Bail Insurance Companies Insult Connecticut Sentencing Commission

This is becoming a trend. On December 11, bail insurance company lobbyists wrote to the Connecticut Sentencing Commission and said, "As always, we look forward to assisting the Commission in any way we can as you continue your work in the service to the state."

Then, on December 14, the same bail insurance company lobbyists called the Connecticut Sentencing Commission a "kangaroo court" that "suffers from amnesia" and "rubber stamps" policies of their "lame duck" Governor.

Wow. Either something happened in those three days, or it's just more of the schizophrenic babbling of an insurance industry that doesn't quite know what to do. Well, in any event, you all should know that people on the Commission have seen the insults and don't appreciate them.

Hey, insurance dudes, didn't you watch Kingsman?

I mean, it's just bad manners.

Changing Constitutional Bail Provisions: Pretrial Release and Preventive Detention

I'm just adding this post to, once again, remind everyone that there are certain issues a state must examine before deciding to change a constitutional right to bail provision, just as there are issues that a state must address when changing them. Whatever a state does to a constitutional right to bail provision involves drawing a line between release and detention, and that requires legal justification.

My latest paper provides a model for states that are asking: (1) whether to change their right to bail provision; and (2) if so, to what? More importantly, it shows how to legally justify the change.

Here it is, called "Model Bail Laws." It assumes that the reader will read Fundamentals of Bail and Money as a Criminal Justice Stakeholder first, and those are cited early on in the Model Bail Laws paper.

Once again, if a state changes its right to bail provision, it will need to legally justify it. The only way to do that is to work through the issues presented in the model in the paper. I don't require states to necessarily adopt my model, but courts will require that they justify theirs much like I justified mine. If they don't, the new provisions run a real risk of being struck through any number of legal theories.

Not to get too complicated, but the same issues that go into changing a bail provision will illuminate the fact that many existing detention provisions are currently unlawful, simply because those provisions were likely justified through assumptions that are false today.

The model in my paper is kind of long and a bit complex, but if anyone calls I'll help to explain it.

Bail Industry Loses Hard (Again) In New Mexico

Here's a link to the press release reporting that the judge dismissed the federal lawsuit in New Mexico brought by the bail industry. It's done. Oh, wait, first comes the appeal, and then that dismissal, and then it'll be done. I forgot that they like to spend tons of money appealing everything.

I'm not going to rub anything in because this dismissal was a given. I already wrote about the industry losing a motion for preliminary injunction, and about a similar suit in New Jersey getting hammered and hanging on by a thread.

Nevertheless, I will mention, once again, that this shows that the strategy created and advanced by ABC, PBUS, and the insurance companies is seriously flawed.

ACLU Is All In On Ending Money Bail

Here is a link to the ACLU's announcement of a national campaign to end money bail.

The big gorilla is awake and eating.

What Is It With the Bail Industry and Goofy Facebook Posts?

So this time it's PBUS that posts a link to a symposium held at BYU Law School on misdemeanor justice. Above the link, PBUS quotes a summary of Malcom Feeley's keynote, which says, "Professor Malcom Feeley critiqued prior reforms: Bail reform, pre-trial diversion, and electronic monitoring were innovations that ultimately failed to change incarceration rates and inflamed issues of race and poverty in the justice system."

And, as always, a bunch of folks "liked" and "shared" the post without really thinking about it or reading the summary.

You have to wonder -- did PBUS really think deeply about what Feeley was saying, or did some dude who places the Facebook posts just see the words "bail reform" and "failed" and think, "Man, this is great!"

If you actually read it, you'll see that Feeley was criticizing prior bail reform efforts, which did fail. This is exactly what I teach as I go across the country presenting on bail. It's what PJI teaches. It's what Equal Justice Under Law and Civil Rights Corps teaches. It's what everyone on my side of this thing teaches. Both generations of bail reform in America failed to do what they intended -- for several reasons that I doubt PBUS has even thought of.

Feeley gives a fairly radical solution to the problems of race and poverty in the criminal justice system, which involves recognizing the inherent fragmentation of American Courts and applying "theories of management and public administration for guidance." Get it? I didn't think so. Feeley is a brilliant criminal justice guru, who is likely to be grossly misunderstood by people who think other people should pay to get out of jail.

The bigger issue is that BYU law held a symposium, in which a guy giving a keynote said prior bail reform efforts had failed, and in which two others said that money bail has caused high rates of pretrial detention.

Which is exactly what I've been saying for 10 years.

So, basically, if you like or share PBUS's Facebook post, you're agreeing with me.