Texas lawmakers pass bail system rewrite aimed at keeping more people behind bars who can’t post cash
The House embraced new limits on bail bonds and how to get people, accused of violent crimes, out of jail. They balked, however, at a the Senate’s bill that barred charitable groups from posting bail.
A revision of the process for releasing accused criminals on bail was passed by the Texas Legislature on Tuesday, nearly three months after the GOP-priority legislation stalled.
Senate Bill 6, requires people, accused of violent crimes, to put up cash to get out of jail. It cleared the House Monday on an 85-40 vote. The vote was largely along party lines. The Senate had also passed the legislation earlier this month on a 27-2 vote.
The Senate accepted House changes to the legislation Tuesday. The bill now goes to the governor, who is expected to sign it into law.
It wasn’t until last week that a House committee removed a controversial provision that would have restricted charitable groups from posting bail for defendants. This practice became popular last summer when groups posted bail to release people arrested while protesting the death of George Floyd.
On Friday, House members added a similar provision back into the bill. It does not limit the ability of these groups to post bail. The amendment actually would require charitable bail funds and require them to be certified by county officials as nonprofit organizations. They would also be required to file reports on who they bond out of jail.
“The original bill that came over [from the Senate] was essentially going to outlaw … the charitable bail process,” said state Rep. Travis Clardy, R-Nacogdoches, on his amendment. “We made it very clear to the other side of the building that this would not stand.”
SB 6 changes how people can be released from jail before their criminal cases are resolved. Currently, the ability of a defendant to post cash usually determines how most Texan get released from jail. Some jurisdictions are releasing more people accused of low-level crimes without requiring money. In part, the bill would limit when people without cash could be released.
Much of the bill is widely supported. Requiring judicial training, collecting data and requiring officials to look at a defendant’s criminal history before setting bail were all supported.
Civil rights advocates and Democrats fought against other significant portions of the legislation. The argument is that it will lead to discrimination.
The bill would ban the release of those accused of violent crimes on personal bonds. These don’t require cash but can include additional hardships like GPS ankle monitoring or routine drug testing. Many Civil rights advocates have argued that cashless bonds will exacerbate wealth-based detention and lead to overfilled jails.
Gov. Greg Abbott and other Republicans, have pushed for the bail legislation. They claim it is needed to keep dangerous people behind bars. They point to rising crime rates and numerous examples of defendants accused of violent crimes who are being released on bond and end up accused of new crimes.
In at least several of the examples noted by bill supporters, the defendants were released from jail after paying a bail bonds company or giving cash to the court — practices that wouldn’t be limited under the bill.
“This bill isn’t going to prevent all crime. It’s not going to prevent individuals from committing crimes if they do make a bond,” Huffman said before the Senate vote this month. “But it will give trained magistrates and judges all the information that they need to use their judicial discretion to make what we hope will be appropriate bond decisions.”
SB 6 opponents have argued the bill would wrongly increase the state’s reliance on cash bail, noting that restricting personal bonds primarily penalizes low-income people, limits judicial power and would boost the for-profit bail bonds industry.
“Taking away judicial discretion is not a good thing,” said state Rep. Ann Johnson, D-Houston, Friday. “You don’t get to unelect the bail bond industry.”
Federal courts in recent years have found bail practices in Texas’ two largest counties unconstitutionally discriminatory against poor people. Civil rights groups sent a letter to officials in all of Texas’ 254 counties earlier this month. The warning was that similar litigation could follow SB 6’s passage.
“Because personal bonds are the only path to release from jail for people without access to money, sections 6 and 7 [of the bill] prohibit judges from releasing large categories of people who cannot afford to pay bail,” the letter said. “This infringement on judicial discretion will not make communities safer. It will, however, violate the rights of tens of thousands of people — disproportionately poor, Black and brown people — every year.”
The Republican legislation has been a priority for the governor for years. He deemed the measure an emergency in the regular legislative session that ended in May. A similar bill was killed by a deadline and the House Democrats’ initial walkout to block the GOP from voting on the bill. Abbott called lawmakers back to address conservative priorities. Democrats skipped town for weeks shortly after the House and Senate committees voted out both bills.
Earlier this month, about halfway through this second special legislative session, enough Democrats were marked present for the legislation to finally progress.
A paired resolution failed to pass the House after a 87-35 vote. The resolution needed two-thirds of the House or 99 members to approve and would have asked Texas voters if judges could deny releasing from jail on any type of bail, cash or personal, defendants accused of high-level violent and sexual crimes.
