With suit filed, effort to reform bail system seeks community input
Sandra Thompson, a University of Houston law professor, has spent hundreds of dollars bailing her cousin out of jail for minor offenses.
“I get steamed under the collar when I think about this issue,” Thompson said. “I’m really mad and I’m ready to see some change.”
Thompson and other community members gathered Saturday at the Thurgood Marshall School of Law at Texas Southern University to suggest potential solutions to a system in Harris County that they say unfairly keeps people who can’t afford bail in jail for nonviolent crimes.
“You have a system that gets it wrong all across the spectrum,” Thompson said. “You got low-risk people stuck in jail because they’re poor. You got high-risk people getting out because they’re rich.”
The discussion comes on the heels of a lawsuit filed in May by a nonprofit civil rights organization against Harris County on behalf of a young woman, Maranda ODonnell, who was arrested
“I get steamed under the collar when I think about this issue. ... I’m ready to see some change.” Sandra Thompson
for driving without a valid license, then jailed for two days in May when she was unable to pay $2,500 bail. The lawsuit states “the court should require an inquiry into and findings concerning an arrestee’s ability to pay” before they impose “a financial condition on an arrestee’s pretrial release.”
On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Lee Rosenthal heard arguments in the case. Sheriff Ron Hickman and five Harris County hearing officers also are listed as defendants in the lawsuit. Rosenthal questioned whether pursuing Hickman and the hearing officers as defendants was the right course of action, and gave ODonnell’s attorneys a week to decide whether they should add judges as defendants because they set bail. New screening process
In May, Harris County officials announced they would add a new screening process to help figure out which defendants awaiting trial could be let go without paying bail. The Houston Chronicle also published an investigative report that showed 55 pretrial detainees died in Harris County custody between 2009-2015, and some of them had misdemeanor offenses.
Community leaders at the meeting on Saturday said the ongoing lawsuit would be one solution regarding the bail reform issue, but also urged local court officials to assess the risk of the individual when setting bail. In Harris County, the average bail is between $500 and $5,000 for misdemeanors.
“If someone is taken to jail on a minor, nonviolent offense like trespassing or theft, bail shouldn’t be determined by a sched- ule that doesn’t consider risk or ability to pay,” said Mary Moreno, a representative from Texas Organizing Project, a nonprofit advocacy group for lowincome people in Houston. Bail reform needed
Moreno announced the group’s new campaign Saturday to decriminalize poverty in Houston. The group seeks to reform the criminal justice system in Harris County and one of its initiatives concerns bail reform.
“For those living paycheck to paycheck, two or three days of being in jail means losing hours at work and can start a domino effect of unfortunate events that can cause serious financial hardships taking months or years to recover from,” she said.
Moreno also stressed the importance of not jailing people for being unable to pay traffic tickets. She said other options could be community service, payment plans and the deduction of fines.
The conversation Saturday at TSU’s law school became heated and personal when it turned to people of color getting pulled over by police. The tragic saga of Sandra Bland, the woman pulled over in her car by a Texas Department of Safety trooper, jailed and three days later found hanging in her Waller County jail cell in July 2015, was noted as an example.
Thompson said people jailed for non-violent crimes are so desperate to get out, that they sometimes turn to other ways to solve their problem.
“What do they do to get out?” Thompson said. “Sometimes they kill themselves — think Sandra Bland.” Lise Olsen contributed to this report.