Though the six-year legal battle to end Dallas County’s cash bail system ended recently when the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review an appeals court decision, the ruling could potentially impact Harris County and the nation.
In 2019, Harris County officials agreed to settle a federal lawsuit over how it sets bail for criminal defendants, a case Commissioner Rodney Ellis then described “as big as Brown v. Board of Education.”
The settlement required the prompt no-cash release of most people arrested for misdemeanors. Only individuals arrested for certain charges were barred from this prompt release edict.
In Dallas County, legal proceedings took a different turn, impacted by Texas’ new bail laws, which took effect in 2021.
Filed in federal court in 2018, Daves v. Dallas County’s criminal defendants argued the county’s pre-trial detention system discriminates against defendants who can’t afford bail – the same position taken by criminal justice reform advocates in the Greater Houston area.
After a district court judge issued a temporary order saying the county’s post-arrest procedures “routinely violate” the constitutional rights of inmates who can’t afford to pay for release as they await the resolution of their cases, U.S. District Judge David Godbey agreed that the system in question was a “wealth-based detention” that routinely left poor defendants locked up while wealthier ones went free.
However, during the decision’s appeal, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Supreme Court precedent effectively blocked federal courts from revising state bail bond procedures and added that Texas’ new bail laws essentially nullified the lawsuit.
There has been a national move attacking the cash bail system as a modern version of “debtor’s prison,” essentially criminalizing poverty. If a defendant can’t afford to pay, they are often stuck in jail for weeks, months, and in several local cases, multiple years before ever going to trial.
“Though state law requires judges to consider what a defendant has the ability to pay before setting bail, judges set exorbitant bail amounts regularly,” said Monique Joseph, the holistic services director for the non-profit Restoring Justice.
Unaffordable bail is a major reason why over 550,000 presumed by U.S. law to be innocent are detained in jail pre-trial – again, a reality that could last between weeks to years.
Harris County’s bail reform inspired other states to adjust their bail systems accordingly. Recently, Illinois became the first state to eliminate cash bail fully.
Criminal justice reform advocates, however, see the recent Dallas County ruling as a threat to bail reforms locally and nationally.
