Attorney: Bail reform bills would put domestic violence victims in danger
Ohio’s bail system is often not effective or fair.
When a person cannot pay bail, they risk loss of employment, home and family. Every day in Ohio, thousands of people who have not been convicted of a crime sit in jail simply because they cannot afford bail. The price paid by Black individuals is especially high.
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However, proponents of the new bail reform bills, House Bill 315 and Senate Bill 182, claim they ensure that dangerous people will not be released, and this just isn’t true.
If the bills become law, abusers charged with misdemeanor domestic violence offenses must be released within 72 hours.
Under the bills, the judge is expressly authorized to release defendants without holding a hearing except for limited circumstances – repeat sex offenders or the victim is a family or household member and has injuries, a weapon was used, or the officer made a credible threat determination in the report.
In these cases, there must be a hearing and the defendant must be released, regardless of the danger they pose.
The bills conflict with two existing Ohio laws passed to improve victim safety.
The first is Amy’s Law, which in 2005 toughened the requirements for granting bail to persons accused of domestic assault or violation of a protection order. Amy’s Law was named for Amy Rezos, who pushed for tougher penalties for first-time abusers after her husband shot her twice in the head in Butler County. He was out on bail after nearly beating her to death two weeks before. He’s currently serving a 30-year prison term.
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Amy’s Law requires a judge to consider 10 risk factors, including whether the offender has a history of domestic violence, mental health and substance abuse issues, the severity of the offense and other factors. However, the bail reform bills prevent the court from considering these factors and from issuing a protection order as a condition of pretrial release.
The bills do not ensure a domestic violence victim has the opportunity to explain to a judge how dangerous the abuser may be to them/the community. This conflicts with Marsy’s Law, a constitutional amendment passed in 2017 guaranteeing a victim the right to be present and heard at a public proceeding regarding release.
Further, the language in the bills reads that even if the judge determines the person charged with misdemeanor domestic violence is dangerous, their release is still required, removing discretion of the trial court in these instances.
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We strongly urge those crafting this bill to consider the language changes victim serving groups suggest to ensure significantly increased safety for victims of domestic violence.
Consideration should also be given to exempt highly lethal domestic violence, sex offense, and child abuse offenders from the bill’s automatic release provisions.
The need for changes that consider domestic violence victims is not only critical in conversations on victim safety, but also in conversations on racial justice, as Black women are 2.5 times more likely to die of domestic violence than white women.
In Ohio this past year, 131 people died due to domestic violence, a 20% spike over the previous year. Domestic violence is extremely dangerous, and often lethal, to victims, their children, and even offenders.
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The need for bail reform is crucial.
Victim-serving organizations are ready to help work through these difficult but urgent issues to create a bill that will help improve racial and class equity in the criminal justice system while creating and preserving critical protections for adult and youth domestic violence victims.
Micaela Deming is policy director and staff attorney at the Ohio Domestic Violence Network. She wrote this piece with the Ohio Crime Victim Justice Center and the Ohio Women’s Public Policy Network.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: What impact could bail reform in Ohio have on domestic violence victims?
