Allowing bail does not threaten public safety / Opinion
Lately, there’s been local discussion on some well-publicized cases of defendants controversially being released on bail. As the Shelby County District Attorney’s Office continues to prioritize the violent crime that has steadily increased over the past decade, it’s useful to clear up a few misconceptions about bail. Most importantly, bail isn’t what’s driving crime in Shelby County.
Additionally, the DA doesn’t make bail decisions; very few persons released on bail commit another crime while awaiting trial; and all such “rearrest while on bail” cases—taken together—are a small fraction of the overall crimes committed.
The DA does not set bail. Decisions about whether defendants will be released or jailed pending trial are made by the judges. In the high-profile cases over the last few weeks—the Whitehaven lounge shootings, the murder of Pastor Eason-Williams, and others—the DA office actually opposed the release of those defendants. When a defendant charged with a serious crime has a serious criminal history, we tend to favor pretrial detention.
Recent controversial bail decisions are not the result of bail reform. Before I took office, Shelby County adopted a new bail hearing procedure to avoid litigation. It didn’t take effect until February 17. Cases prior to that date were not affected at all by the new bail procedure.
Both the former DA and I supported this new procedure. I did so because it conformed our practices to the Constitution and Tennessee law. All it does is guarantee the defendant (1) a bail hearing within 72 hours of arrest, with their lawyer present; and (2) consideration of their actual ability to pay before the bail amount is set.
More:Shelby County to get new bail hearing room, with support from both Weirich and Mulroy
Allowing bail does not threaten public safety. Releasing an arrestee pending trial is only a problem if that arrestee commits another crime while waiting for their case to be resolved. We need to do everything we can to make sure this doesn’t happen. Fortunately, this does not in fact happen frequently. Only about 23% of Shelby County defendants are arrested for another crime while out on bail; rearrests for violent crimes while out on bail occur less than 4% of the time.
While I’d prefer those percentages be zero, we have to also worry about how often an innocent person is held in jail for months or years until their case can be resolved. That happens far more frequently than released arrestees reoffending violently while out on bail. When it happens, it disrupts communities, making it harder for them to stay law-abiding; and sows distrust in those communities, making them less willing to cooperate with law enforcement.
More important: if you added up all cases in a given year where a defendant was rearrested while out on bail, it would add up to less than one-eighth of all total offenses, and less than one percent for violent offenses, in that year. Even if we denied everyone bail, we would still have an unacceptably high crime rate.
We should be under no illusions about the seriousness of our crime problem. Violent crime has been rising steadily for the last decade, to the point where we’ve been among the country’s highest for the last several years. While violent crime overall went down last year, carjackings, robberies, and auto thefts have been rising disturbingly.
People deserve to feel safe when they pump gas. Over the past 5 months since I’ve been sworn in, our office has been working hard to partner with law enforcement and address this problem, and we will continue to do so. We’ve set up a Cold Case Unit; refocused on violent crime; and cracked down more on nonfatal shootings, among other things. We’ll continue to work on these issues, and welcome partnerships with businesses, clergy, and others.
But focusing primarily on bail is a distraction, one which won’t solve our crime problem. We shouldn’t let citizens who don’t know better, and politicians who should, tell us otherwise.
Steve Mulroy was sworn in as Shelby County District Attorney on Sept. 1, 2022. He is a former federal prosecutor and U.S. Justice Department civil rights lawyer.
This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Allowing bail does not threaten public safety Shelby County DA
