The target at Penn State was cocaine kingpin Agostino S. Abbatiello

September 2. 2026 marked the first court hearing for those who were allegedly part of a cocaine trafficking ring involving two Penn State fraternities, reported WHP-21.

Six of 14 defendants had hearings scheduled. Agostino S. Abbatiello was the only defendant in court wearing Department of Corrections-issued clothing the defendants in the Penn State Drug Ring preliminary hearings.  He was escorted by police into the courthouse. He was wearing a red jumpsuit and had handcuffs on. 

The reason: Abbatiello is the Penn State cocaine kingpin. All the others have cooperated with investigators, waived their preliminary hearing and three codefendant's testified against Abbatiello. 

At Abbatiello's preliminary hearing, Thomas Robinson was the first person called to the stand.

Robinson said he initially sold small amounts of cocaine, splitting profits with Huraibi. He said he stored cocaine in his room in the fraternity house.

Robinson said he later was in a Snapchat group chat with Abbatiello and Huraibi. He said they used Snapchat because messages are deleted after 24 hours.

Robinson described one time where he met with Abbatiello to purchase 250 grams of cocaine in February 2024. Robinson said Abbatiello came out and sat in Robinson's car to exchange cash for a shoebox of cocaine.

Robinson said later purchases were in larger amounts, including 500 grams and 1 kilogram.

Robinson said he sold mostly to members of his own fraternity, Delta Upsilon.

Mohammed Huraibi is second to the stand

Huraibi said he was introduced to Abbatiello via Snapchat.

Huraibi said he and Robinson purchased cocaine from Abbatiello. He said their first purchase together was in August 2023.

Huraibi said he later "decided I wanted to walk away from everything going on."

Huraibi said Abbatiello didn't sell to just anyone; they'd have to be "introduced" to him.

Huraibi said he used cocaine and other drugs after he started selling it. He said the drug use affected his ability to recall what occurred.

Lars Zeepvat is third to the stand

Zeepvat said he, Abbatiello and another friend "pooled" their money together to purchase cocaine from a distributor in Philadelphia.

Zeepvat said Abbatiello later found a cocaine plug from Long Island, which is when he "shifted."

"I saw a difference in Augie," Zeepvat said. "He started selling for money and popularity."

Zeepvat said he would later sell bags of cocaine. He was told, "You can keep a bag for yourself if you sell 4-5."

Zeepvat said "things really started picking up" during senior year. He believed Abbatiello was making more money because he was gambling, buying more clothes and selling larger quantities of cocaine.

Zeepvat said 3-12 people would go to after-parties at Abbatiello's apartment, where cocaine was out on the table.

When Abbatiello learned about the investigation into the ring on July 4, 2026, he allegedly told Zeepvat, "don't cooperate" with the grand jury investigation.

When Zeepvat did receive a letter to testify in front of the grand jury, he said he called Abbatiello. He said Abbatiello told him, "please don't say anything."

"There are lots of cocaine sources at Penn State," Zeepvat said. "When I was pledging (Sigma Chi), it was the seniors."

Bail

Abbatiello was initially denied bail, but his attorney argued that he should have the opportunity to get out on bail. His attorney argued that he's not a flight risk or a danger to the community. He said Abbatiello would live at his parents' home without any drugs or weapons.

The prosecution said hat he was trafficking drugs and "poison" into the community. The prosecutor said the judge was right to deny bail, but if it is granted, it should be set at $5 million.

The judge ultimately granted bail as $250,000 secured. Abbatiello is not allowed contact with any witnesses or any alcohol.

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After two trips to the Supreme Court former death row inmate Richard Glossip is out on bond

Oklahoma District Judge Natalie Mai ordered former death row inmate Richard Glossip to be released from prison while awaiting a retrial, after 29 years behind bars. During these 29 years, Glossip famously faced several execution dates and ate his “last meal” three times, reported Juristnews.

Mai set the bail at $500,000, with release contingent upon Glossip complying with certain conditions, such as wearing an electronic monitoring device, observing a curfew, remaining within the state of Oklahoma, and refraining from speaking to any witnesses.

The order cited a letter written by the attorney general in April 2023 to the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board, which stated that the record does not support that Glossip is guilty of first-degree murder beyond a reasonable doubt. Under the Oklahoma Constitution, bail must be granted unless there is clear and convincing evidence of guilt, leading the court to conclude that it could not reasonably deny bail.

The case stems from a murder-for-hire plot targeting Glossip’s former boss, Barry Van Treese, in 1997. Purported co-conspirator Justin Sneed confessed at trial to beating Van Treese to death, and claimed Glossip offered him money to do so. Glossip maintained his innocence throughout his defense, denying that he had any involvement with the murder.

While Glossip was imprisoned, his case faced a series of legal challenges surrounding his right to a fair trial, eventually culminating in the February 2025 decision by the US Supreme Court to overturn his conviction and order a new trial. The court’s 5-3 ruling was largely based on the prosecution’s failure to consider evidence that Sneed’s testimony was false.

Following the decision, the prosecution indicated its intent to retry Glossip on the existing first-degree murder charges, but not to pursue the death penalty.

Glossip’s attorney, Don Knight, stated that he is grateful that Judge Mai granted bond:

In doing so, she rejected the State’s claim that there is a strong case for guilt. For the first time in 29 years of being incarcerated for a crime he did not commit, during which he faced 9 execution dates and at 3 last meals, Mr. Glossip now has the chance to taste freedom while his defense team continues to pursue justice on his behalf against a system that the United States Supreme Court has found to be guilty of serious misconduct by state prosecutors.

In the bond order, Mai stated that “the Court hopes that a new trial, free of error, will provide all interested parties, and the citizens of Oklahoma, the closure they deserve.”

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Bail reform being dismantled across the country

According to the  Marshal Project, in 2021 the Illinois' legislature passed a bill abolishing cash bail and replacing it with a system in which prosecutors can seek detention based on public-safety or flight-risk findings. At the time, the rationale for the change was largely built on questioning the logic of wealth-based detention. Commenters argued that a rich person should not have a special right to leave jail compared to a poorer person accused of the same crime.

Earlier this month, after the killing of a Chicago police officer whose alleged shooter had been released on electronic monitoring while awaiting trial in another case, Republican lawmakers renewed calls to change the law, arguing in part that the state needed to come into line with President Donald Trump’s executive order targeting “cashless bail.” But the plans that have been floated have not sought to restore money bail, but rather proposed new means of revoking pretrial release, or creating a presumption of detention for people with violent convictions.

Similar legislative efforts to increase pretrial detention outright have also gained momentum across the country. In New Hampshire, a rollback of the state’s earlier bail reforms lowered the standard prosecutors must meet to deny bail, and state officials have pointed to rising jail populations as proof the new approach is working. Later this month, voters in Alabama will decide whether to expand the list of charges for which judges can deny bail. Similarly, in November, voters in Indiana will vote on a constitutional amendment that would dramatically expand judges’ ability to hold people pretrial if they determine that no conditions of release could reasonably protect public safety.

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Brooklyn woman with mental health problems remains in jail uncharged for not revealing whereabouts of missing child

The Family Court in this case is doing precisely what the constitutional guarantee against compelled self-incrimination forbids: It is exerting the court’s coercive power to force Ms. Pritchett to give testimony that could expose her to criminal prosecution

On Thursday, the Brooklyn Family Court judge asked the woman the question for the seventh time:

Where was Jacob?

Jacob Pritchett, an 11-year-old so small that his neighbors in Brooklyn thought he was no older than 7, had not been seen for months. The police and a child welfare case worker, prompted by a call to 911, had gone to his Brownsville apartment on Oct. 1 to find him. But the woman who answered the door, Jacqueline Pritchett, told them she had never had a child, reported The New York Times.

The apartment was spotless and had the pungent scent of cleaning products, and the police could see toys in the bathroom and in the closet, according to court transcripts. But Ms. Pritchett, 50, continued repeating her claim even after Judge Dawn Marie Orsatti issued a civil warrant on Oct. 10, charging her with contempt for not revealing where her boy was, and sent her to Rikers Island.

Ms. Pritchett has been brought back to court repeatedly, and on Thursday, Judge Orsatti tried again.

“If you tell the court the whereabouts of Jacob, I will release you from incarceration,” Judge Orsatti said.

Ms. Pritchett, dressed in brown sweatpants and sweatshirt, sat next to her lawyer and looked back silently. Her lawyer, Daniela Mancini, leaned over and said her client was invoking her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

Judge Orsatti sent Ms. Pritchett back to Rikers.

The case has flummoxed detectives who scoured three months of surveillance footage taken from the building, looking for any sign of the boy. They traveled 330 miles to upstate New York to search a landfill where the garbage from the Brooklyn building was taken. They have interviewed neighbors and relatives, but no one has been able to help them figure out where Jacob, whom the police and neighbors have described as nonverbal, could be.

The answer appears to lie with Ms. Pritchett, but she has resisted giving one despite the efforts of the court, the police and the city’s Administration for Children’s Services.

Brooklyn Defender Services, the public defenders representing Ms. Pritchett, declined to comment about the boy’s disappearance or whether his mother knew anything about it. It has filed court papers arguing that she should be released immediately from Rikers Island, calling her detention a “constitutional violation.”

”The Family Court in this case is doing precisely what the constitutional guarantee against compelled self-incrimination forbids: It is exerting the court’s coercive power to force Ms. Pritchett to give testimony that could expose her to criminal prosecution,” wrote Brian A. Holbrook, a lawyer for Brooklyn Defenders, in a Dec. 2 petition.

It is unclear whether Jacob went to school. Before this fall, Ms. Pritchett did not appear to have a history of involvement with child welfare agencies in New York State, according to someone who viewed some of her social service records and spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case.

The police once made a check on Jacob in 2017 after a 911 call, according to court transcripts. The Police Department said it is continuing to investigate the case.

The 911 call that sent the police and A.C.S. to the Brownsville address this fall came from a worried neighbor, according to a law enforcement official with knowledge of the case who was not authorized to discuss it.

Police officers went to the apartment in a three-story red brick building on Howard Avenue on Oct. 1 for a wellness check.

Ms. Pritchett told officers that she lived alone and “became loud and boisterous during the interview,” according to an internal police document.

During a hearing on Oct. 10, an A.C.S. caseworker, Gabriel Martindale, said that when he and the police arrived, he went inside and saw two mattresses. The apartment was dark and the electricity had been shut off.

The smell of cleaning products, he said, was “very strong.”

When Mr. Martindale asked whether the toys belonged to Jacob, Ms. Pritchett said they were hers. He then presented her with Jacob’s birth certificate and asked whether that was her son.

“She said she’s never had a child, that she has never had a period, that she’s never been with a man,” Mr. Martindale said. She then said “that she is Jesus Christ.”

Ms. Pritchett was taken to Brookdale University Hospital nearby for psychiatric evaluation. Neighbors said they had seen the police checking the building’s dumpsters. A police dog that later searched the apartment “got a hit” from the refrigerator inside the kitchen, the internal document stated.

On Oct. 9, the police were in Perinton, N.Y., near Rochester. Wearing white coveralls, they fanned out across the High Acres Landfill. The official said investigators went there after they learned the garbage collected at the Brooklyn apartment was sent there.

Neighbors said in interviews in October that they had not seen the boy in months, but had noticed that Ms. Pritchett, who had grown thinner, had lesions on her skin and sometimes talked to herself.

Shamik Burchet, who lives in the building and often saw Ms. Pritchett and Jacob, said the child “seemed really neglected.”

When the boy was younger, Mr. Burchet said, his mother sometimes left him sitting in a stroller alone in the building’s lobby.

“Sometimes I’d have to sit with him,” he said. “Eventually she’d come back around.”

Evelyn Rolon, who lives nearby and works as a bartender, said the mother and son moved into the building about seven years ago.

“I would hate to think that a mom would hurt her own child,” said Ms. Rolon, 49, who often saw Ms. Pritchett and her son. “I’m hoping she gave him to somebody because she got overwhelmed.”

Sometimes, Ms. Pritchett would meet neighbors at block parties. The boy was usually not with her, but at a cookout in early September, Ms. Rolon said she gave the woman two burgers — one for her and one for Jacob.

“He would be making sounds. He wasn’t formulating words,” Ms. Rolon said.

Ms. Pritchett was often seen out alone. Other times, they could hear her screaming at Jacob in the apartment.

“We’d tell her, ‘Stop yelling at the baby like that.’ You know how someone yells at a grown person? That’s how she used to yell at the baby,” Ms. Rolon said. “You could tell she was overwhelmed.”

In October, when officers from the crime scene unit were searching the apartment, they sealed the door with a neon green warning sign that forbade anyone from coming inside without police authorization. Affixed just below that sign were several pink and yellow stickers with happy faces.

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Cash bail keeps people not convicted of a crime behind bars

This is The Marshall Project’s Closing Argument newsletter, a weekly deep dive into a key criminal justice issue. Want this delivered to your inbox? Sign up for future newsletters.

On Monday, North Carolina lawmakers will return to the state capitol with plans to tighten rules around bail and pretrial release for people accused of crimes. The proposed legislation would require that people arrested in the state pay a cash bail to be released from jail before trial if they have a prior violent offense on their record.

The push comes on the heels of the fatal, unprovoked stabbing of 23-year-old Iryna Zarutska on a commuter train in August. Footage of the attack went viral and was amplified by some right-wing commentators and political figures, including President Donald Trump, as proof that lenient bail policies are allowing violent criminals to roam the streets.

The alleged attacker, Decarlos Brown Jr, had a long criminal history and had been released without posting bail after his most recent arrest. It’s not clear that the newly proposed bill, had it been law at the time, could have prevented Zarutska’s death. The maximum sentence for the crime in Brown’s most recent arrest — for misdemeanor misuse of 911 — is 120 days. A retired North Carolina judge noted that even if Brown had been denied bail altogether, he almost certainly would have been released by April, long before the August stabbing.

Cash bail is money a defendant pays to be released from jail before trial — often thought of as a kind of collateral or placeholder to ensure that the accused returns to court. In practice, however, courts often intentionally set bail at amounts defendants can’t afford — effectively using it as a tool to keep a legally innocent person detained until trial.

Republicans in New York are also working to advance new bail laws that would limit pretrial release, more than five years after a hotly contested bail reform package was signed into law. Currently, the state is somewhat of an outlier on pretrial release due to a 1971 law that makes it illegal for judges there to consider a person’s “dangerousness” when setting bail. The bill proposed earlier this month would allow considering dangerousness, and make it a key factor in release decisions.

The New York effort faces unlikely odds in the Democratic-controlled state legislature. The North Carolina bill has a clearer path to pass in the Republican-controlled legislature, but could face a veto by Democratic Gov. Josh Stein.

Then there’s Texas, which passed comprehensive and bipartisan bail-stiffening laws earlier this summer, including limiting the situations where people are eligible for cashless bond – or released without paying money. Voters there will also consider a state constitutional amendment this fall that would ban bail altogether for defendants charged with certain violent crimes.

Meanwhile, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is trying to dismantle bail policy in the state’s largest city. In a landmark 2017 ruling, a federal judge concluded that the misdemeanor bail system in Harris County — where Houston is located — violated the constitutional rights of poor people who could not afford to purchase their freedom. The ruling led to an agreement with the federal government that dramatically reshaped misdemeanor bail in the county, and it’s that agreement Paxton is trying to vacate.

Some criminal justice reform advocacy groups, like the Texas Civil Rights Corps, see these moves as connected to broader national political trends. In a statement, the organization said the changes in Texas mirrored an executive order signed by Trump in late August aimed at cracking down on jurisdictions with “cashless bail” pretrial release. Trump’s order gave Attorney General Pam Bondi until this coming Wednesday to name jurisdictions that have “substantially eliminated cash bail” for crimes that “pose a clear threat to public safety and order.” Under the order, those jurisdictions would then lose access to federal funds if they don’t change their bail systems.

Trump’s order was quickly followed by proposals in the U.S. House and Senate with similar aims. Nicole Zayas Manzano, deputy director of policy at The Bail Project — a national nonprofit that advocates for ending cash bail — said these efforts reflect a genuine belief among some supporters in the utility of money bail. But she added that they’re also “getting at the idea of increasing pretrial detention wherever possible,” suggesting that the deeper goal may be keeping more people in jail, rather than preserving any specific feature of the current system.

Even some of the president’s supporters agree that getting money back into the system isn’t necessarily the goal. John Koufos, a lawyer who worked with the Trump administration on the 2018 First Step Act, argued in a recent USA Today op-ed that the end result of Trump’s order would not be a broad revival of cash bail, but policies that put “risk of re-offense and severity of the crime first.”

As we often mention in this newsletter, laws are mostly written at the state level and enforced locally. That means threats to federal funding (or the promise of new grants) are the primary way for the president or Congress to influence the workings of the criminal justice system, and it’s not a partisan concept. In 2021, eight Democratic legislators introduced a bill to discourage the use of cash bail by taking federal justice grants away from states reliant on it.

That effort never made it out of committee, let alone to a floor vote. The recent Republican cash bail bill is much more likely to advance, with the party in control of Congress and the issue being a top priority for Trump.

Some conservative legal scholars have argued that these efforts may violate the Tenth Amendment, which sets limits on how much the federal government can intervene in areas traditionally handled by the states, like criminal justice.

Research on cash bail and crime rates is incomplete and mixed, but most studies have found that eliminating it does not increase overall crime rates, while reducing jail populations and minimizing the harms of jail. In fact, some research has concluded that time in jail is so destabilizing that increasing pretrial release reduces recidivism — which is to say, future criminal activity.

But public safety research may carry less weight if that isn’t the real focus of the administration’s efforts. “I don’t think there’s really much logic or much policy behind Trump’s declaration here,” Sharone Mitchell Jr., the chief public defender of Cook County, Illinois, told Bolts last month. “I really do think this is much more about politics. It’s about getting over a blue state.”

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Bail reform fails in Baltimore--people in jail awaiting trial increases

Seven years after Maryland tried to reform the cash bail system because of its disproportionate impact on the state’s poorest residents, people who get arrested in Baltimore are being held in jail before trial at a higher rate than before the change, reported the Baltimore Beat.

While the use of cash bail has dropped since the bail reform effort, nearly two-thirds of all initial appearances in Baltimore — the first hearing an arrested person has before a court official — now end in a bail denial, a rate that has surged by about 300% since the state judiciary changed the rules surrounding pretrial release in 2017.

The population at Baltimore’s main pretrial detention center has actually risen since 2017, even as arrests have declined during the same period. People who are held in jail before trial can wait months or longer before their case concludes, even though they are presumed innocent and criminal cases in Baltimore often end without a conviction.

The biggest shift since the rule change has come from court officers denying bail entirely, according to data provided by the state judiciary and analyzed by Baltimore Beat and The Garrison Project.

The data shows: 

·         Since the bail reform rule change in 2017, the use of cash bail at initial appearances has fallen dramatically in Baltimore, from about 40% before the 2017 effort to under 5% in the first half of 2023, the most recent data provided by the state judiciary.

·         Baltimore’s overall release rate — the proportion of people freed on unsecured bond or on their own recognizance at their initial appearances — rose at first after bail reform, but then fell back below pre-reform levels.

·         In 2016, court officers in Baltimore held people without bail at their initial appearances less than 15% of the time, but bail denials quickly spiked after the rule change and have hovered around 60% since 2020.

These are not brief stints in jail. More than 60% of defendants who have an initial appearance are still in custody five days later.

The 2017 bail reform effort was designed to reduce the crushing, unequal costs of cash bail and stop judges from holding people in jail pretrial simply because they could not afford to pay — a practice that was likely unconstitutional, the Maryland Attorney General’s Office said in 2016.

Yet the population at Baltimore’s main pretrial detention center has risen from under 700 people per day on average in 2017 to more than 900 in 2023. The facility’s health care system is under intense scrutiny, and at least four people have died in pretrial custody this year, including a man who was held on $3,500 cash bail after being accused of stealing snacks from a vending machine.

Christopher Dews, a lobbyist who represents Out for Justice, a nonprofit that supports formerly incarcerated people, said the difference after the 2017 rule change was clear when he worked on the Job Opportunity Task Force’s bail fund in Baltimore. The number of people eligible to be bailed out of jail dwindled and then reached zero, he said.

The result has frustrated reform advocates who considered the rule change a victory but have since watched it backfire.

“It is quite painful, the reality that whenever we have a massive policy win for equitable criminal justice reforms, it does seem as if the state finds non-legislative, non-policy ways to thwart those successes,” Dews said. “As advocates, we prepare to defend our wins, but you can only defend wins so much from the state that has to implement those same wins.”

The pretrial system became more black-and-white after the rule change, added Nicole Belle, who was a case manager for the Job Opportunity Task Force’s bail fund from 2021 until early 2023. People facing charges were either released or held without bail.

“There was no in between,” Belle said.  

To read more CLICK HERE

Creators: Diddy Sits in Jail Pending Trial

Matthew T. Mangino
Creators Syndicate
September 30, 2024

Why is Sean "Diddy" Combs in jail? He hasn't been convicted of a crime. He was charged by the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York with conspiracy to commit racketeering, conspiracy to commit sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution. How about the presumption of innocence?

Pretrial detention in federal court is much different than in the various states. In state court, typically after a felony arrest, an arraignment hearing is scheduled. At the hearing, a judge sets a monetary amount for bond. The accused can post a cash bond or use a surety to post bail. The accused is then free pending trial. There is no such system in federal cases.

In federal court, pursuant to the Bail Reform Act of 1984, an accused has a presumption of release pending trial. Federal prosecutors must overcome that presumption. The presumption is overcome by proving that an accused is a flight risk — the fear that an accused will run before trial.

This is where it gets dicey for Combs. The court will consider a person's access to funds and ease of travel. Someone like Combs, with substantial wealth, is more likely to be detained because of access to quick cash, making it easier to flee.

Another problem for Combs was his alleged contact with witnesses prior to the indictment. Federal prosecutors can present evidence that the accused poses a danger to the community, such as a history of violence or threats to witnesses.

If a judge finds that the accused is either a risk to flee or dangerous, she may order the accused remain in custody until trial.

According to The New York Times, during Combs' detention hearing, prosecutors presented evidence that Combs had committed violence against women, had access to weapons, had a history of anger management and substance abuse, and had contacted some of the victims, and witnesses, who reported being afraid of him.

A federal magistrate and a federal district court judge have decided to detain Combs pending trial.

Combs is a victim of his own wealth and notoriety.

In a state cash bail system, a judge sets a sum based on factors like the seriousness of the offense and the accused's criminal record. If the accused doesn't have the money, she sits in jail until trial. Many of those charged with a crime in state court remain in jail simply because of their inability to post bond.

In contrast, federal law requires the judge to conduct an extensive hearing and consider a variety of factors in deciding whether to release a defendant before trial. If released, the accused pays nothing up front to be released — only a promise to pay a certain sum of money in the future if the defendant fails to appear for trial. The advantage of the federal system over the state cash bail system is that a defendant's freedom is not determined by their ability to pay.

In March, federal Homeland Security agents raided Combs' residences in Los Angeles and Miami as part of an investigation into alleged criminal activity.

According to news accounts, a recent indictment against Combs alleges arson, kidnapping, forced labor, bribery, obstruction of justice, prostitution and sex trafficking, including forcing victims into engaging in recorded sexual activity referred to as "Freak Offs."

For Combs, money is the problem. Not that he doesn't have enough, but that he has too much. Theoretically, it would be easy for someone with Combs' resources to be released, call a friend with some connections, charter a private jet — without a flight plan — and flee the country.

Ironically, a federal statute created to eliminate wealth as a factor for release is keeping Combs in jail.

Matthew T. Mangino is of counsel with Luxenberg, Garbett, Kelly & George P.C. His book "The Executioner's Toll, 2010" was released by McFarland Publishing. You can reach him at www.mattmangino.com and follow him on X @MatthewTMangino

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Texas continues to use a cash bail system-penalizing poor people

Like most states, Texas uses a cash bail system that lets defendants pay to get released from jail while they wait for ​​adjudication. But the price of bail is often an insurmountable hurdle, reported the Texas Tribune.

Civil rights groups and inmates have unsuccessfully challenged Texas’ use of a cash bail system for years. Lawsuits targeting Dallas and Harris county jails alleged the practice was unconstitutional because it discriminates against poorer defendants. A federal appeals court ruled against the Dallas plaintiffs and the Supreme Court declined to take the case. 

In 2021, Texas lawmakers changed the state’s bail system, but didn’t forbid a cash bail system. Instead, they required all defendants accused of violent crimes to pay cash for release from jail before their trials. Critics said requiring cash to get out of jail would continue to penalize low-income people and benefit the bail bonds industry.

About three in every four Texans in county jails are awaiting the resolution of their cases, according to data from the Texas Commission on Jail Standards, the state agency that oversees local jails. That number has surpassed pre-pandemic levels and is 14% higher than in January 2017.

For women, the wait can be harder than for men. County jails, meant for short stays, commonly lack resources women need — like pregnancy care and mental health treatment. Women in county jails are also more likely to have mental health needs. And many are mothers separated from their children.

Angel Collier worked at Buc-ee’s, but in 2014 became a stay-at-home mom for several years before breaking up with her child’s father. At the time of her 2020 arrest, Collier was living with her father while she was a full-time student pursuing an online psychology degree from Houston Christian University.

Following her arrest, Collier’s combined bond for the two misdemeanor charges was set at $8,000. When she couldn’t afford that, a friend loaned her over $700 to pay a bonds company so she could get out of jail. But two years later, while still awaiting her trial, she missed a required court hearing because she was receiving emergency care for pregnancy complications. A warrant was issued for her arrest in Walker County.

In June 2022, officers from Madison County were sent to her home in Midway for a welfare check because someone reported she was having a miscarriage. When Collier came outside, she told police she was OK, but that she may go to the doctor the next day, according to video obtained by KFF Health News. Because of the Walker County warrants, police arrested her.

Collier said she could not afford to pay thousands of dollars to bail out. Stuck in Walker County jail again, she says she experienced a miscarriage and received little medical attention while she waited a day for another friend to loan her money to pay a bonds company for her release.

Collier later filed a formal complaint with The Texas Commission on Jail Standards about her miscarriage. In a September 2022 letter, the agency told Collier that Walker County Jail had not violated minimum jail standards. According to the commission, records from Walker County Jail show that Collier only submitted one medical request and did not advise jail staff of any other medical issues. Collier claims she asked for help multiple times.

“We haven’t yet gone far enough to meet the needs of women who are in jail at the county level,” said Alycia Welch, associate director of the Prison and Jail Innovation Lab at The University of Texas at Austin, a research center dedicated to incarceration in Texas.

Texas law requires the Texas Commission on Jail Standards to collect and report data on incarcerated women. But the Commission cannot provide the total number of women behind bars and waiting for their cases to be resolved in Texas county jails right now — or any time in the last two years.

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Creators: The 'Poverty Penalty': No Cash, No Freedom

Matthew T. Mangino
Creators
March 18, 2024

A fundamental tenet of Anglo-American jurisprudence, dating back to the Magna Carta, is that all those accused of a crime are presumed innocent until proven guilty. Today, about four out of five people sitting in local county jails and municipal lockups have not been convicted of the crime that brought about their detention.

Every day across the country, thousands of people are locked up because they don't have money. The idea of "debtors' prison" has long been repugnant. However, the concept of "pay or go to jail" is still around. Whether it's getting locked up for not paying fines or penalties after a conviction, or not having the wherewithal to post bail pending trial — there are still a lot of poor people in jail.

In most jurisdictions, the difference between being charged with a crime and walking the street pending trial, or sitting in jail awaiting trial, comes down to cash. Those who have it stay out of jail; those who don't, stay in jail. Those unfortunate people without money for bail are at risk of losing their jobs, their homes and their families.

Every year, about 11 million people funnel through local municipal and county jails. According to the Prison Policy Initiative, between 1970 and 2017, the number of people incarcerated in the nation's 3,000-plus local jails ballooned — from 150,000 to about 720,000 per day.

The millions of people who go to jail each year are there, generally, for brief periods of time. Most are released in days or hours after their arrest, while others are held for months or even years — often because they can't afford to make bail, are unable to get a speedy trial, or can't gain timely access to a public defender.

Defendants accused of particularly serious violent crimes or who pose a credible threat to public safety may be detained in jail while awaiting trial. However, most defendants are entitled to pretrial release. Judges may impose conditions on a defendant's release, such as electronic monitoring or supervision through a pretrial services agency, but they are entitled to bail if they can afford it.

Correcting the bail crisis is not out of reach. This isn't about being tough on crime. It's about being fair. For some, even a nominal bond is out of reach. When an accused has no money, $1,500 might as well be $150,000.

Cash bail was historically intended to provide a financial incentive for defendants to show up at required court dates, but reforms adopted in the 1970s and 1980s allowed judges to also consider potential risks to public safety when making bail decisions. Cash bail can, under the right circumstances, be an appropriate tool for ensuring defendants cooperate throughout the pretrial period.

However, in most instances, cash bail creates a wealth-based, two-tiered system of pretrial detention. Those who can't afford bail suffer a "poverty penalty." No system of justice can endure when a person's wealth, or lack of it, can determine their freedom. Mariam Krinsky, executive director of the nonprofit Fair and Just Prosecution, said in 2019, "Common sense dictates that people should not be held in jail simply because they cannot afford a monetary payment." Yet the widespread use of cash bail continues.

Keeping an accused in jail for an extended period of time without trial creates other grievous problems in the criminal justice system. For instance, some inmates being detained pretrial, without the resources to post bail, see a guilty plea as their only path to freedom. Some defendants sitting in jail will take a plea offer, even if they're innocent, just to get out of jail. What could be worse than being locked up because you can't afford bail?

Pleading guilty to a crime you didn't commit to regain your freedom.

Matthew T. Mangino is of counsel with Luxenberg, Garbett, Kelly & George P.C. His book "The Executioner's Toll, 2010" was released by McFarland Publishing. You can reach him at www.mattmangino.com and follow him on Twitter @MatthewTMangino.

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Cash bail is a sanction for poverty

On any given day, approximately 514,000 people are held in local jails across the United States. Though defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty, more than 80% of the jail population are awaiting trial and have yet to be convicted of a crime, reported the Reason Foundation. Defendants accused of particularly serious violent crimes or who pose a credible threat to public safety may be detained in jail while awaiting trial. However, most defendants are entitled to pretrial release. Judges may impose conditions on a defendant’s release, such as electronic monitoring or supervision through a pretrial services agency.

Monetary release conditions, commonly referred to as “cash bail” or “money bail,” are among the most common types of pretrial release conditions in the United States. Cash bail allows defendants to secure their release by depositing a specified amount of money with the court as collateral, providing a financial incentive for compliance during the pretrial phase. If a defendant appears as required through the disposition of their case, the bail amount is returned to them. If a defendant fails to appear in court as required, the bail amount is forfeited, and the defendant may face additional criminal charges or penalties.

Cash bail was historically intended to provide a financial incentive for defendants to show up at required court dates, but reforms adopted in the 1970s and 1980s allow judges to also consider potential risks to public safety when making bail decisions. Under the right circumstances, cash bail is an appropriate tool for ensuring defendants cooperate throughout the pretrial period. However, many defendants cannot afford the cost of bail and are consequently detained for no reason other than their inability to pay.

Recent research suggests that bail decisions can result in defendants losing their jobs, coerce defendants into accepting plea bargains, and increase the probability that defendants are convicted. Given the potential negative consequences of pretrial detention resulting from an inability to afford cash bail, reform advocates have suggested limiting the use of monetary release conditions. Reforms to pretrial policy require policymakers to balance several competing interests, many of which are difficult to quantify. For example, it is not possible to quantify the normative value of the presumption of innocence or American’s Constitutional right to reasonable bail. However, research evidence can shed some light on the efficacy of cash bail for ensuring compliance during the pretrial period.

With some caveats, the studies included in this review collectively suggest that monetary release conditions like cash bail do not consistently improve court attendance and may not result in net crime reduction. Other factors, including indigence, drug use disorders, and criminal history, are generally stronger predictors of court attendance than the imposition of monetary release conditions. Conservatively, we can conclude that the United States relies too heavily on monetary release conditions. The bulk of available evidence suggests that curtailing the use of monetary release conditions among low-risk defendants would not result in dramatic drops in court attendance or increased risk of reoffending. There is even some evidence that pretrial reforms that reduce detention of low-risk, bond-eligible defendants may actually improve public safety. Additional research is needed to evaluate more ambitious reform proposals.

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Tennessee legislators seek constitutional amendment to expand detention without bail

A bipartisan group of Tennessee state legislators unveiled a proposed state constitutional amendment  to grant judges more discretion to detain individuals without bail before trial for specific violent criminal charges, reported Jurist.

Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton (R-District 25) made the announcement at Memphis City Hall, flanked by Memphis’ Mayor Paul Young (D), Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson (R-District 27), a number of state legislators representing Memphis and Shelby County, local law enforcement officials and Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy (D).

Sexton stated:

There’s a lot of cases all across our state that you’ve seen, not just in Memphis, but all across our state, of someone who is out on bail who is a violent criminal who committed another violent crime shortly thereafter that took another victim.

Currently, the Tennessee Constitution permits judges to deny bail only for charges that carry the possibility of the death penalty, typically limited to first-degree murder cases.

Rep. Antonio Parkinson (D-Memphis) supported the announcement saying:

A mother who has lost a son to violent crime, she does not care if you’re Democrat or Republican, … When I speak to the mothers or the parents of a constituent in Cordova whose daughter might have gone through a violent rape or a sexual assault, they don’t care if you’re Democrat or Republican.

Despite the bipartisan support, the proposal faces criticism from some advocates who argue that it won’t effectively address the crime issues in Memphis and the broader state. Rep. Justin Pearson (D-District 81), one of the two state legislators expelled last year due to a House floor protest advocating for gun control and later reinstated, dismissed the proposed amendment as a “useless amendment related to bail that doesn’t address the devastation of violence in our communities.” He urged Republicans to repeal permitless carry laws in Tennessee and establish a fully funded violence prevention office.

Stand for Children Tennessee, a group that advocates for issues such as racial justice, echoed similar views saying:

This is not ‘bail reform’ — it’s an extremist attack on constitutional rights and fundamental American values that are supposed to be based on being innocent until proven guilty, … It will not fix any problem that exists, and it will not make us safer.

For the amendment to become part of the state constitution, it must successfully pass both the Tennessee State House and Senate, during one two-year General Assembly, and then pass by at least two-thirds of the vote in the second round in both chambers. The amendment would then go on a general election ballot.

The Eighth Amendment of the US Constitution bans excessive bail or fines. However, the US Supreme Court has ruled that denial of bail is constitutional. According to a 2022 policy brief from the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), over 20 states have amended their constitutional bail provisions, enabling expanded pretrial detention through a variety of ways.

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Illinois Supreme Court affirms law eliminating cash bail

The Illinois Supreme Court upheld a measure eliminating cash bail in the state, finding that Democratic legislators acted properly when they passed the law, which will transform the Illinois criminal justice system and limit judges’ ability to hold defendants in jail before trial, reported The New York Times.

The Illinois law, which went beyond similar bail overhauls in other states, was part of a national push to reduce jail populations and end a system in which wealth can determine whether a defendant returns home to await trial. But it infuriated many county prosecutors and sheriffs, who asserted that the law was passed improperly and made the state less safe.

In its ruling on Tuesday, the Supreme Court said cash bail would end in Illinois on Sept. 18.

Cash bail has been widely used for decades. Rather than sit in jail waiting for a trial that may not begin for months, a defendant is allowed to deposit money with the court and remain free. But if they fail to show up when they are supposed to, the defendant risks losing that money.

Civil rights groups and politicians, many of them Democrats, have long called for limiting or abolishing that system, and for allowing more defendants to be released without having to put up money. Critics say the cash bail system is unfair to poor defendants, who risk losing jobs or homes if they cannot afford to post bail.

“Someone’s experience with the criminal justice system should not vary based on their income level,” Attorney General Kwame Raoul, a Democrat, said in a statement praising the 5-to-2 decision.

But law enforcement groups have spoken in ominous terms about what the change would mean for public safety. In a court brief, lawyers for the union representing rank-and-file Chicago police officers said the law “sets forth a recipe for increases in crime, recidivism, dysfunction in the criminal prosecution system, and danger to police officers and the communities they serve.”

New Jersey and New Mexico have vastly reduced the use of cash bail but have not ended it completely. New York has eliminated it for certain types of offenses but not others. Those moves also led to fierce opposition, and some second-guessing.

The Illinois law passed with broad Democratic support and was signed by Gov. J.B. Pritzker, part of a shift to the political left since Democrats reclaimed full control of state government in the 2018 election.

Republicans voiced their opposition to the cash bail law during last year’s campaigns, but Mr. Pritzker won re-election by a wide margin and Democrats kept legislative majorities.

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John Jay College: NYC bail reform laws reduced recidivism

Controversial new state bail laws that some politicians say lead to offenders getting released and then rearrested actually had the opposite overall effect, according to a new study of criminal justice data, reported by the Gothamist a New York City non-profit newsroom.

The study, from John Jay College’s Data Collaborative for Justice, showed that the 2020 bail reform laws eliminating judges’ ability to impose bail for low-level crimes actually reduced the likelihood that someone would get arrested again.

The one exception was for bail-eligible people who were released following recent violent felony arrests. The rate of rearrests for that cohort of offenders increased slightly.

“Fundamentally, we found that eliminating bail for most misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies reduced recidivism in New York City, while there was no clear effect in either direction for cases remaining bail eligible,” said Michael Rempel, director of John Jay College’s Data Collaborative for Justice, in a statement.

The study did not delve into the reasons behind the relative lack of recidivism among those who were released without having to pay bail. But experts have said that even temporary incarceration can lead to termination from jobs, family disruption and housing loss, which can incentivize further criminal activity.

The purpose of the 2020 reform laws was to allow people charged with most misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies to be released while their cases played out in court. That meant they didn’t have to choose between paying bail and going to the dangerous Rikers Island jails. Instead, judges had to release people under other conditions like supervised release, which involves nonprofit agencies in the community doing monitoring and support.

The reforms were designed to reduce incarceration and stop putting people in jail just because they could not afford to post bail. But since the laws went into effect, politicians who oppose bail reform — such as Democratic Mayor Eric Adams — and conservative outlets like The New York Post, have argued that the laws went too far and led to violent criminals roaming free on city streets.

"We have a recidivism problem in New York and far too many people, there's about 2,000 people who are repeatedly catch, release, repeat in crimes," Adams said earlier this month. "If we don't take them off our streets, they're going to continue to prey on innocent people."

This new study found that the two-year rearrest rate for those released due to bail reform was 44%, compared to 50% for those with similar charges, criminal histories and demographics who were held in jail in the period before the reform.

It also took longer for those released as a result of bail reform to get rearrested than those forced to do a stint in jail after being charged.

Since the bail reform measures passed in 2019 and 2020, the new laws’ effect on crime has been perhaps the most debated topic in New York politics. It was a central focus of last year’s state elections, with Republicans and conservative Democrats alike claiming it led to spikes in crime, especially shootings and burglaries, because people were released without bail and went on to commit illegal acts. But so far data to prove that assertion has been limited, as have analyses countering the argument.

Tuesday's report tracked alleged offenders over a longer period than prior studies — including the time after cases were disposed of — and compared rearrests of those released pretrial due to bail reform and other statistically similar people who were held in jail.

“Our goal with this study was to substantially upgrade the credibility of information known to New Yorkers about bail reform and recidivism,” said Rempel in a statement.

Bail reform remains a hotly debated topic. Gov. Kathy Hochul is now seeking to eliminate the mandate that judges impose the “least restrictive condition” necessary on those charged with crimes still eligible for the imposition of bail, like violent felonies. The change would give more discretion to judges to allow them to impose higher bail amounts in order to keep more people locked up pretrial if they can’t afford to pay. But opponents say the proposal is unconstitutional.

The bail reform laws were initially passed in 2019 and modified in 2020 and 2022. The latest modifications went into effect in May and were not part of the John Jay study.

Offenses that are still not eligible for mandatory release are almost all violent felonies, sex offenses and certain domestic violence cases. Judges can order holding certain repeat offenders and those deemed a flight risk.

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Ohio passes measure requiring judges to "consider public safety" when setting bail

One of two statewide issues Ohio voted on in the general election on Nov. 8, has passed by a comfortable margin. It requires judges to "consider public safety" along with other factors when setting bail, reported WKYC-TV in Cleveland, Ohio.

Opponents to Issue 1argued that the issue's language is designed to distract voters from what they see as the greater concern of bail reform.

"People with money will be able to get out, people without money will stay incarcerated," added Whitaker. "And it doesn't address really who is a risk to the public."

So, what is bail? Also called bond, it's an amount of money given to the court for the temporary release of a defendant to ensure that the defendant returns to court.

"People that we consider to be a danger to the community -- they shouldn't get bail, said Whitaker. "The courts now have that ability to keep them in custody, based on that concern, she said.

The campaign for Issue 1 began following a 4-3 Ohio Supreme Court ruling in January. After a $1.5-million bond was set for a murder suspect, the court ruled that the high bail was unconstitutional, writing, "A court may not impose excessive bail for the purpose of keeping an accused in jail."

"It was not common sense," declared Justice Pat Fischer before a small crowd of supporters of Issue 1.

Fischer and the other dissenting Republican justices joined a statewide bus tour to campaign for Issue 1, making a stop at the Cleveland Police Patrolman's Association union hall last Friday.

"For 200 years, judges could consider public safety when setting bond, said Fischer. "And all of a sudden, four members of the court that I'm on said no -- Where'd that come from?"

Justice Pat DeWine, son of Governor Mike DeWine, said it's not that easy for judges to deny bail, even if they believe public safety is at risk.

"Only for certain felonies, with certain standards of proof can you hold someone without bail," said DeWine. "And that's appropriate in some situations, but there's other situations where judges want to set a higher bail, and judges in Ohio should have that flexibility." 

While Issue 1 is a constitutional amendment in the name of public safety, it brought the battle over the intent and purpose of bail to the ballot box.

"We have a way to protect our community. and a monetary bond is not the way to do it," said Whitaker.

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New York's bail reform law a success--not contributing to increase in crime

New York nonprofit The Legal Aid Society (LAS)  reported that data from the Department of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS) shows the successes of New York’s 2019 bail reform law, according to Jurist.

Under the 2019 law, judges must release those charged with misdemeanors or most nonviolent felonies on their own recognizance or under “non-monetary conditions.” However, for all violent felonies and some nonviolent felonies, like sex offenses, judges can still set monetary bail. DCJS data shows that 15 percent of people failed to return for trial in 2019; in 2o21, the figure decreased to 9 percent. For those released on their own recognizance, re-arrest rates decreased from 18 percent to 16 percent by 2021.

In a statement, Supervising Attorney of the LAS Decarceration Project Arielle Reid said the “numbers confirm what we’ve known all along: bail reform has decreased jail populations, kept communities intact and furthered public safety. Any claim to the contrary doesn’t square with reality, and is merely baseless fear mongering.” According to Reid, LAS and other organizations will pursue further reforms in the state legislature’s next session.

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Politics behind undoing of bail reform in Ohio

Less than two years after Ohio amended Criminal Rule 46 in a bipartisan process to reduce the use of cash bail so those without means don’t unfairly stew in jail awaiting trial, the GOP bench in favor of bail reform seems to have cleared, reported the Cleveland Plain-Dealer.

Instead, we’re seeing a lot of grandstanding and misinformation in a misguided effort to get an Ohio constitutional amendment on the Nov. 8 ballot to widen use of cash bail. Never mind that such an amendment is being oversold. It cannot undo either Crim. R. 46 requirements or the U.S. constitutional bar against excessive bail.

Simply put, House Joint Resolution 2, sponsored by state Reps. Jeff LaRe of Fairfield County near Columbus and D.J. Swearingen of Huron, and Senate Joint Resolution 5, sponsored by state Sen. Theresa Gavarone, also of Huron, are little more than a confused mass of hot air sitting atop a mound of inaccurate assertions that public safety can’t be considered in setting bail.

Safety can be considered -- if the decision is that someone is too dangerous to be let out and must be held in jail prior to trial. That decision in turn triggers a pretrial detention hearing so the suspect and his or her attorney can make their case for bail, before being held without it.

As legal expert after legal expert has patiently explained to House and Senate committees during hearings on HJR 2 and SJR 5, unaffordable bail imposed without such a hearing is by definition excessive and, as such, contrary not just to Ohio law but also the U.S. Constitution’s Eighth Amendment, which explicitly bars “excessive bail.”

At the same time, Ohio law already provides for pretrial detention hearings to protect the public’s safety when required -- without need of a constitutional amendment.

Yet, when the time came Thursday to vote on HJR 2 -- and a related bill, House Bill 607, also sponsored by LaRe and Swearingen -- the result was predictable. Party-line 7-2 votes in the House Criminal Justice Committee to send the resolution and bill to the House floor.

Voters should be surprised, however, that lawmakers seem to be moving like lightning on this legislation while proceeding snaillike on critical 2022 redistricting decisions.

The reason: Urging folks to the polls Nov. 8 to amend the Ohio Constitution supposedly to make safety a requirement of bail decisions may, to some at the Statehouse, seem like a surefire way to turn out law-and-order voters for critical mid-term elections.

Too bad that what the constitutional amendment (and related legislation) really seeks to do is to distort bail reform and challenge Ohio Supreme Court precedent by making excessive cash bail easier to achieve. And, in the process, with three Supreme Court positions, including chief justice, on the Nov. 8 ballot, maybe change the composition of the court.

A key focus of this parade of misinformation is the Ohio Supreme Court’s 4-3 January ruling in Dubose v. McGuffey, in which the majority upheld an appellate court ruling that a trial court’s decision to impose $1.5 million bail against an accused Hamilton County murderer, Justin Dubose, without a pretrial detention hearing, amounted to excessive bail. The appellate court reduced Dubose’s bail to $500,000, which the Supreme Court majority also upheld, noting that, under Crim. R. 46, once a determination is made to set bail and not hold a suspect prior to trial for public safety reasons, it becomes a mostly financial exercise to set bail sufficient so that the suspect will appear for trial -- while other non-bail means can be used, such as GPS monitoring and home detention, to restrict the defendant’s movements, if needed.

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