If jail reform doesn’t tug at your heart, it will at your pocketbook

Through the years, I’ve found that the fastest way to a tough Texan’s heart is often through his or her pocketbook.

So, I won’t attempt to appeal to your sense of empathy or compassion or humanity as I write about the need for bail reform. I won’t drone on about how wrong it is, and potentially unconstitutional, to jail people simply because they’re poor and can’t pay a bond set too high. I won’t harp on how this practice disrupts lives, families, child care and jobs.

I’ll talk about cold, hard cash. Taxpayer money. Yours and mine. And how Harris County is wasting it to defend the reprehensible practices listed above.

Last week, my colleagues Lise Olsen and Mihir Zaveri reported that county commissioners agreed to hire yet another law firm to fight bail reform, this one to represent 16 county criminal court at law judges recently added to a federal lawsuit.

The lawsuit was filed in May by a group of public interest attorneys in the name of a single mother who spent two days in jail after being arrested for driving without a valid license because she couldn’t post a $2,500 bail.

The lawyers aren’t seeking cash damages. The only goal, they say, is to speed up longdelayed bail reform. In other words: to stop the county from jailing people using fixed, predetermined bail schedules and other practices that don’t take into consideration a defendant’s ability to pay or his actual risk to society.

About 70 percent of Harris County jail inmates haven’t been convicted of the crime for which they’re being held; they’re simply waiting for trial, at an average cost of $75 per person, per day. The overcrowded jail averages 8,500 people per day.

Reform — jailing only people who pose a risk — would save taxpayers money.

Yet, what is the county doing? Spending more money on lawyers to avoid a fairer, more affordable system.

The county had already paid an outside law firm $169,464 for six different lawyers, including one who charged $525 per hour and another $610 per hour, according to documents the Chronicle obtained through a Texas Public Information Act request.

Those figures only became more offensive when you consider another nugget the reporters gleaned from records: a six-month pilot program to provide defendants their own lawyers at bail hearings — now, only hearing officers and prosecutors attend — would have cost less than what the county has spent fighting such reforms.

One commissioner, Jack Cagle, said he was voting for the request for more lawyers only because County Attorney Vince Ryan recommended it.

Ryan has taken heat for his handling of the case, perhaps most recently on Twitter by Houston school trustee and former councilwoman Jolanda Jones, who urged followers to “BEWARE” of the “#FakeDemocrat” on Election Day.

“He hired a private law firm from another state 2 represent judges who set standard hi bails & PROFILED & PROSECUTED Black men in Sunnyside!” Jones tweeted.

Now, Ryan is a sensible guy who definitely sees the value of bail reform, and it’s his duty to defend the county, even if it’s up to no good.

But I asked him: what’s he thinking?

In a phone interview, he and his staff said they believe the plaintiff lawyers wouldn’t be content with the county merely reforming the bail system.

“They want to abolish money bond,” said Ryan’s special counsel, Terry O’Rourke. “We, personally, might be in favor of that, but that’s not the law.”

Ryan added: “I don’t get to be the Supreme Court as county attorney.”

Ryan pointed out that reform efforts are progressing, even if not at the pace everyone would like. He said a new pretrial services director, selected through a national search, soon will oversee implementation of a data-driven risk assessment tool developed by the Laura and John Arnold Foundation. It provides objective information that judges can use when deciding whether to release or jail a defendant before trial.

Ryan said he believes hiring another law firm to represent the judges will speed reform along by “keeping the lines of communication open” and giving the independently elected judges someone to represent their perspectives.

“It’s already improved communication,” Ryan said Friday. “Getting everybody to move forward at the same time is the challenge, but I think we’re getting there.”

But Neal Manne, of Susman Godfrey, who is representing plaintiffs in the lawsuit — for the time being, out of his own pocket — pushed back on Ryan’s explanation.

“Our lawsuit does not seek to end the entire system of money bail,” Manne said. “For anyone to say that, they’re misrepresenting what this case is about.”

He said the aim is simple: to force the county to consider a defendant’s ability to pay.

In my words: to stop the county from jailing thousands of poor people. The Arnold assessment is a good move, but so far, judges have shown little willingness to throw out the rigid bail schedules — which is what needs to happen.

Someday, justice will prevail. Reform will happen, probably through a settlement in this lawsuit.

In the meantime, county officials are prolonging the inevitable, and we’re all paying the price.