On February 18, 2016, the American Bail Coalition trumpeted its "historic compromise" consisting of new constitutional language for New Mexico's bail provision. Sounded like a big win for the industry, right? But now I read that the bail industry is suing the New Mexico Supreme Court, saying that the new rules have devastated bail agents in that state.
So what happened?
In my mind it's pretty clear. ABC came into New Mexico to throw a wrench into things -- essentially to fight like it always does -- and ended up ticking a lot of people off. It didn't come in to try to figure out what the judges and others wanted. It came in to fight certain language that it thought would affect the for-profit bail companies' bottom line.
On top of that, I'm convinced that ABC didn't know that New Mexico is what I call a "court rules" state, which means that the bail laws there are implemented by court rule and not by statute. That's important, because you can't lobby a Supreme Court. If I were the industry's lobbyist, and if I decided (albeit wrongly) to fight everyone, I certainly would never have let that language make it through. I think ABC figured it would take care of everything later in the legislature. Problem is, that isn't the way it works in New Mexico.
This complete lack of understanding of bail by the bail industry continues today, In Harris County, the federal judge dropped a footnote saying that ABC didn't even know what the word "bail" meant. In the class action in New Mexico, the state bail association is making the uninformed and bogus claim that somehow the right to bail is a right to having a money bond, a claim that goes against the history, the law, and the pretrial research. I know of constitutional claims that might apply to a new preventive detention provision, but apparently the bail industry itself doesn't know what those are.
The commercial bail industry's strategy to fight everything, combined with a complete lack of understanding of the thing that they are fighting about, will mean the end of the industry in New Mexico.
Not the rules.
