Victory Brings Halt to Sacramento's Discriminatory Bail System
Yesterday, Equal Justice Under Law secured a monumental victory in its lawsuit, Welchen v. Sacramento, a case challenging Sacramento’s pretrial cash bail system. Filed in 2016 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California, Welchen v. Sacramento alleged that Sacramento’s policy of charging exorbitant pretrial bail amounts without accounting for arrestees’ ability to pay was unconstitutional. The bail policy, carried about by the County of Sacramento and the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department, resulted in indigent arrestees being held in jail longer solely because they could not afford to pay their bail amounts, while wealthier arrestees charged with the exact same crimes could walk free.
This type of wealth-based detention scheme flies in the face of our nation’s constitutional guarantees that all people be treated equally in the eyes of the law and that all people charged with a crime are presumed innocent until proven guilty. These broken constitutional promises that put a price tag on freedom are exactly what Equal Justice Under Law fights to rectify in courts across the country. Welchen is one of 13 total cases that Equal Justice Under Law has brought since 2015 to challenge cash bail, a system that confines 450,000 Americans on any given day simply because they are poor. In addition to violating the rights of hundreds of thousands of Americans, cash bail systems also create jail overcrowding, lost housing and employment, severed family connections, poor sanitation and medical care, and drained local budgets.
As the first organization to file successful cash bail lawsuits in multiple states, Equal Justice Under Law is widely seen as a leader on the issue, and is committed to ending cash bail across the nation. Fortunately, the end of cash bail in Sacramento is now within reach, as U.S. District Judge Nunley issued an order yesterday (September 5, 2023) finding Sacramento’s bail schedule to be in violation of the Due Process Clause of the Constitution. Judge Nunley also enjoined the Sacramento County Sheriff and the Attorney General of California from enforcing the bail schedule or any subsequent pre-arraignment bail schedule that set specific dollar amounts for bail by reference solely to criminal charges, without allowing defendants to modify their bail amounts based on their individual ability to pay, risk of nonappearance, or threat of public safety before trial. Effectively, this ruling means that no arrestees in Sacramento will be held in jail because they cannot afford their bail amounts. It also means that Sacramento officials can no longer use their former cash bail policy without making adjustments based on the arrestee’s financial status and other individualized determinations that are far more tailored to the intended purpose of bail, such as flight risk and public safety.
There is still more work to be done in Sacramento and beyond, and Equal Justice Under Law is dedicated to leading the charge. With your help, we can build upon our victory in Sacramento, and continue the fight to ensure that no one is deprived of their liberty based on the depth of their pockets. While many of the people and systems in power maintain price tags on freedom, Equal Justice Under Law believes strongly, and the prevailing laws of our country support, that being poor is not a crime. The time is long overdue to stop the criminalization of poverty, and live up to the legal system’s promise of equal justice under law.