Bail bondsmen concerned about potential reforms

The Supreme Court’s second hearing to study major changes in how defendants are released from jail before trial drew a crowd on Thursday, many of them bail bondsmen concerned what could happen to their business.

Chief Justice Jim Hardesty convened the study saying there’s growing recognition the system based almost entirely on a defendant’s ability to post bail is unfair and potentially unconstitutional.

“What many states have found is they can release a number of individuals on their own recognizance or under court supervision pending trial and release people much more quickly from jail than is currently taking place and not rely as much on releasing people strictly on financial conditions,” he said in an October interview.

He added states making those changes have found nearly all defendants show up for court and most don’t commit more crimes in the meantime.

But bail bondsmen, while not saying so directly, are concerned Nevada might go the route of Kentucky or Washington, D.C. which have eliminated the commercial bail business in favor of Evidence-Based Pretrial Release in which judges use a validated assessment of each defendant to decide who gets out and who doesn’t.

Other states including Arizona are headed in the same direction, according to Kathy Watson who’s heading that project there.

Jeff Clayton of the American Bail Association told Hardesty and the other members of the study committee — most of them Nevada judges — he’s there to work with them, “to provide a resource to you.”

He said money — commercial bail, “does have a place in the bail system.”

“There should be a mix in the system,” he said. “It’s about sorting people into the right places.”

Clayton also argued computer generated assessments “will never replace judicial discretion” in granting or setting bail.

And Clayton asked the bail industry have a seat at the table in the discussion.

Hardesty said he would put Clayton and other bail industry representatives on the agenda for the group’s Dec. 3 meeting.

Hardesty said the purpose of the committee is “an objective study of what is best for Nevada.”

“Contrary to popular opinion, this is not about bail or no bail,” he said.

Watson told the group Arizona began its transformation after realizing nationwide 61 percent of the people in jail are pretrial, not convicted of any crime.

“There were those who are not at risk to reoffend but could not make a very low bail,” she said.

She said the risk assessment tool Arizona is using attempts to weigh a defendant’s risk to flee rather than show up for court, his or her risk to re-offend and their potential to commit an act of violence.

Heather Condon, who manages pretrial services for Washoe County, said at this point, their judges are operating without an assessment tool “so they don’t know if someone is a good candidate to release.”

She said her department is using questions from a validated assessment tools form other states but doesn’t have one of its own to apply to individual cases.

The committee plans to hold several more meetings before developing a plan that could, almost entirely, be implemented by order of the Supreme Court.