A years-long legal battle in which plaintiffs challenged the Dallas County cash bail system on constitutional grounds ended Monday after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review a lower court’s ruling.
The Supreme Court turned down the petition for a Writ of Certiorari that was filed in July, which means that current Dallas County bail bond procedures will remain in place.
When accused of a crime, defendants are held on a bond amount set by judges that correlates with specific criminal charges. To avoid pretrial detention, a defendant must either pay the full bond amount, which will be refunded if the defendant appears in court as required, or they can pay a nonrefundable 10% to a bail bond company that pays the full bond to the court.
Dallas County’s bail practices for pretrial detention came under scrutiny in 2018 after a group of criminal defendants filed a complaint claiming that judges were furthering a “system of wealth-based detention by imposing and enforcing secured money bail without an inquiry into and findings concerning the arrestee’s present ability to pay” despite Texas law requiring them to do so.
If they cannot pay cash bail, defendants — who are presumed innocent until proven guilty — charged with misdemeanor offenses would have to wait in detention up to 10 days for their first court appearance, while those charged with felonies might spend up to three months doing so. The complaint claimed that this is discriminatory against people of lesser means since pretrial detention allegedly correlates to increased chances that a plaintiff will plead guilty and receive a harsher sentence.
“There’s a false narrative that jailing people is what makes us safe,” claimed Dustin Rynders, legal director at the Texas Civil Rights Project, according to The Texas Tribune. “The reality is that county jails are temporary solutions until a case is addressed, and it’s just this expensive, inhumane process that continues to need to be reformed.”
A report from the Texas Commission on Jail Standards estimated that in 2022, over 70% of the state’s jail population comprised those awaiting trial. However, the vast majority were facing felony charges, while only 10% had been booked on misdemeanors.
While U.S. District Judge David Godbey sided with the plaintiffs and issued an emergency injunction giving Dallas County 30 days to amend its policies in 2019, this order was reversed by a ruling of the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in March 2023. The appeals court found that the lawsuit was moot under the bail reform enacted through SB 6 in 2021 and that federal courts did not have jurisdiction to rule on state bail bond practices.
Whether attorneys representing the plaintiffs will take the lawsuit to state court remains to be seen.
Even since SB 6 was enacted, which allowed those accused of violent crimes to post cash bail only, there have been discussions among Texas lawmakers about disallowing these defendants from being released before trial, as previously covered by The Dallas Express.
A study commissioned by Dallas Police Chief Eddie Garcia that analyzed the consequences of the “bail reform” movement championed by Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot showed that bonded-out defendants were committing crimes and being arrested again on new charges.
While certain categories of violent crime in Dallas have been on the decline, murder has remained stubbornly high, increasing by 15% year over year in 2023.
An ongoing staff shortage has inhibited the Dallas Police Department’s efforts to get the murder rate under control. It only has around 3,000 officers in the field despite a previous City analysis calling for closer to 4,000. Downtown Dallas has been especially affected by the shortage, with the neighborhood logging significantly higher crime rates than Fort Worth’s city center, which is patrolled by a specialized neighborhood police unit and private security guards.
