A cadre of civil rights teams introduced a lawsuit late Wednesday difficult Riverside County’s use of money bail to detain folks as they await trial, citing squalid circumstances contained in the county’s jails the place dozens of inmates have died in recent times.
The category-action swimsuit is the newest to problem the legality of money bail methods in California after a 2021 state Supreme Courtroom ruling discovered it’s unconstitutional to jail defendants solely due to their lack of ability to pay their approach out from behind bars.
“Day by day, Riverside County imprisons folks based mostly on nothing greater than their lack of ability to pay an arbitrary, pre-set amount of money that Defendants demand for his or her launch,” attorneys for the civil rights teams argue within the 80-page criticism. “These people should not detained as a result of they’re too harmful to launch: The federal government would launch them immediately if they might pay. They’re detained just because they’re too poor to buy their freedom.”
The swimsuit was introduced by the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit Civil Rights Corps, Public Justice in Oakland and several other different regulation companies on behalf of two folks incarcerated in Riverside County jails and two native religion leaders. It names as defendants the Riverside County Sheriff’s Division, Sheriff Chad Bianco, the Riverside County Superior Courtroom system and the county.
Lt. Deirdre Vickers, a Sheriff’s Division spokesperson, stated she couldn’t touch upon pending litigation, as did a consultant for the county court docket system.
Brooke Federico, the county’s communications director, stated the county had “not but been served with this lawsuit, and any feedback can be untimely.”
Whereas the swimsuit argues that cash bail is unconstitutional throughout California and seeks an injunction ending its use, attorneys stated they’re specializing in Riverside County following a spate of deaths within the jails in 2022. That yr, Riverside County recorded 18 inmate fatalities, the very best quantity in a decade.
The next yr, California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta, a Democrat, opened what stays an ongoing investigation into complaints about residing circumstances within the county jails and allegations that deputies use extreme power in opposition to detainees.
Inmate deaths have fallen since 2022. The county reported 13 jail fatalities in 2023 and 6 final yr, in line with Vickers.
Bianco — a law-and-order conservative who has joined a crowded area of Democrats to succeed Gov. Gavin Newsom within the 2026 election — has beforehand dismissed the state’s investigation into his jails as politically motivated. Bianco maintains that the jail deaths, lots of which authorities attribute to drug overdoses and suicides, are a mirrored image of the inmates’ life selections relatively than an indication of any drawback with the jail system.
In a press release launched by his marketing campaign Thursday, Bianco defended the money bail system and stated he would oppose any efforts to eradicate it.
“The professional-criminal foyer has tried for years to destroy the bail system, which has labored as meant since our nation was based,” Bianco stated. “I’ll by no means assist a zero-bail system that places our residents in danger. If criminals don’t wish to pay bail, I’d advise them to cease breaking the regulation.”
The money bail system has deep roots within the U.S. as a method of pressuring defendants to point out up for scheduled court docket appearances. Attend trial, and the sizable money funds are returned to you or your loved ones; skip court docket, and also you forfeit your deposit.
Critics argue it successfully creates a two-tiered justice system, permitting rich defendants to pay their approach out whereas awaiting trial, and leaving low-income defendants caught behind bars. Proponents of eliminating the bail system contend that selections about whether or not to jail defendants forward of trial needs to be based mostly on the severity of their crimes and the chance they pose to public security, and never hinge on their earnings standing.
Brian Hardingham, a senior legal professional with Public Justice, stated folks typically spend days in jail awaiting their first court docket look, just for a prosecutor to say no to file a case offered by native police. That stint behind bars can have an outsize impact on folks’s lives, particularly if they’re low-income, Hardingham stated.
“You meet folks with 6-month-old children in jail who, in the event that they’re fortunate, there’s a companion or a mother or father or somebody who can watch their children,” he stated, including that even a quick stretch in a county jail can lead to folks dropping their job, car or their residence.
Supporters of the money bail system, together with many regulation enforcement teams, say that removing it could depart too many defendants free to probably flee and re-offend, resulting in crime spikes.
The difficulty grew more and more controversial in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, when the virus unfold with lethal penalties by means of the state’s jails and prisons. Los Angeles County instituted a zero-bail coverage for many offenses in 2020, attempting to scale back jail crowding at a time when the virus was spreading quickly. That coverage was rescinded in June 2022.
Regardless of issues from police teams, a 2023 report back to the L.A. County Board of Supervisors confirmed re-arrest and failure-to-appear charges remained comparatively static amongst these freed pre-trial whereas the zero-bail coverage was in place.
The same lawsuit to the one filed in opposition to Riverside County prompted Los Angeles County court docket officers to revise their bail insurance policies in 2023. Beneath the brand new system, the overwhelming majority of defendants accused of misdemeanors or nonviolent felonies at the moment are cited and launched, or freed underneath specified circumstances after a decide opinions their case. Defendants accused of significant offenses, together with homicide, manslaughter, rape and most kinds of assault, nonetheless face a stiff money bail schedule.
Fears that the brand new system would end in against the law spike haven’t been borne out. Whole crime in areas patrolled by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Division fell by about 2% in 2024, the primary calendar yr the lowered bail coverage was in place, in line with division information. The town of Los Angeles has seen important decreases within the variety of robberies, property crimes and aggravated assaults dedicated this yr, as of mid-Could, information present.
Given the 2021 state Supreme Courtroom ruling and the adjustments in Los Angeles, Hardingham stated he’s hopeful different counties will shift their bail insurance policies with out having to interact in a court docket struggle.
“We might hope that they might be keen to see the writing on the wall and make the adjustments which might be mandatory,” he stated.
