In current reelection campaign ads, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott tries to bolster his artificial “law-and-order” bona fides with assertions that he stopped dangerous criminal predators from being released from jail through a “cashless” bail system. The campaign ad is vintage…
Category: bail reform
2022
Category: bail reform | Criminal Justice Reform | Criminal Law
The COVID 19 pandemic (“pandemic”) taught the American criminal justice system one thing: the nation’s cash bail system is a for-profit practice that has nothing to do with public safety. …
2021
Category: Bail / Bail Laws | bail reform
Starting December 2. 2021, posting bail in Texas is going to be a lot more complicated.
This year, Governor Greg Abbott signed a bill into law that is designed to keep those who have been arrested with a…
2021
Category: bail reform | Criminal Justice Reform
As we have pointed out, the wealth-based cash bail system has an iron-fisted grip in Texas that favors those who can afford to post bail over those who cannot.
However, Texas has a safety valve for people jailed for over…
2021
Category: bail reform | Criminal Justice Reform
Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott does not like the constitutional right to bail.
Under Article 1, Section 11 of the Texas Constitution’s Bill of Rights, “all prisoners shall be bailable by sufficient sureties, unless for capital offenses, when the proof is…
2021
Category: bail reform | Criminal Justice Reform
There has always been a stark contrast between the quality of justice dispensed by the American criminal justice between wealth and poverty. The bottom line is this: justice tends to favor wealth. Some will argue that it is a natural…
2021
Category: bail reform | Criminal Justice Reform
The COVID virus has devastated American jails and prisons. By the end of 2020, one in every five inmates in the country had tested positive for the deadly virus—a rate four times higher than the general population. That translated into…
2021
Category: bail reform | Criminal Justice Reform
Since 2016, there have been five lawsuits filed in federal courts in Texas alleging equal protection and procedural due process violations concerning bail practices in Houston, Dallas, and Galveston.
As we reported in an August 2019 post, the Fifth Circuit…
2020
Category: bail reform | Criminal Justice Reform
Gradually, inevitably, the COVID 19 virus is working its way through the Texas jail and prison systems. There are roughly 7,500 to 10,000 inmates in the Harris County Jail.
Throughout Texas’ county jails, nearly 70 percent of people detained in…
2020
Category: bail reform | Compassionate Release COVID
Harris County Sheriff Joe Gonzales believes that jails are “perfect incubators” for the COVID-19 virus. One infected inmate, either bringing the virus into the jail upon arrest or being infected while in custody, has the ugly potential of killing hundreds…