The Professional Bondsmen of Texas- Blog

In the bail reform debate, periodically we hear that changes should emulate the Washington D.C. system of bail which replaced the private sector of bail and with a government pretrial services department.    The guest for this episode of The Bail Post is a life long resident of Washington D.C.  He is Frederick Douglas Cooke, Jr. and he was born and raised in the District of Columbia.  He attended the District of Columbia public school system and graduated from McKinley Technical High School in 1965.    After high school, Mr. Cooke enrolled at Howard University and graduated in 1969 with a degree in Psychology and a commission as a second lieutenant in the United States Air Force.  Mr.  Cooke deferred some of his U.S. Air Force service and enrolled at the Howard University School of Law where he was Managing Editor of the Howard Law Journal and Chairman of the National Conference of Law Reviews for the 1971-1972 school year.  He graduated with...

In the last few months Representative Ann Johnson publicly called for Texas to get rid of bondsmen and replace the current system of release in Texas with the system referred to as "The New Jersey Plan."   On this episode learn what the New Jersey Plan is and how pretrial release is handled under this release system.   Our guest is Michelle Esquenazi who is a bondsman from New York.  Join us as we learn about a release/detain system that relies on an algorithm called a  risk assessment tool to make determinations about release.   To learn more about risk assessments visit the PBT website or go directly to one of the organizations pamphlets on the issue by CLICKING HERE . This is a great place to educate yourself about all things criminal justice reform/bail reform.  Educate yourself and join the debate. Also available on: Apple Podcasts-            CLICK HERE Spotify-           ...

  By Douglas Griffith President of the Houston Police Officers' Union The Harris County criminal justice system was changed in 2019 after a high-profile court case resulted in a settlement agreed to by misdemeanor court judges who were serving at the time. The County entered into a consent decree in the case of ODonnell v. Harris County, which changed bail for misdemeanor cases. This consent decree effectively released almost all misdemeanor defendants on a free PR bond without ever seeing a judge, or anyone checking their prior criminal record. The county was set to spend over 97 million, to implement the settlement, but to say things have not run smoothly is an understatement. This past January, ODonnell was reversed by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, yet the county refused to revisit the settlement. The County could have asked the federal court to vacate the decree but decided against it. Meanwhile, Texas Senate Bill 6 was passed thanks to Senator Huffman, changing Texas law...

  Since New York state reformed its bail system three years ago, fewer are staying in the Chautauqua County Jail. But that doesn’t mean its resulted in savings to county taxpayers. In 2019, the state Legislature passed bail reform measures that eliminated cash bail for most misdemeanor and non-violent felony charges. It also requires judges to consider a person’s ability to pay in cases where bail is set. Critics have complained that bail reform doesn’t give local judges enough control and has permitted too many repeat and sometimes violent offenders to be released back on the streets. Sheriff James Quattrone acknowledged that the jail population has dropped since that reform was put in place. Prior to bail reform, the jail was averaging 260 to 265 people a day. Now the jail has about 185 to 190 people. Many of those people today aren’t staying in the jail once they do arrive. “We are seeing some of the repeat people coming in being arraigned several times a month through our centr...

Seventeen cars of a Union Pacific train derailed Saturday afternoon in Lincoln Heights, the same area which has recently seen rail car thefts. Drone video showed the scene of the derailment near San Pablo Street and Valley Boulevard, which is expected to be blocked for some time. The tracks were still surrounded and littered with empty boxes from companies like Amazon and UPS, left behind by cargo thieves. Union Pacific officials said nobody on the train was hurt and the cause of the derailment is under investigation. Though it's unclear if another theft occurred Saturday, the train company says it has asked the L.A. County District's Attorney's office to hold people who commit those crimes accountable. To see more CLICKHERE . VIDEO-

  Walgreens is closing five more San Francisco locations as drug stores from the Bay Area to the Big Apple are besieged by rampant shoplifting and lax enforcement. San Fran shoplifters have been emboldened by a referendum that lowered the penalty for stealing goods worth less than $950 from a felony to a misdemeanor, cops and prosecutors have said. A spokesperson for the company confirmed the latest closures to SFGate. “Organized retail crime continues to be a challenge facing retailers across San Francisco, and we are not immune to that,” Walgreens spokesperson Phil Caruso told the outlet. To see more CLICK HERE .

Jeff Clayton, the Executive Director of the American Bail Coalition has an article that was published on August 4, 2020 in the Daily Journal/California Journal.  The article addresses how jurisdictions continue to push to use a discredited algorithm even though it has been rejected by science, empirical studies and by the very technology companies who use such tools on an every day basis. To see the article CLICK HERE .

San Francisco is plagued by homelessness, addiction, crime, and violence. In a new short documentary, Chaos by the Bay: The Truth About Homelessness in San Francisco, Christopher F. Rufo, contributing editor at City Journal, investigates what went wrong—and how one of the world’s most prosperous cities became a haven for public disorder. What Rufo discovers is astonishing: under the banner of compassion, the city’s political class created a regime of cruelty and inequality. As the documentary shows, under San Francisco’s current leadership, the nightmare on the streets will only continue. Watch this short video: To see more CLICK HERE.

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,...

The City of Dallas wants to raise property taxes 8% in an attempt to cover a budget shortfall. And they won't be the only ones. Cities and Counties across Texas are gearing up to raise taxes on essential and non-essential residents alike. Can Texas lawmakers stop them? That's what I discuss in today's Afternoon Brief.  Listen to The Chad Hasty Show- To see more CLICK HERE .

Dallas is feeling COVID-19′s financial impact, and now officials may consider raising property taxes to shore up next year’s budget. City Council members will vote Wednesday on a resolution to allow the Dallas County Tax Office to calculate a property tax rate that would increase the city’s revenues by 8%, which is higher than the 3.5% cap enacted by the Texas Legislature last year. Texas’ recently overhauled tax code said cities’ year-to-year property tax revenue cannot increase beyond 3.5% without voter approval, but provided an exception if an area is under a disaster declaration issued by the governor or the president. Texas is currently under a disaster declaration issued by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on May 12. And the entire country is under a disaster declaration issued by President Donald Trump. The exception would allow Dallas to bypass the voter approval process, Elizabeth Reich, the city’s chief financial officer, said in an email. To see more CLICK HERE . 

The state’s April jobless rate was 12.8% — Texas’ worst monthly tally on record. That number, included in the Labor Department’s monthly report released Friday, is the government’s clearest and most comprehensive look at the economic devastation in Texas since the coronavirus pandemic first swept the state in March. Previously, the state’s worst-ever monthly unemployment rate was 9.2% in November 1986, as Texas reeled from the last big oil bust. Now, with more than 2 million Texans who have filed for unemployment during the outbreak, the contracting oil industry is only part of the state’s economic problems. “We are in some sense a state having to deal with two extraordinarily negative circumstances all at once,” Venkatesh Shankar, an economist and director of research at the Center for Retail Studies at Texas A&M University, said in an interview. To see more CLICK HERE .

Gov. Gavin Newsom and state lawmakers have less than a month to resolve the $54 billion deficit and pass a balanced budget. Part of the plan to cover the massive deficit includes slashing some $119 million in spending that keeps more than 45,000 people out of nursing homes.  It’s a part of a series of budget cuts that target older adults, who are among most at risk of being infected with COVID-19. The state has until June 15 to vote and approve a legitimate spending plan. To see more CLICK HERE .

Unlike the federal government, states cannot run operating budget deficits. Every state in the union, with the exception of Vermont, has  some type of balanced budget requirement.  Therefore, below is a list of the States that have disclosed budget issues arising from the COVID-19 pandemic.  There are the states that have issued some statement:     California predicts $54 billion shortfall-  CLICK HERE   Colorado faces $6.8 billion hit to state budget in coming years-  CLICK HERE Hawaii faces $1 billion hole in the state budget- CLICK HERE Illinois faces a $6.2 billion shortfall when the new fiscal year begins July 1-  CLICK HERE Michigan predicts $3.2 billion budge shortfall-  CLICK HERE Nevada forecasts that it will see a $700 to $900 million decrease in projected revenue- CLICK HERE New Mexico's nearly $2 billion budget deficit will likely require deep cuts- CLICK HERE North Carolina anticipates more than $3 billion budget shortfall-...

U.S. state and local governments, on the front lines of the response to the pandemic of a new coronavirus disease, COVID-19, are projected to face record budget shortfalls. A distressing combination of dwindling tax revenues, record unemployment, and rising health costs will push many to consider major cutbacks to infrastructure and education—of which states and cities are by far the primary funders. Many still bear the scars of the 2008 financial crisis, which forced painful spending cuts to public services. Even before the pandemic, many subnational governments were grappling with ballooning costs, including health care and pensions for public employees. Some had already sought bankruptcy protection. In response to COVID-19, many states and municipalities have already made cuts, frozen spending and hiring, laid off workers, and drawn down rainy day funds. The federal government has stepped in to provide aid, but some say more is needed. Unlike the federal government, states cannot ru...

Tigger Warning! Sustaining the “New Normal” The prospect of making permanent some of these temporary moves toward decarceration is on plenty of funders’ minds. Inevitably, the priority has begun to shift from rapid response to long-term advocacy as moving people out of COVID-ridden jails becomes less palatable. “We’ve been assuming that the immediate opportunity around decarceration is time-limited. People will fear infecting people on the outside,” Ford’s Coke said. Justice reform efforts will continue to evolve over the next few months as more funders bring updated strategies online.  More to Come It’ll be hard for advocates to guard against backsliding across so many small jurisdictions. But justice reformers have built-in advantages right now. One is the perception of unified local fronts made up of police, policymakers, prosecutors, advocates and others, often at odds, who’ve come together in crisis. Playing into that is justice reform’s continued bipartisan appeal. As Coke po...

Forbes-  California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday proposed steep cuts to the state’s budget, including a 10% pay cut for all state workers, reflecting challenges California and other state governments are facing as they contend with depleted state budgets and uncertain federal aid. KEY FACTS Newsom proposed canceling $6.1 billion in program expansions and previously approved spending increases, including canceling a plan to give healthcare benefits to undocumented immigrants over 65. The budget proposal includes an across the board 10% pay cut for all state employees—including Newsom and his staff—which would save $2.8 billion overall. Additional cuts include $30 million for state parks starting in 2021, $700 million in promised state funding for homelessness services and a 10% cut to both the University of California and California State University systems. To reduce the severity of proposed cuts, the proposal uses 50% of the money from the state’s rainy day fund, and it depends o...

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner presented his proposed fiscal year 2021 budget this week, aiming to close a $169M shortfall exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic and low crude oil prices.  Amid a range of cost-cutting measures, the budget proposes drawing down the general fund balance by $98M and emptying the city’s $20M Budget Stabilization Fund, also known as the rainy day fund.  With hurricane season approaching and a lack of clarity over how long Houston’s economic recovery could take, there are concerns that this year’s budget could leave the city vulnerable to other unexpected disruptions, and in a position where even bigger budget cuts may be necessary in the fiscal year 2022 budget.  “I think the big hit comes next year and the year after,” Kinder Institute for Urban Research Director Bill Fulton told Bisnow. To see more CLICK HERE .

mySA- A man awaiting trial on rape and kidnapping charges in connection with an alleged crime New Year's Day died in a fire at his suburban Philadelphia home following a standoff with police, authorities said. Curtis Fish, 48, died of smoke inhalation following Tuesday afternoon's blaze in Hilltown Township, the Bucks County coroner’s office said Wednesday. On Tuesday, Fish got into a confrontation with a pedestrian while on a motorcycle and then smashed the windows of a nearby tavern, the county district attorney’s office said. An officer deployed a stun gun, but it wasn’t effective and Fish was able to enter his home. Township police and Special Response Team officers surrounded the residence, and authorities said Fish then “lit and threw M-80-type fireworks at police.” The home was soon afterward engulfed in flames, which were extinguished at about 3 p.m. Tuesday, and the suspect’s body was found inside, authorities said. Fish had been released on reduced bail in January but...

As the nation enters a third month of economic devastation, the coronavirus is proving ruinous to state budgets, forcing many governments to consider deep cuts to schools, universities, health care and other basic functions that would have been unthinkable just a few months ago. Many states expect their revenue to plunge by 15% to 20% because government-ordered lockdowns have wiped out much of the economy and caused tax collections to evaporate. That puts statehouses billions of dollars in the red for the fiscal year that usually begins in July, with no end to the crisis in sight. Colorado faces a gap of nearly a quarter of the state's general budget. The projected gap in California is more than a fifth of its spending plan and in Oklahoma, a sixth. The governor of Oregon is preparing to cut 17% of her budget. Michigan may have to slash up to a quarter of the money it sends to schools. "There's no crisis we've had that even comes close to this," said Greg Albrecht...