City’s cash bond changes called ‘a step backwards’

Court unveils revisions, but rights group says they don’t fix problems.

The Atlanta Municipal Court’s proposal to end the city’s practice of jailing poor residents who commit petty offenses like jaywalking and panhandling came under fire Wednesday from a prominent civil rights group that said it could make the problem worse.

Sarah Geraghty, managing attorney at the Southern Center for Human Rights, said city officials may have had good intentions in pushing to reform the cash bail system. But she called the policy that has emerged “extremely ill-advised.”

“This is a step backwards,” Geraghty said. “It will lead to more money-based, pre-trial detention for minor offenses, not less.”

The dust-up follows reports that several homeless men spent months in the crowded Fulton County Jail because they couldn’t afford to get out. One man was charged with disorderly conduct after yelling at gas station patrons while smeared in his own feces; another was holding a cardboard sign reading “homeless, please

help.” The Southern Center filed legal challenges for both men, arguing that higher courts have ruled repeatedly that people cannot be held in jail before trial simply because they are too poor to pay fees or fines.

Atlanta’s new mayor, Keisha Lance Bottoms, has thrown her political clout behind fixing the problem, making it among her first initiatives since taking office earlier this month.

In an interview with The Atlanta Journal Constitu- tion this week, Bottoms said she wants to eliminate cash bonds for city ordinance violations and many traf- fic offenses so that offend- ers can be released on their own recognizance — or a sig- nature bond — rather than waiting in jail at taxpayer expense for their cases to be resolved.

The mayor’s proposal sailed through a city hall committee.

On Wednesday, the Atlanta Municipal Court took the wraps off its own version, which closely mirrors the mayor’s. Court officials also said Wednesday they were revising their bail schedule.

The court said in a news release the updated proce- dures would “ensure its con- tinued commitment to public safety, fairness and justice.”

According to the new pol- icy, defendants would be given signature bonds and released from jail until they go to court to resolve their cases if they are charged with “new non-violent state traffic and/or city ordinance offenses that do not pose a significant public safety threat.” The policy says anyone charged with “new offenses posing a significant risk to the public and/or themselves” will have to go before a judge and ask for bail, which could be a cash bond or released on their own recognizance. That’s one of the prob- lems, Geraghty said. “The policy does not require the use of signa- ture bonds in any case,” Geraghty said. “Even for the most minor offenses, there is still discretion to detain people only because they cannot pay small bail amounts.” She s aid the new pol- icy would allow judges to impose a cash bond for peo- ple charged with offenses like littering, driving without a license or shoplifting if the judge thinks the defendant poses “a significant threat to public safety,” a category that isn’t defined. Bottoms’ office did not immediately respond to a request for comment late Wednesday. In addition to challenging some of the lengthy detentions in court, the Southern Center for Human Rights and the Civil Rights Corps have written letters to Bottoms and her predecessor, Kasim Reed, demanding that the city find an alternative to cash bail. They urged Atlanta to fol- low the leads of Chicago, Nashville and Birmingham, some of the cities that have abandoned cash bail systems. New Orleans recently adopted a system that allows for two categories. Those charged with less serious offenses like shoplifting, pedestrian soliciting in roadway, criminal trespass or littering will not have to pay a cash bond but would be released on recognizance; they will be released from jail with a notice of when to appear in court. The other group — those charged with battery or family violence — will be detained until they go before a judge within 24 hours to have a bond set that doesn’t require money but perhaps conditions like a “stay-away order.” The two groups warned Atlanta it could be sued like Houston and the city of Calhoun in northwest Georgia, which are both defending their cash bail systems in federal court.