Georgia, once a self-proclaimed leader in criminal justice reform, is sliding a little further toward its old lock-’em-up ways.
State senators voted 30-17 on Thursday to require cash bail for 30 additional crimes, including 18 that are always or often misdemeanors, leaving Senate Bill 63 only one House vote from passage.
The measure also seeks to limit charitable bail funds or even individuals from bailing multiple people out of jail, reserving that ability only to those who meet legal requirements to be bail bond companies.
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The move could strand poor defendants in jail when accused of crimes for which they’re unlikely to ever go to prison. It could also aggravate overcrowding in Georgia’s county lockups. It erodes changes that passed nearly unanimously in 2018 under Republican Gov. Nathan Deal that allowed judges to release most people accused of misdemeanors without bail.
It’s part of a push by Republicans nationwide to increase reliance on cash bail, even as some Democratic-led jurisdictions end cash bail entirely or dramatically restrict its use. That split was exemplified last year when a court upheld Illinois’ plan to abolish cash bail, while voters in Wisconsin approved an amendment to the constitution letting judges consider someone’s past convictions for violent crimes before setting bail.
Republican Sen. Randy Robertson of Cataula, a longtime sheriff’s deputy and former state president of the Fraternal Order of Police, said Thursday that the measure is about “making our communities safer.” He’s argued in pushing the bill since last year that victims feel the justice system doesn’t care about them when suspects are released without cash bail.
But Roy Copeland, a Valdosta lawyer who served on Deal’s Criminal Justice Reform Council, said the measure will cause people accused of misdemeanors to lose their jobs, homes and custody of their children when they get stuck…
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