, the bill vaguely categorizes criminals by low, medium, and high risk to public safety. But we already know that the same people pushing this effort have a very different definition of “nonviolent” than most of us do. Under the change in law, a judge would hold a pretrial risk assessment to determine whether the individual is higher risk, guided by protocols yet to be established by the judicial oligarchy. In other words, all but the worst offenders will be released without the deterrent of bond.

Some have said “ They will not let high risk individuals out just because they can afford it, and they will release those who will appear and are no risk.”One has to look at examples like New Jersey and New Mexico who have implemented this bail reform, here is 1 deemed low risk by algorithm in New Mexico. The tools (algorithms) are defective. The Arnold foundation is buying studies to legitimize them. It’s junk science with lots of issues. Here is another New Mexico example. The state Supreme Court judges altered bail reform measures so this was the result in Taos Compound terrorist case. Gov Susan Martinez has tried to warn other states, obviously CA did not listen

Ironically, the ACLU and NAACP oppose this bill because they fear that the lack of bail will lead to more pretrial detentions without bail. This is unlikely, given the politics of the state judges, prosecutors, and politicians in the state. The Judicial Council, which is essentially the policy-making organ of California’s courts and is headed by the chief justice of the state supreme court, will have all the power to make the rules on who is released and who must be detained.

Aside from the fact that abolishing bail violates our foundational principles of criminal justice and will generally harm public safety, it is particularly dangerous in California, more than in any other state. California is, by far, the state with the most illegal aliens — a whopping 2.6 million, according to the Federation for American Immigration Reform. The state has a major problem with criminal aliens. Illegal aliens are the consummate flight risk, yet under this bill, many criminal aliens will be released immediately without bond. This is particularly problematic given that California is a sanctuary and the entire system — from the politicians and judges to the local law enforcement — are making a concerted effort to shield illegal aliens from ICE. Illegal aliens are essentially a protected class in California.

Until now, at least the ones that stood trial and were ultimately convicted and sentenced to prison time would eventually be apprehended by ICE for deportation. Not any more. As Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies for the Center for Immigration Studies, told me, “Illegal aliens know now that ICE may be waiting for them in court, thanks to the state’s sanctuary policies, since courtrooms are one of the few secure locations where ICE can still arrest deportable criminals in California.” Vaughan notes that if the lawmakers were true to their word, they would understand that all illegals should be defined as a flight risk, but California is not known for applying the law responsibly. “This law will give criminal aliens in the opportunity to avoid justice and simply add to the lawlessness that is eroding the quality of life in California for all — citizen and immigrant alike.”

Even in Florida, which is not nearly as pro-illegal alien as California, an illegal alien who was charged with multiple crimes was released before trial on one of these non-bail programs and went on to kill a cop in July. Clearly, his immigration status was not a red flag to those overseeing the program. Also in July, an illegal who re-entered the country nine times was released by Boston officials without bail, despite protests from DHS.

Remember, nothing in politics should be viewed in a vacuum. This is part of the agenda to dismantle law and order at every stage — police tactics, prosecuting, evidence standards, bail, sentencing, early release, etc. For each agenda item, they claim they are just dealing with “nonviolent criminals,” but history has shown the opposite. Since California passed Prop 47 and other numerous sentencing downgrades and early releases, violent crime has risen 13 percent, and there was a significant uptick in burglary, larceny, and auto theft in 2015 and 2016.

As always, what begins in California doesn’t stay in California. It goes national. Liberal Republicans coached by the Kochs are pushing “bail reform” (yes, everything is “reform”) in Texas and will undoubtedly push it in the federal system. Prop 47 is the blueprint for the current jailbreak bills in Congress. California already passed S.B. 394, which officially goes from “nonviolent” drug offenses to homicide by re-opening sentencing for juvenile murderers after 25 years. This is the basis for many bills now in Congress and is part of Title II of the bipartisan “sentencing” bill every “conservative” group in Washington supports.

This is a trend that has spread like wildfire throughout the states over the past decade. But unlike any other consequential issue, it has been done relatively quietly and much of the public is unaware of it. The public is still strongly against weak-on-crime laws. It’s time real conservatives finally wake up and realize where this “criminal justice reform” train is coming from and how low into the abyss of anarchy and crime it will descend.

Notably, bail is a constitutional right. Under the Eighth Amendment, defendants are guaranteed that they will be considered for bail. And bail allows society to balance the risk to the community with the presumption of innocence for the individual.

Moreover, the record of success with finance-backed bail is quite remarkable. The overwhelming majority of peer-reviewed studies show that bail works to see to it that defendants show up for trial and not re-offend prior to doing so. Those same studies show that release without a financial bond has an appalling success rate.

Our criminal justice system could definitely use some reform. Making things worse for victims and the public is regress, not progress.

Sources:

OPINION: The Right To Bail Is Critical To Fair Criminal Justice
Horace Cooper | Former Constitutional Law Professor, George Mason Law School Our country is having a robust debate…dailycaller.comJerry Brown just abolished bail in California
Yesterday, California Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill fully abolishing bail in the Golden State. This is the logical…www.conservativereview.com