Too Late To Bail Out

Continuing its unprecedented, hard-Left restructuring of human life in California, the state gov’t just enacted the end of cash bail in the entire criminal justice system, ostensibly because the chance to make bail “hurt the poor” but actually because Barbie is tired of paying for Chad’s release.

California Gov. Jerry Brown signs overhaul of bail system, saying now ‘rich and poor alike are treated fairly’

http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-brown-signs-bail-reform-20180828-story.html

By Jazmine Ulloa, 28 August 2018

California Gov. Jerry Brown has championed legislation and ballot measures downgrading drug crimes, expanding chances of early release for prisoners and easing punishment for juvenile offenders.

While hosting on of America’s most generous frivorce-industrial complexes….

On Tuesday, he ushered in one of the most sweeping criminal justice reforms of his administration, signing a bill abolishing the state’s current money bail system, and replacing it with one that grants judges greater power to decide who should remain incarcerated ahead of trial.

The legislation virtually eliminates the payment of money as a condition of release. Under last-minute changes to the proposal, judges will have greater power to decide which people are a danger to the community and should be held without possibility of release in a practice known as “preventive detention..

Brown first urged the Legislature to take on bail reform decades ago, calling it a “tax on poor people” in his 1979 State of the State address. The new law puts California at the forefront of a national push to stop courts from imposing a heavy financial burden on defendants before they have faced a jury.

Mister Brown, that lie would have been more plausible if you weren’t also reducing criminal sentences and otherwise preventing “poor people” from bearing heavy burdens after facing a jury.

Poverty is not a virtue. Wealth is not a crime.

Supporters of the change . who include top state officials, judges, probation officers and civil rights groups . hailed what they called a shift away from a pretrial system based on wealth to one focused on public safety.

….For too long, our system has allowed the wealthy to purchase their freedom regardless of their risk, while the poor who pose no danger languish in jail,. Assemblyman Rob Bonta (D-Alameda), who co-authored the bill, said Friday. .No more. Freedom and liberty should never be pay-to-play..

The bail system is based on risk, not wealth, and the cost of bail is set to either assure the person will show up or cover the cost of hunting him down and reeling him in. If the bail system’s original purpose was to incarcerate the poor without trial, as these clowns imply, then why were bail bondsmen ever allowed to post in the person’s place? The wealthy don’t use bondsmen. The bondmen are there to help the poor make bail and Assemblyman Bonta just law-hammered them out of business forever.

In fact, if the motivation here is only to “protect the poor” then why not grant automatic release to everybody earning under the poverty line? What’s Sacramento’s real motive?

But the final bill didn’t satisfy some early backers, who complained that the final version of the legislation would allow judges to incarcerate more people, and did not include enough oversight over risk-assessment tools found to be biased against communities of color.

.No one should be in jail because they are too poor to afford bail, but neither should they be torn apart from their family because of unjust preventative detention,. said a statement from American Civil Liberties Union directors Abdi Soltani in Northern California, Hector Villagra in Southern California and Norma Ch?vez Peterson, representing San Diego and Imperial counties.

John Raphling, a senior researcher with the nonprofit Human Rights Watch, said the law replaced an unfair system with a potentially worse one, .empowering judges to take away our liberty based on biased algorithms and the judges. own subjective choices, with no standards and no due process..

Raphling gets it. The ACLU hinted at it with their concern for “families”. The goal is (extra-)judicial empowerment based upon State decrees to local governments. Always a bad idea. Not everybody can make bail but at least the chance is there. You now have fewer legal options when arrested because the government is trying to help you.

Let’s dig deeper into Senate Bill 10. All boldfaces are mine for emphasis:

SB 10, Hertzberg. Pretrial release or detention: pretrial services.

This bill would, as of October 1, 2019, repeal existing laws regarding bail and require that any remaining references to bail refer to the procedures specified in the bill.

This bill would require, commencing October 1, 2019, persons arrested and detained to be subject to a pretrial risk assessment conducted by Pretrial Assessment Services, which the bill would define as an entity, division, or program that is assigned the responsibility to assess the risk level of persons charged with the commission of a crime, report the results of the risk determination to the court, and make recommendations for conditions of release of individuals pending adjudication of their criminal case. The bill would require the courts to establish pretrial assessment services, and would authorize the services to be performed by court employees or through a contract with a local public agency, as specified. The bill would require, if no local agency will agree to perform the pretrial assessments, and if the court elects not to perform the assessments, that the court may contract with a new local pretrial assessment services agency established specifically to perform the role.

The bill would require a person arrested or detained for a misdemeanor, except as specified, to be booked and released without being required to submit to a risk assessment by Pretrial Assessment Services. The bill would authorize Pretrial Assessment Services to release a person assessed as being a low risk, as defined, on his or her own recognizance, as specified. The bill would additionally require a superior court to adopt a rule authorizing Pretrial Assessment Services to release persons assessed as being a medium risk, as defined, on his or her own recognizance. The bill would prohibit Pretrial Assessment Services from releasing persons who meet specified conditions. If a person is not released, the bill would authorize the court to conduct a prearraignment review and release the person. The bill would allow the court to detain the person pending arraignment if there is a substantial likelihood that no condition or combination of conditions of pretrial supervision will reasonably assure public safety or the appearance of the person in court.

So, if you do a misdemeanor then you walk free until your trial starts. If this new agency, Pretrial Assessment Services says you’re a low risk then you walk free. If PAS says you’re a medium risk, you walk free unless certain conditions are met (see below) or the prosecutor puts in overtime.

I had wondered what possessed those Taos County, New Mexico judges to release those Muslim terrorist child abusers with nothing but a promise that they’ll return for trial. Seems this “only One Percenters need to go to jail, crime is society’s fault” attitude has been making the rounds in Leftoid culture for some time now.

The bill would require the victim of the crime to be given notice of the arraignment by the prosecution and a chance to be heard on the matter of the defendant’s custody status. By imposing additional duties on local prosecutors, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program. The bill would create a presumption that the court will release the defendant on his or her own recognizance at arraignment with the least restrictive nonmonetary conditions that will reasonably assure public safety and the defendant’s return to court.

Specifically, Penal Code 1320.9(b) states “The district attorney shall make a reasonable effort to contact the victim for comment on the person’s custody status.” Isn’t criminal justice supposed to be impartial? Why does the victim’s opinion of the person he’s pressing charges against need to be heard? Because “he” might be a “she”… and Barbie’s input will ensure Sexy Alpha goes free while Unsexy Beta gets punished.

Article 4. Release by Pretrial Assessment Services

(b) Pretrial Assessment Services, using the information obtained pursuant to this section and Section 1320.9, and having assessed a person as having a low risk to public safety and low risk of failure to appear in court, shall release a low-risk person on his or her own recognizance, prior to arraignment, without review by the court, and with the least restrictive nonmonetary condition or combination of conditions that will reasonably assure public safety and the person’s return to court. This subdivision does not apply to a person booked and released under Section 1320.8 or a person who is ineligible for consideration for release prior to arraignment as set forth in subdivision (e).

If PAS says you’re low risk then the judge is not allowed to stop your release.

(c) Pretrial Assessment Services shall order the release or detention of medium-risk persons in accordance with the review and release standards set forth in the local rule of court authorized under Section 1320.11. …

(d) A person shall not be required to pay for any nonmonetary condition or combination of conditions imposed pursuant to this section.

Free ankle bracelets, courtesy of the taxpayer. We’re getting rid of the bond industry that supported itself in return for a taxpayer-funded system? That’s centralized stupidity.

Note for the following, I hate, hate, HATE when bills make vague references to other sections of legislation. This is the sort of thing an investigative journalist should be running down for my review at $1 per daily paper and I would have been glad to pay it. But no, it’s up to us to keep ourselves informed. No charge.

(e) Notwithstanding subdivisions (a) and (b), Pretrial Assessment Services shall not release:

(1) A person who has been assessed in the current case by Pretrial Assessment Services using a validated risk assessment tool pursuant to Section 1320.9 and is assessed as high risk.

(2) A person arrested for an offense listed in paragraph (2) or (3) of subdivision (d) of Section 290.

The Sex Offender Registration Act.

(3) A person arrested for any of the following misdemeanor offenses:

(A) A violation of Section 273.5.

“Abandonment and Neglect of Children” but it actually means your wife/girlfriend.

“Any person who willfully inflicts corporal injury resulting in a traumatic condition upon [the following] is guilty of a felony: The offender’s spouse or former spouse; The offender’s cohabitant or former cohabitant; The offender’s fianc? or fianc?e, or someone with whom the offender has, or previously had, an engagement or dating relationship; The mother or father of the offender’s child.”

Did you “abuse” your wife? Then you’re incarcerated without the chance to make bail until your trial.

(C) A violation of Section 273.6 if the detained person is alleged to have made threats to kill or harm, engaged in violence against, or gone to the residence or the workplace of, the protected party.

Violating a protective order from the Family Court.

(D) A violation of Section 646.9.

Stalking, making threats via electronics communication and violating temporary restraining orders. Interesting: it’s legal to stalk and make credible threats during a labor strike.

(4) A person arrested for a [legitimately violent crime].

(5) A person arrested for a third offense within the past 10 years of driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs or any combination thereof, or for an offense of driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs with injury to another, or for an offense of driving with a blood alcohol level of .20 or above.

DUI is bad. False rape accusations are still good.

(6) A person arrested for a violation of any type of restraining order within the past five years.

We heard you the first two times.

(7) A person who has three or more prior warrants for failure to appear within the previous 12 months.

Three times? If they fail to appear two times and a cop drags them in, do they get released pending a new trial date? What are the odds the new trial date would be far enough in the future to reset that 12 month window?

On the surface, California is removing the “we only help the rich” bail industry to replace it with yet another unelected, top-down bureaucracy, the Pretrial Assessment Services (Algorithm). But in truth, feminists are removing the bail system to replace it with automatic incarceration, with no chance of release, of unsexy men who have run afoul of either restraining orders or the family courts. Meanwhile, she’s guaranteed the chance to ask for Thug Chad’s early release.

First, women wanted the taxpayer to pay the expenses of raising children. Then, women wanted the taxpayer to pay for feminine hygiene products. Now, women want the taxpayer to lock up Bucky Beta until trial while paying for Chad’s GPS bracelet.

And your state is next. California is reportedly the home of 25% of the bail bond industry so eliminating bail is likely to spread.

Dear God, Sacramento is so out of control that they’re legislating entire industries away.