Ga. GOP seeks cash bail for more offenses

ATLANTA — Georgia Republican lawmakers are trying to overhaul the state’s bond system, more than doubling the number of offenses that will require judges to issue some form of cash bond.

The Senate and House passed different versions of bond legislation earlier this year but were unable to reach a compromise by the time the General Assembly adjourned in late March.

Republicans are trying to counter efforts across the country during the past decade to move away from requiring people arrested on certain nonviolent misdemeanor charges to pay money to bond out of jail.

Some criminal justice advocates say it is unfair for people to end up staying in jail for long periods only because they are unable to pay a cash bond.

Senate Bill 63 would add dozens of new offenses, such as trespassing and forgery, that would require cash bail to get out of jail.

The bill’s sponsor, state Sen. Randy Robertson, a Cataula Republican and former major with the Muskogee County Sheriff’s Office, said his bill aims to ensure that people who have been arrested and released on bond return for their trial.

“We want to make sure (the accused) show up in court and make sure victims are assured their day in court, also so they don’t have to sit at home and wait because somebody has absconded out in the wind and they have to sit there feeling no justice at all,” he said.

State Rep. Houston Gaines, an Athens Republican who sponsored SB 63 in the House, said the chambers’ versions aren’t far apart.

“Last session, we went through each of the offenses

and discussed what should and shouldn’t be included,” he said. “We didn’t have time to finish that conversation — I think it’s important to be very deliberate about that, and I think we’ll need to have that conversation when the conferees meet in January.”

Gaines didn’t specify which offenses were sticking points in the negotiations.

State Sen. Kim Jackson, a Pine Lake Democrat and Episcopal priest whose church works with people who are homeless, said she’s worried that adding crimes to the list of charges that force someone to pay a cash bail to get out of jail will disproportionately affect the indigent community.

“Criminal trespassing is one of the most common charges that a person who’s experiencing homelessness is charged with,” Jackson said.

Certain cities, such as Clarkston in Jackson’s district, have passed local laws to allow officers to write a ticket if someone is caught with less than an ounce of marijuana. Under the bill, officers would no longer be able to just write a citation. They would have to arrest the person on a charge of possession and take them to jail, where a judge would require a bond to be paid for their release.

“Even if the judge gives them a bail of $5, if they don’t have $5 on their person and don’t have anyone they can get the money from, they have to sit in jail until their case can be heard — and sometimes that’s years,” Jackson said. “This is further punishing people who are poor.”

Gaines and other Republican lawmakers have singled out Democratic Athens-Clarke County District Attorney Deborah Gonzalez for her decision not to prosecute certain low-level crimes. Gaines lost to Gonzalez for the House seat he now holds in a 2017 special election, before defeating her in 2018.

Gonzalez was also cited as the impetus behind the Republican-led legislature passing a bill this year that created a Prosecuting Attorneys Qualifications Commission with the power to discipline local prosecutors who have been accused of failing to fulfill their legal duties.

Some opponents of the legislation say SB 63 is a reversal of one of Nathan Deal’s last legislative pushes as governor in 2018, his final session before he left office. Deal spent much of his time as governor working to overhaul the criminal justice system by focusing primarily on steering more nonviolent offenders from prison cells to treatment centers.

In 2018, lawmakers passed legislation that requires judges to consider a defendant’s financial status when setting bail and allows law enforcement officers to issue citations instead of filing criminal charges for lowlevel offenses. It passed both chambers unanimously, with many of the lawmakers who voted for that measure now supporting SB 63.

Advocates say pretrial detention should not be used as punishment. They say defendants should be held in jail pending trial only if they pose a danger or are likely to flee.

Several of the lawmakers who supported Deal’s efforts but are now backing SB 63 are on a committee investigating overcrowding, backlogs and dangerous conditions at the Fulton County Jail. The committee was announced days after a report about the 10th inmate to die in custody there this year.

Robertson, who is leading the study committee, said he intends to file a joint resolution for the House and Senate to investigate jail problems across the state.

Gaines said he expects the Republican-led chambers to reach an agreement on SB 63 early next year. He said lawmakers want to prevent judges in some municipalities from being too lenient when deciding who has to pay a bond.

“We want to make sure people know that we are not a soft-on-crime state like some of these other states are,” he said.