This weekend, your correspondent had the pleasure of
attending the first-ever Getting Radical
in the South Conference (GRITS – no affiliation with this blog) at the
University of Texas School of Law. The
conference gathered lawyers and activists from all over the country, but
predominantly the South, to discuss radical lawyering and organizing. While the conference covered subjects ranging
from immigration to policing to voting rights, criminal justice (or “criminal
injustice,” as some participants preferred) emerged as the major topic of the
weekend. Particularly relevant to recent
developments in Texas was a discussion on bail and fee reform.
The keynote speaker was Alec Karakatsanis, cofounder of the
nonprofit Equal Justice Under
the Law out of Washington, D.C. He
and his team of lawyers have been filing
legal challenges across the United States to local jurisdictions’ practices
of jailing people solely because they are too poor to pay bail or fees. Equal Justice has been very successful in
arguing that the Equal Protection and Due Process clauses forbid courts from
jailing indigent defendants who – for no other reason than being indigent –
cannot come up with the money to stay out of jail. So far, Equal Justice has amassed wins in Alabama,
Missouri, Mississippi, Louisiana and Tennessee, and has also filed lawsuits in
Georgia and most recently, California.
Between Mr. Karakatsanis’s group making its way westward and
through the South, the Texas Fair Defense Project’s having filed a lawsuit
last week in Austin challenging the city’s practice of jailing people for being
unable to pay fines and fees, and the ubiquitous use of bail schedules in
Texas, it is only a matter of time before Texas’s practices are also subject to
legal scrutiny. And political scrutiny
should be forthcoming as well: the Texas Judicial Council’s Criminal Justice
Committee is currently working on a study
on pretrial confinement in Texas, which will hopefully be released ahead of the
next legislative session. Pending litigation
and new policy research may create the perfect storm for meaningful bail and
fee reform in 2017.
The GRITS conference was a great success, and my only wish
is that the conference had started back when I was at UT Law 2009-2012. Major kudos go to the students and
organizations that made it happen.
Grits' note (the blogger, not the conference!): Amanda Woog, the youngest of this blog's fabulous new contributors, was first introduced to Grits readers in this podcast about her research on police shootings. Grits first met Ms. Woog when she showed up as a standout policy attorney for the House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee this past session who, as near as I can tell, impressed everyone who met her. Before that, she clerked for Judge Cheryl Johnson at the Court of Criminal Appeals and was an intern at the Office of Capital Writs during law school, so now we have someone else on the blog who can talk writs! It's going to be fun having new voices in the mix. Thank you, Amanda! I couldn't be more pleased to have you writing here.
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7 comments:
Well, nice to see someone has desided to voice against the "Just-us" system, class "C" fine only (by law) and you do 6 days in city jail ? So much for rights and "The Law".
Awesome cause with a not so awesome name. Of course, anyone with an identical nickname will adore it but, getting radical in the south has nothing to do with criminal justice and/ or reforming the rigged and rogue system that's infected the entire nation via: lobbyist and those they serve. Bringing attention to bad things is a good thing. I just wish that due credit was afforded to those that took public stands against it years ago and with great risk. Imho, Mr. Rob Fickmam should have been invited and included, as he is the Father-of-Bail reform. He earned the title when he created the Fickman Report (an open letter) and mailed it to 14 Harris County judges. While others Bloggedaboutit and left comments that they were on board, he's the one that actually did something about it. Hopefully, his lone initiative will bring him into the fray and lead the great state of Texas & beyond to finally stop utilizing certain suspects as bed-warmers in efforts to show the tough on crime folks that their class-ism war-on-the-poor is working, just fine.
When the organization takes the show on the road and say, goes north, the name will offend and confuse and cause them to add and delete letters. GRITN, GRITW, GRITE,...
Despite the obvious issues with the nickname BS, as always, I'm with those that take stands against the Rigged & Rogue to the bitter end. There's no need to wait and see what 2017 will bring or, hope that some group will come to our rescue, we 'Texans' could grow a pair today and force those that we blindly vote for, to do the right thing or, simply throw their asses to the curb with - monthly Recalls.
Thanks.
This blog and many, many other people were pushing for bail reform long before Fickman's letter. It was a good letter but speaking up in 2013 doesn't make him the "father of bail reform."
Agreed about the name, Thomas, I wasn't a fan, either. Why is it radical to support bail reform? Kentucky did it!
And fwiw, they didn't even notify me and probably aren't aware of the coincidence. I first heard about the event when Michele Deitch showed me a flyer a few days before. But I'm glad Amanda went and was interested to learn of the Karakatsanis litigation.
RE: 1:23 a.m., my own earliest writings on Harris Co. pretrial detention are linked here, and at that time there were several people - perhaps most importantly, Carol Oeller - who were mentors for me on the issue and had been fighting the good fight for years, as best they could, within a bad system. I liked Fickman's letter, too, but also agree there have been MANY important voices pushing for change for a long time, including for many dark years before I ever got involved.
It is time for them to sue DPS for those surcharges! Why doesn't some brilliant attorney file suit against DPS????
This blog and many, many other people were pushing for bail reform long before Fickman's letter. It was a good letter but speaking up in 2013 doesn't make him the "father of bail reform."
There is a big-ass difference between "speaking up" in friggin blog comment sections and actually doing something about it under ones' real name.
That takes guts & balls and Mr. Fickman brought his to the fight.
So, yes, he can be considered the Father-of-Bail Reform. If you know of someone else in need of praise for simply speaking up about it, then by all means, please consider commenting here with the names. Until then, it's Fickman's baby. Anything else is just words placed in comment sections.
Thanks.
I liked Fickman's letter, too, but also agree there have been MANY important voices pushing for change for a long time, including for many dark years before I ever got involved.
Despite not being aware of anything that Carol Oeller has actually done about it, I'm more than willing to accept her as your nomination for - one of the Founding Mothers-of-Bail-Reform & celebrate her achievements. As for the vague (MANY important voices pushing for change for a long time) as you know, we can't celebrate them and fully appreciate them, if we don't know anything about them or, their good works. Just so you and 1:23 in the AM know, it's possible for more than one human to hold the title or, term of endearment regarding Founding, Father-of / Mother-of. Fwiw, simply Commenting about it isn't the same as actually doing something about it. Since you are physically and personally involved in many, many areas of the reformation movement, as a whole, you definitely earned the Public Hero Award and definitely qualify as one of the founding fathers of criminal justice system reformation.
Now, if we could just get all of the 'parents' to co-create a Texas Bill of Bail Rights and personally take it to the governor's office this year (side stepping the US Mail route) with: the GRITS Group, Politicians of all three gangs, Criminal Defense Lawyers Associations' & Bloggers all in tow armed with pink pitch-forks raised high w/ Go-Pros attached (to show Radicalism with a touch of please don't shoot us added for safety), maybe we'll see what our Governor and Co. is made of AND, hopefully see an end to the rigged & rogue Bail Pyramid Scheme, once and for all. Basically, telling the entire State-wide System starting at the Top Man in Charge, to get its shit together or, face the avalanche of lawsuits we welcome & support from groups like – GRITS.
Thanks.
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