For more than a decade, most felony judges in Harris County, Tx., told magistrates to deny no-cash bail to all newly arrested defendants, in apparent violation of state judicial conduct rules, the Houston Chronicle reports. Documents obtained by the newspaper include charts with explicit instructions from 31 district judges to reject all requests for no-cash bonds when defendants made initial appearances in court. Records and testimony show that misdemeanor judges also routinely told magistrates for years to decline personal bonds, which allow a person to gain pre-trial release from jail without posting cash bail. The previously undisclosed bail and bond instructions, which surfaced during disciplinary hearings against three magistrates, appear to corroborate longstanding complaints from criminal justice activists that the county’s bail system deprived defendants of a fair chance at pre-trial liberty.
County Commissioner Rodney Ellis, a former state senator who authored the law requiring prompt hearings and appointed lawyers for indigent defendants, said the newfound evidence illuminates a problem that has festered for years. “For too long, Harris County has had two systems of justice – one for those who have money and another, more punitive system for those without money,” he said. The county’s bail system was upended by a federal court order last year requiring no-cash bail for qualified misdemeanor defendants who couldn’t afford to get out of jail. Judge Michael McSpadden said he had a no-bond policy for magistrates for at least a dozen years because he didn’t trust lower-level jurists not to make errors. Almost everybody we see here has been tainted in some way before we see them,” he said. “They’re not good risks.”