CA to try again at bail reform

The Bay Area Reporter - 7 September 2017

by Seth Hemmelgarn

After failing to pass legislation this year to
reform California's bail system – which many say
keeps people in jail just because they can't
afford to buy their release – legislators, the
governor, and the state's top judge have
announced that they'll work together to craft successful legislation.

"The truth is today, under the cash bail system,
if you can write a check, public safety doesn't
matter," state Senator Bob Hertzberg (D-Van
Nuys), said in statement. "We need a system that
prioritizes public safety and restores justice to
the pretrial process, regardless of income level."

Hertzberg's Senate Bill 10, known as the
California Money Bail Reform Act of 2017, would
have required that pretrial services agencies
conduct risk assessments and recommend conditions
of release for defendants pretrial, among other
provisions. People arrested for certain violent
felonies wouldn't have been eligible.

Hertzberg and Assemblyman Rob Bonta (D-Oakland)
jointly authored SB 10, along with the identical Assembly Bill 42.

SB 10 made it through the Senate, but not through
the Assembly, where AB 42 also failed.

In an August 25 statement from Governor Jerry
Brown's office, Hertzberg said that working with
Brown and Chief Justice Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye,
"we will find the right balance by fine-tuning the details in SB 10."

Hertzberg said in another statement that
officials plan to continue investigating "the
failures of the bail system and the insurance
companies that support it," which were "exposed"
during the attempt to pass SB 10.

Asked in a phone interview about changes that
will need to be made to the bill, Hertzberg said
that judges "will want more discretion" and "more
power" than what was in the original legislation.

Referring to the infamous convicted murderer who
raped a woman in Maryland in 1986 after he failed
to return to a Massachusetts prison after being
let out on a weekend furlough program, Hertzberg
said, "It's easy for a judge worried about a
Willie Horton case to deny bail to anybody who walks into a courtroom."

Legislators need to consider "judges who are
worried about somebody hurting the public
safety," he added, and are "going to set the bail as high as they can."

Full story at: http://ebar.com/news/article.php?sec=news&article=72914