Ep. 15 - Bail Reform Is Nothing To Fear

May it Displease the Court

The first episode of Season 2 hosted by Mary welcomes back Erik Teifke, who is the Second Assistant at the Monroe County Public Defender’s Office in Rochester, NY. The episode looks at the effects of New York’s historic 2020 Bail Reform law.

This law took away judges’ ability to set bail on certain charges with the goal of drastically reducing the number of people held pre-trial and pre-conviction. Here are the highlights:

1) The purpose of bail has always been ensuring that a person charged with a crime comes back to court to participate in their defense. For decades judges across the state abused their discretion in setting bail resulting in thousands and thousands of people held in jail during the prosecution of their case simply because they could not afford to post bail, which disrupted their lives, jobs, and families. The cost of jailing pre-trial detainees as well as the economic cost from their disrupted lives is significant prompting the change in the law.

2) Immediately after the law took effect and before any data could be collected on the impact of the law, District Attorneys, Police Departments and Police Unions enacted a coordinated fear mongering campaign to make New Yorkers believe that now dangerous (minority) criminals would be roaming free to victimize them.

3) Four months after the Bail Reform law passed, legislators watered it down by giving judges the ability to set bail on more charges, but the law is still a significant reform that has drastically reduced the amount of people held pre-trial and proven that bail was not needed to incentivize people returning to court, the vast majority come back on their own as required.

Finally, we encourage listeners to advocate for bail reform in their own communities.

Resources

• https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/new-yorks-latest-bail-law-changes-explained
• https://gothamist.com/news/what-new-rollbacks-bail-reform-mean-new-york
• https://cornelllawreview.org/2020/10/09/new-york-bail-reform-a-quick-guide-to-common-questions-and-concerns-2/

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