Front Porch Politics Talks COVID-19 and Criminal Justice Reform With PBT



Front Porch Politics talks COVID-19 and Criminal Justice Reform with PBT member Ken W. Good.  You can listen to the podcast below.

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Most Read Posts Over The Last 30 Days

5th Circuit Hands Another Victory to Bail Industry

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Historically, there are 5 methods used to determine whether to release people from jail. These methods are: individual magistration, a reasonable bail schedule coupled with procedural protections for the poor, the use of risk assessments to take the place of magistration, simple release and preventative detention. A county may use one or more of these methods. If your county is using individual magistration only, then you need go no further. You are in full compliance with the federal court mandates for bail practices that satisfy the constitution.  The litigation that has been filed involved the use of bail schedules. This litigation has lead courts to try other forms of release such as risk assessments (now disfavored) or simply releasing certain classes of arrestees such as all misdemeanors on PR bonds (something similar was tried in New York with such bad results the New York Legislature repealed many of the reforms even during the pandemic). These methods have been a disaster. The
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Why Cutting Jobs Won't Solve States' Budget Crisis

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In Ohio, Governor Mike DeWine froze hiring. New York’s Andrew Cuomo halted raises for 85,000 union workers, including police and corrections officers. In Pennsylvania, 9,000 state employees stopped getting paychecks. And it’s just the beginning. While over 40 million jobs have vanished during the pandemic, states have held off on firing workers en masse. Yet as they reopen, huge deficits caused by Covid-19 mean layoffs are all but certain. Deciding who — and how many — will lose jobs will require tough choices and have devastating consequences for those affected. On Thursday, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy said the state may have to fire 200,000 public workers.   But using job cuts to make the budget math work won’t be so simple. That’s because what might seem like a straightforward cost-savings strategy is anything but, according to former state budget officers. Not only is there severance pay for accrued vacation and sick days, but also provisions that let some former employees, lik
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Bond Funds Are Not the Answer

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by Eric Granof Over the past many years, the criminal justice system has looked for ways to simplify release.  From taxpayer funded pretrial services to 10% cash bonds to pretrial risk assessment tools to the outright elimination of bail and simply releasing defendants, the criminal justice system has been willing to look at many different approaches to release.  But there is a reason why the private bail industry has been around for over 200 years and that it is because the facts document again and again that it is the best method of getting people to court and in keeping the criminal justice system moving forward to get cases resolved and bring resolution to crime victims.   This past year, once again another new approach to release has been initiated.  This new approach is not legislative in nature.  It is not even designed to improve or reform the bail system.  It has one goal and one goal only, to disrupt and dismantle the system.  This new approach to release is what is known as
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How Will the Democrats' Failed "Blue Wave" Affect the Upcoming Texas Legislative Session?

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How Will the Democrats' Failed "Blue Wave" Affect the Upcoming Texas Legislature? Texas Lawyer spoke recently with Ken W. Good, an attorney who has argued cases before the Supreme Court of Texas and currently sits on the Board of Directors for The Professional Bondsmen of Texas.  The highly anticipated Democrat “blue wave” that was supposed to sweep across the United States in the 2020 presidential election never crested. Moreover, Democrat control of the House narrowed to it’s lowest margin in the past 20 years, record numbers of African Americans and Latinos voted for Trump, and the President’s support increased beyond expectations in some quarters (like Florida). None of this was supposed to happen. Most disappointing of all for Democrats, though, was their long-held dream of turning deep-red Texas blue failed again despite their having poured enormous sums of money into the Lone Star State. Texas Lawyer spoke recently with Ken W. Good, an attorney who has argued cases
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Why Not a Presumption of Release? New York Tried it With Devastating Results

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Why Not Just Release Certain Defendants Accused of Low Level Crimes? For the last few years, Texas Judges have been under attack from all sides.  Even OCA seems to have crossed the line of an agency compiling information for the Texas Legislature and is attempting to become a co-executive in setting policy. Four years ago judges were told that the private surety bail system was going to be declared unconstitutional.  Therefore, counties were told by consultants that they should adopt risk assessments and that would ensure that they were not sued by activist groups over their bail practices.  Dallas County spent millions doing just that to then be sued anyway.  Next, the 5th Circuit handed down opinons in O'donnel I and O'donnel 2 holding that if a county used a bail schedule, it had to have procedural protections for the poor so that they would have an opportunity to ask for a deviation from the scheduled amount.  Also, the 11th Court of Appeals and the 5th Court of Appeals hel
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