Major Win for Bail Reform in Michigan
On July 12, 2022, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Michigan, NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund, the law firm of Covington & Burling LLP, and the Bail Project entered into a class action settlement agreement with Michigan’s 36th District Court to reform the state’s bail system. The agreement resolves a federal lawsuit filed in April 2019 on behalf of seven Black Detroit residents who were jailed, without any criminal conviction, because of their inability to afford bail. The settlement ensures that no person will be detained unless a court determines, after reviewing the evidence presented, that the person is a flight risk or poses a danger to the community.
The settlement agreement is a crucial step towards addressing the economic and racial implications of the U.S. carceral system. Although a growing number of state legislatures are working to reform their respective bail systems, the practice of setting and imposing bail, particularly cash bail, in the U.S. continues to disproportionately affect poor people of color. According to the Prison Policy Initiative, over 400,000 people in the United States are detained pretrial despite being legally innocent; and many of these individuals are subject to pretrial detention because of their inability to afford money bail. According to the organization, the median felony bail bond of $10,000 is the equivalent of eight months’ income for the typical detained defendant.
A recent report from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights noted that stark disparities in pre-trial detention exist in regards to socioeconomic status, race, and gender. The report specified that research consistently shows that Black and Latinx individuals, particularly those who are male, experience higher rates of pretrial detention and lower rates of being released on recognizance bonds or other non-financial conditions. Further, Black and Latinx people are likely to have higher bail amounts imposed against them than white individuals, even when controlling for offense and criminal history.
The disparate impact that cash bail systems have on poor people of color is of particular interest to the work of attorneys at Equal Justice Under the Law who aim to systematically end the criminalization of poverty in the United States. As a civil rights organization that works to fight wealth discrimination in the criminal justice system, Equal Justice Under Law remains committed to achieving effective bail reform through legal action. In addition to winning a federal lawsuit challenging San Francisco’s cash bail system, the organization continues to pursue legal battles addressing unconstitutional bail structures and the use of pretrial fees imposed against indigent defendants throughout the country. Similar to the civil rights advocacy groups that achieved the Michigan settlement agreement, through its own legal efforts, Equal Justice Under Law ultimately seeks to end the enforcement of a two-tiered legal system that is not based on fairness, justice, and public safety, but rather on a person’s ability to pay to stay out of jail.