Our local small town paper had an article several weeks ago about a 'Local man dead after dispute.' The police say it was a domestic dispute turned deadly. When they police arrived they were able to make an arrest. The woman was arrested for murder, and other weapons charges, along with aggravated assault and possession of tools for the commission of a crime. She was released on her own recognizance. Guess our town wants to be the next Chicago or NYC.

Unfortunately, Houston is rife with this. A lot of it is a Soros funded DA, Kim Ogg, for largest county in metropolitan area, but other counties have liberal district attorneys and judges giving low/no bail for murder. A few horrific outcomes after release:

Colostomy bag proceeds to kill off the witnesses

Shit stain proceeds to kill a LEO

Puss bucket released from one county in Houston metropolitan area proceeds to commit murder in 2nd county and once again released.

It's gotten so bad, TX Gov Abbott came to Houston this month and gave a speech with every branch of LEO standing behind him.

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Ego is the anesthesia that deadens the pain of stupidity

DISCLAIMER: These are the author's own personal views and do not represent the views of the author's employer.

You know just because someone is arrested for something... seems like I heard somewhere... that does not mean they are guilty.... and I've noticed that often when arrested there are multiple charges.... from weapons charges, 'tools for the commission of a crime (what is that?)... to not wiping properly....

^^ Agree. However, bail should be set to insure they show up for trial, and should be set to match the crime's impact on society (e.g. murder worse than mj possession so higher bail).

It's a complex issue and they have liberalized the entire process from arrest to trial to jail/prison (i.e. low/no bail for murder is just a part of the problem).

Here in the Houston Metropolitan Area:

The Harris County district attorney campaigned on bail "reform" for minor offenses like mj possession so a poor person wouldn't be in jail until their trial while a rich person would be in society a few hours after arrest. Most people are aligned with this including me. However, as soon as elected bail "reform" expanded to murder and low (e.g. $1000) and no (i.e. ROR) bail became normal.

They're not revoking bail when they fail their bail conditions. In other words, there are conditions for the person remaining in society, the person fails to abide, and seemingly no matter what the failure was their bail isn't revoked. We're not talking about missing curfew by 1 minute, we're talking about being arrested for committing more crimes and typically they have a gun. In one instance for Houston murders on no/low bail, the person has been arrested 9 times while on low/no bail.

Illegal immigration. Someone here illegally doesn't have the same ties to the community so less likely to show up for their trial. If an arrestee has ties to two or more communities including another country, why are they being given low/no bail?

Central American gangs such as MS13. The murders are ancillary to organized crime drug business not just illegal immigration. They tattoo their international gang affiliation on their face, why are they being given low/no bail?

The largest county in Houston is Harris County and Public Mental Health has pared back to 274 inpatient beds and everything else outpatient (2.3M people in county, 7.2M people in metropolitan area). Now, two entire floors of Harris County jail are mental health patients who have been arrested. Some get better with meds, are released, go off their meds, and are immediately rearrested. The liberalization of mental health has creating an overall space crisis for criminals and they aren't building new prisons.

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Ego is the anesthesia that deadens the pain of stupidity

DISCLAIMER: These are the author's own personal views and do not represent the views of the author's employer.

Mixed feelings on this subject.

First, an arrest or criminal charge is not a finding of guilt, only a finding of probable cause. The subject remains innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

Second, protection of the public is a valid concern, as evidenced by the Constitution's "reasonable bail" provisions.

The evolution of "reasonable bail" has taken place over many years. Some jurisdictions used standard bail schedules, requiring every person charged with a particular offense to post the same bail for release pending trial. Many jurisdictions have focused on "reasonable", i.e.: a defendant with home, family, and/or business interests in the community was considered a lesser risk than a transient with no significant connections to the community; or a person with large financial resources and facing serious punishment was considered a greater flight risk than one having lesser resources or facing less serious potential punishments.

Some jurisdictions developed enhanced bail requirements for those with histories of failing to appear, flight to avoid prosecution, prior criminal convictions, or alleged offenses while on probation, parole, or on bail status.

The more recent arguments have centered on the obvious disparities, arguing that the "system" favored the wealthy over the poor, or that particular groups were adversely affected by the prevailing rules or practices.

In my mind, these factors support a standard bail schedule applying to all defendants simply as a matter of objective fairness and equity. This does not overcome the arguments of "rich vs. poor", adverse affects on minority populations, etc., but appears to be the best possible compromise within the plain language of the Constitution.

My 2 cents worth.

quote:

Originally posted by tatortodd:
* The Harris County district attorney campaigned on bail "reform" for minor offenses like mj possession so a poor person wouldn't be in jail until their trial while a rich person would be in society a few hours after arrest. Most people are aligned with this including me.

How about this? If the poor person doesn't want to spend the night in jail, maybe the poor person shouldn't get arrested for marijuana possession. Just a thought....

This is nothing but class warfare, pitting "the rich" against "the poor". I don't care who you are, you do the crime you do the time...or you pay.

Used to be, at least around here (and maybe it still is), that you got "paid" for jail time. So, for minor offenses, you either paid the fine outright, or spent X number of days in jail. Bail isn't any different IMO. If you can pay it, great. If you can't, you get deloused and clothed in a nice jumpsuit. If you don't want either, well then...there's a really simple solution to that problem.

quote:

Originally posted by Gustofer:

quote:

Originally posted by tatortodd:
* The Harris County district attorney campaigned on bail "reform" for minor offenses like mj possession so a poor person wouldn't be in jail until their trial while a rich person would be in society a few hours after arrest. Most people are aligned with this including me.

How about this? If the poor person doesn't want to spend the night in jail, maybe the poor person shouldn't get arrested for marijuana possession. Just a thought....

This is nothing but class warfare, pitting "the rich" against "the poor". I don't care who you are, you do the crime you do the time...or you pay.

Used to be, at least around here (and maybe it still is), that you got "paid" for jail time. So, for minor offenses, you either paid the fine outright, or spent X number of days in jail. Bail isn't any different IMO. If you can pay it, great. If you can't, you get deloused and clothed in a nice jumpsuit. If you don't want either, well then...there's a really simple solution to that problem.

Too simplistic.
1. Innocent until proven guilty is a core tenet of our judicial system. Bail is for people arrested who haven't had their day in court.
2. You have to factor in how backed up the court system is. If it takes a person months or years to get their trial, it's ridiculous to spend more time in jail leading up to trial than the maximum sentence for the crime. That's why I'm OK with low/no bail on minor expenses but ramping up the bail amount for both severity of offenses (i.e. being charged with crimes that carry longer prison time) and flight risk.

They've really made a mess (much of it intentional in the Saul Alinsky overwhelm the system motif) of the criminal justice system, and then shot it in both feet with all of the COVID shutdowns.

Also, to be clear when I said I'm aligned with it I meant what I've written above. As usual, I'm appalled by the political double talk including bait and switch, and the media lapdogs not calling them out during the election (i.e. they should've been pushing them to clarify which crimes were low/no bail so it wasn't the surprise on murder).

It's even simpler than that. The old system, with all it's faults, sort of works. The new system, everywhere they're trying it, is failing miserably.

Unfortunately common sense does not apply.

There's a certain portion of our society that choose ignore facts, ignore history. "It has never worked? We're gonna do it anyway!"

quote:

Originally posted by cas:
There's a certain portion of our society that choose ignore facts, ignore history. "It has never worked? We're gonna do it anyway!"

And if you call them on it, they will say that the reason it's never worked is because the wrong people were in charge of it.

Just this past week had a resident of a nearby town arrested on a charge of attempted murder by shooting someone while out on bond for another attempted murder charge .... until it comes knocking on their own personal door they do not care about the rest of us but then they cannot do anything because of their new social justice procedures they cannot do anything. ... drill sgt.