Bailing on responsibility

uomo for president” (in Spanish) said a man facing criminal charges carrying up to 96 years in prison for allegedly dealing fentanyl-laced heroin linked to at least one death.

José “Catano” Jorge certainly knows who to thank for the perversities of bail reforms the Legislature and governor concocted earlier this year.

Cash bail, the old way, is a moral wrong; it makes innocent-until-proven-guilty people’s pretrial freedom contingent on how much money is at their disposal.

But rather than eliminate it entirely, and give judges the power to order people held when they present a flight risk or are deemed dangerous to the community, the Legislature last April chose to mandate pretrial release for all but a pre-set list of offenses.

The only bail-eligible drug offense is a complex “major trafficker” charge; Catano’s four A-1 felony counts for the criminal sale of a controlled substance in the first degree mean he, starting Jan. 1, cannot be held. And so, judges are already starting to cut such accused individuals loose pretrial.

Worse for the future? Supervised release programs necessary to ensure people can await trial safely in the community are largely untested at such a large scale. The city has announced Atlas, a plan to offer free housing assistance, mentoring, job training and family counseling, but that hardly sparks confidence given how close the state is to the new law taking full effect.

Is New York locked in a cell of its own creation, or can it free itself ?