Massachusetts has taken bail reform to a new level, forcing law-abiding taxpayers to shoulder the added cost of springing defendants from jail at night or on weekends, when courthouses are typically closed.
Since 2002, defendants in Massachusetts who want to be released from custody after hours have forked over a $40 fee to pay for a bail commissioner or magistrate to come to a police station to approve bail transactions or release the defendants on their own recognizance.
'This shows how out of touch these politicians have become, completely severed from reality.'
However, civil rights and social justice groups have since argued that such a system has a disproportional effect on certain racial groups, the Eagle Tribune claimed, and unfairly targets those of low income.
Those arguments seem to have won the day. Last week, far-left Gov. Maura Healey signed a budget that not only doubles the fee to $80 but that shifts that cost to the Trial Court — and by extension, to state taxpayers.
"The trial court shall be responsible for paying fees charged to take bail outside of regular working hours and any fee charged under this section for a bail taken outside of regular working hours shall be charged only to the trial court. Fee splitting arrangements are prohibited," the relevant section of the budget reads in part.
After fronting the $80 cost, bail commissioners or magistrates will then bill the Trial Court for reimbursement. Massachusetts lawmakers have already earmarked $4.8 million in the fiscal year 2025 budget to cover these costs.
Trial Court spokeswoman Jennifer Donahue believes that this arrangement is much more just for alleged offenders, telling the Eagle Tribune that it lifts the "financial burden from the individuals who can least afford it."
Donahue also noted that the change will likely encourage remote arraignments, further alleviating the inconveniences suffered by the accused. Remote hearings "shorten the time that individuals are held in custody, especially in rural areas, where traveling to the custodial facility could require an hour or more of travel," she claimed.
MassFiscal spokesman Paul Craney disagrees, noting that the system is already overrun and that the $4.8 million allocated for the new policy could be better spent elsewhere. "The state budget has become so bloated, and lawmakers are abusing the taxpayers to such a degree, that now Statehouse politicians think it’s ok to have taxpayers fund bail," Craney told Blaze News.
"This shows how out of touch these politicians have become, completely severed from reality."
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The mainstream media continues to gaslight Americans about the truth regarding Vice President Kamala Harris and her track record of supporting far-left causes.
As Blaze News previously reported, many outlets have tried to say that Harris was never the designated border czar of the Biden administration, even though she tweeted in April 2021 that Biden had asked her "to lead our diplomatic work with Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras" and "to address the situation at the southern border."
The supposedly nonpartisan government accountability group GovTrack also scrubbed a page from its website listing Harris as the "most liberal" member of the U.S. Senate in 2019, when Harris was still a senator from California.
Now, some outlets are attempting to obscure Harris' record once again, this time about her support for the Minnesota Freedom Fund, a nonprofit that posted bail for violent rioters in the wake of George Floyd's death in 2020.
"If you’re able to, chip in now to the @MNFreedomFund to help post bail for those protesting on the ground in Minnesota," Harris posted on June 1, 2020, to her personal account on the platform then known as Twitter.
The tweet has never been taken down, and a similar post to Harris' personal Facebook account likewise remains active.
CBS News claimed former President Donald Trump recently made 'misleading' statements regarding Harris and the fund. The Minnesota Recorder said Trump was 'distorting' the truth 'to attack Kamala Harris.'
Two weeks after issuing those posts, she hinted on an appearance with late-night host Stephen Colbert that she knew many protesters had engaged in violence but that she still supported their actions. "Everyone beware because they're not gonna stop," she told Colbert. "... Everyone should take note of that, on both levels, that they're not going to let up — and they should not. And we should not."
"This is a movement."
But four years later, now that Joe Biden has dropped his bid for a second term in the Oval Office and Harris has all but locked up the Democratic nomination for the 2024 presidential election, the media is once again running interference on behalf of Harris, trying hard to nuance her support for the Minnesota Freedom Fund.
CBS News claimed former President Donald Trump recently made "misleading" statements regarding Harris and the fund. The Minnesota Recorder said Trump was "distorting" the truth to "attack Kamala Harris."
But of course, the Minnesota Freedom Fund did ultimately collect some $41 million, a small percentage of which was used to bail out protesters, violent or otherwise. According to Fox News, the vast majority of the group's funds were actually spent bailing out other violent suspects, including a man with a criminal record who went on to murder a man just a few weeks after the fund sprang him from jail.
On August 5, 2021, George Howard, a then-48-year-old man with a criminal record, was arrested in connection with an alleged domestic assault. Thanks to bond money from the Minnesota Freedom Fund, however, Howard was back out on the streets less than a week later.
By August 29, he was back behind bars, this time for gunning down 38-year-old Luis Damian Martinez Ortiz following a road-rage incident that took place along I-94 in Minneapolis. Howard later pled guilty and is currently serving a 15-year sentence.
In September 2021, Minnesota Freedom Fund acknowledged on social media its role in releasing Howard from jail on the domestic violence charge. "We are aware of reports of the tragic and fatal shooting in Minneapolis earlier this week allegedly involving George Howard, an individual the Minnesota Freedom Fund had previously provided with bail support," the group wrote.
"MFF believes that every individual who has been arrested by the law enforcement is innocent until proven guilty, and if a judge deems them eligible for bail, they should not have to wait in jail simply because they don’t have the same income or access to resources as others."
That tweet thread has since been deleted.
The Minnesota Freedom Fund also denies that Harris has ever been heavily involved with it. "We have no connection to Harris or her campaign beyond this four-year-old tweet that is occasioning all of this additional interest in our organization," spokesperson Noble Frank told MPR News.
The Harris campaign declined CBS News' request for comment.
As of Friday afternoon, the link in Harris' posts about the Minnesota Freedom Fund is still live and directs users to an ActBlue site with the title "Kamala Harris for the People" emblazoned across the top. Any donations made to the page "will help post bail for those protesting on the ground in Minnesota," the website says.
ActBlue is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that describes itself as "a powerful online fundraising platform for Democratic candidates up and down the ballot, progressive organizations, and nonprofits."
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An illegal immigrant accused of causing the car crash that killed a Washington state trooper has had his bail drastically reduced, thanks in part to his defense team, which argued he isn't a flight risk.
The case involves Raul Benitez Santana, a 33-year-old Mexican national who has been living in the U.S. illegally for more than a decade. On March 2, Santana drove the vehicle that slammed into a patrol vehicle parked on the shoulder of southbound I-5 near Marysville, Washington, about 40 miles north of Seattle.
Gadd's widow, Cammryn Gadd, countered that reducing Santana's bail 'would not only undermine the severity of the crime but also inflict further anguish and distress upon me, our child, and the rest of our family.'
Trooper Christopher Gadd, 27, a two-year veteran of the Washington State Patrol, was sitting inside the police vehicle at the time of the crash. He was pronounced dead at the scene, leaving behind a wife and a 2-year-old daughter, Blaze News previously reported.
Santana has a series of traffic-related misdemeanor convictions, including driving on a suspended license. In the hours following the crash that killed Gadd, Santana admitted that he had smoked marijuana and consumed two beers the previous evening. Evidence also suggests that he was driving erratically and was speeding along at 112 mph seconds before striking Gadd's vehicle.
An attorney for Santana previously argued that the crash was a tragic accident that occurred because Gadd was sitting in a vehicle with no lights on.
Santana was arrested and charged with vehicular homicide and vehicular assault. He was then booked into Snohomish County Jail and assessed a bail of $1 million.
Last week, however, Emily Hancock and Tiffany Mecca, Santana's attorneys, filed motions to reduce their client's bail. They argued that Santana has three children and steady employment as a mechanic. They also noted that he has the support of other family members who live elsewhere in the state.
"If released, his parents will welcome him back into their home," the attorneys wrote. "He is not a flight risk."
Gadd's widow, Cammryn Gadd, countered that reducing Santana's bail "would not only undermine the severity of the crime but also inflict further anguish and distress upon me, our child, and the rest of our family."
On Friday, Snohomish County Superior Court Judge Richard Okrent sided with the defense and agreed to reduce Santana's bail to $100,000, just a tenth of the original amount. Deputy prosecutor Tobin Darrow soon afterward claimed to be "very disappointed" with that decision.
Hancock and Mecca, on the other hand, cheered it. "Mr. Benitez-Santana is a long-time member of our community, and Washington State is undeniably his home," they wrote in an email statement. "The court did the right thing when it upheld the laws and policies of the State of Washington and lowered bail in this case."
Hancock and Mecca do harbor one concern though. After Santana's arrest, ICE issued an immigration detainer for him. Should Santana pay bail and be released, they fear that federal immigration agents might detain him and perhaps even deport him back to Mexico.
"The United States and Washington State Constitutions unequivocally guarantee all individuals in our country the presumption of innocence and the right to a fair trial. It is imperative that no government entity, including [U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service], be allowed to circumvent these fundamental rights," they said.
Darrow told HeraldNet he hopes that, even with the immigration detainer, federal agents would permit Santana to face justice in Snohomish County.
As of Wednesday afternoon, Santana remains in custody at the county jail.
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Curtis James Jackson III, better known as 50 Cent, denounced Los Angeles' recent decision to reinstate its zero-bail policy, noting the city will be adversely impacted.
The affluent musician and self-described "born-again Christian" shared a KTTV-TV report to Instagram Thursday, which detailed the immediate consequences of the May reinstatement of the zero-bail policy.
Los Angeles County Deputy DA John McKinney can be heard in the shared report noting that the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department will no longer "detain people for crimes such as theft, shoplifting, drug use, vandalism, battery, and a whole host of other non-serious, nonviolent crimes that affect the quality of life for people here in Los Angeles."
Additionally, McKinney indicated many suspected criminals would be released without posting bail.
50 Cent captioned the post, "LA is finished," adding, "Watch how bad it gets out there."
The policy was introduced during the pandemic to purportedly reduce crowding in city jails and mitigate the spread of COVID-19, reported KTTV.
Although scrapping bail for all detained suspects awaiting trial is popular with Democrat politicians and other radical leftists, Californians overwhelmingly rejected it when it was brought to a vote in the form of Proposition 25 in 2020.
The LAPD also took issue with the policy, noting that in the first 30 days of its enactment in 2020, police had arrested 213 individuals multiple times, with 23 being arrested three or more times, reported the Los Angeles times.
Although the pandemic-era policy came to an end last summer, Philip Urquidi — who sued the city, the Los Angeles Police Department, and others after being held in jail on $20,000 bail and a vandalism charge — was joined by other former detainees in a class action lawsuit seeking a permanent injunction to prohibit the LASD and LAPD "from enforcing the money bail schedules as the sole means of determining whether arrestees are or are not released before they are brought before a judge."
Despite an imploration by Superior Court Judge Lawrence Riff, LAPD Chief Michael Moore, LASD Sheriff Robert Luna, and Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon reportedly elected not to testify in opposition to the injunction.
"The Department is aware of the preliminary injunction regarding the cash bail system, and of course will comply with any court-ordered bail schedule. The County is also working with the court and other stakeholders to explore ways to reduce the number of people held before arraignment because they can't afford bail and to provide the Sheriff greater release options to safely reduce the jail population, while always prioritizing public safety," said the LASD in a statement about the ruling," reported KABC-TV.
The court ultimately granted the preliminary injunction, and the zero-bail policy went into effect again on May 24.
Riff said after issuing the injunction that holding a possible criminal in jail because they cannot pay likely violates their constitutional rights, calling the practice "a clear, pervasive and serious constitutional violation."
Salil Dudani, the lead attorney in the lawsuit, said, "We're supposed to have a presumption of innocence in this country. It's not much of a presumption of innocence when you're in a jail cell."
A study published earlier this year comparing California repeat offenders who posted bail with those kicked loose without posting bail indicated that those in the latter camp reoffended more often, reoffended sooner after release, and committed 200 times more violent crimes, reported Fox News Digital.
Yolo County District Attorney Jeff Reisig, whose office published the study, concluded that "zero bail is a completely failed policy. ... It's just going to make everything more dangerous."
The report revealed that suspects released without bail were "rearrested on 163% more charges than those who posted bail, and they reoffended 70% more often. These reoffenses resulted in felony charges 90% more often – and they were accused of three times as many crimes."
"We saw violent crime going up as soon as zero bail was implemented in our county by court order," Reisig told Fox News Digital. "And despite all of our best efforts to try and stop the practice, we were forced to continue to do the zero-bail system, and we saw our communities suffer as a result."
Sean Kennedy, the director of policy at the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund, noted in a Chicago Sun-Times piece concerning the possible ruin in store for Illinois upon eliminating cash bail, "Money bail provides a strong incentive for the accused to comply — appear and stay out of trouble — on the pain of forfeiture. And in fact, most bailees don’t post the money themselves, instead relying on friends and family to pay the bond amount and bear the risk of forfeiture."
"These third parties are effectively vouching for the accused with their pocketbooks. It also creates a reinforcing system of accountability to comply with the court. If a defendant knows their grandparents might forfeit their life savings if he no-shows or re-offends, he might think twice," added Kennedy.
In addition to the Yolo study, Kennedy cited a Department of Justice study that found that a defendant's failure to appear to a hearing and/or trial was more likely among cases with a defendant released on recognizance than among cases with a defendant released on bail.
The study indicated that even "bail between $50 and $500 lowered the likelihood of [failure to appear] compared to the 17-percent predicted probability" of failure to appear for released on recognizance cases."
According to Neighborhood Scout, the likelihood of becoming a victim of a violent crime in Los Angeles is 1 in 135. The chance of becoming a victim of a property crime is 1 in 41.
These stats are liable to drastically change in short order if 50 Cent's prediction turns out to be true.
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Harris wants to continue on her “progressive” path and forget about enforcing the laws passed by a democratically elected legislature, while ignoring threats to public safety.
Vice President Kamala Harris’ political history proves that putting her in power is a bad move that hurts Americans.
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