I just read the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals' (where I used to work, above) opinion in Collins v. Daniels, in which the bail industry, some NM legislators, and one former arrestee, whom they claimed could have been released more quickly on a money bond, sued a bunch of judges in New Mexico. The overall thrust of the suit was based on a belief that the New Mexico bail rules and use of the Arnold pretrial assessment instrument violated the constitution. In short, the appeals court affirmed the district court's ruling against the bail industry mostly on jurisdictional grounds (lack of standing, mootness, etc.,) and immunity, but the case reminds me of a couple of big points.
The first point is that the case highlights the reason why this suit happened in the first place. Remember that bail reform in New Mexico started with a single opinion from the state supreme court writing about how judges were routinely violating the current law as written through the use of money bonds. This caused a stir, and led to both a constitutional change and new court rules. At the time, ABC slipped in and tried to de-rail the constitutional amendment, likely thinking that it could make up any lost ground by lobbying the legislature later on statutory changes.
The only problem? Well, as I've written before, ABC didn't realize that NM was a "court rules" state, which meant all of the bail rules could be changed without the legislature. When it finally figured that out, ABC made a few feeble attempts to raise a stink -- like some sort of legislative resolution and having the Governor try to derail bail reform in Utah -- but in NM, the damage was already done. This suit, then, was just the last ditch effort by the bail industry in NM to try to fix what ABC had broken.
The second point is that the case highlights what I have seen as a trend in the bail industry to take anything -- and I mean anything, including a potentially legitimate case -- and try to make it political for use in the rest of the state or even the country. In this particular case, the bail industry hired lawyers who, following the strategy of ABC and others, systematically screwed up the suit by adding various plaintiffs who lacked standing, all while not adequately researching actual precedent. In the end, the district court awarded what it called "Rule 11 Sanctions." Now, if you're an attorney in the federal courts, you don't want those sort of sanctions because they mean that your filing was baseless and/or frivolous. And take it from me, a guy who used to have to decide these things, the federal courts don't sanction people very often.
So, if ABC even tells you about this case (which I doubt), see if they mention what the court said at the end of the opinion: "This case is a prime example of the waste and distraction that result when attorneys disregard Rule 11's certifications."
For all you bail agents in other states, do remember this particular case when ABC arrives to help.
