NWA LETTERS

Judges falling short on pretrial releases

Our Northwest Arkansas Democrat- Gazette’s Dec. 23 “Jailhouse woes” editorial describes those of us who advocate against any new county jail beds as “obstacles to the solutions favored by the majority.” The only genuine poll of the public on this substantial issue was delivered on Nov. 8 when 63% of the citizens of Benton County and nearly 59% of Washington County voted “against” the effort to greatly expand the number of county jail beds.

The editors go on to imply that advocates for no-new-jail beds see the judicial release decision as “a simple business.” What the editors ignore is that Arkansas Justice Reform Coalition has routinely asserted (a) poverty should not be the sole reason a person charged with a crime, but not yet convicted, should have their liberty denied; and (b) that the implementation of a pretrial services for the courts would allow judges to more comfortably authorize “own recognizance” release with confidence the individuals are working with a case manager to navigate the issues that brought them to our system of justice in the first instance. The goals are both accountability for the offense presently charged and reducing recidivism.

Most importantly, what the editorial writers further ignore is that these same judges are not following the law of Arkansas when it comes to making pretrial release decisions. Consider that the law of Arkansas governing judges states at Rule 9.2 of the Arkansas Rules of Criminal Procedure, “Release on Money Bail: (a) The judicial officer shall set money bail only after he determines that no other conditions will reasonably ensure the appearance of the defendant in court.” Since the Democrat-Gazette routinely has a member of its news staff at court proceedings, it can be safely assumed they are aware our judges automatically default to money bond, and never make inquiry of pretrial detainees to identify nonmonetary conditions that could be imposed.

When will the editors and reporters of the Democrat-Gazette follow this story where it leads? Will they have the force of will to call out our area judges and demand that these judges follow the law — including Rule 9.2. The Democrat-Gazette tells us every day that it adheres to its published “Statement of core values” — part and parcel of which is the insistence that they report not just what they know, “but uncover” the truth by following “the story wherever it leads.”

I challenge the Democrat-Gazette to fully investigate and confirm to the public that our judges routinely are not following the law of Arkansas when it comes to pretrial release decisions. This paper’s willingness to shed light on this unlawful practice may likely incentivize judges to abandon their age-old routine of automatically defaulting to a monetary bail, and will make the general citizenry better understand the role that judges’ decision-making plays in impacting current jail overcrowding.

EMMA BARBER Rogers

Editor’s note: Mention of the “majority” in the Dec. 23 editorial referred to the 11-4 vote of the Quorum Court to support a jail expansion in Washington County. The editorial lacked clarity on that reference.