Word: bailed
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...that "preventive detention" would be one good remedy for crime in the District of Columbia met with sharply divided reaction on Capitol Hill. West Virginia's Democratic Senator Robert Byrd applauded the idea of pretrial jailing of accused criminals thought likely to break the law while out on bail. "Unless we have a safe society," said Byrd, "we are not going to have a free society." But North Carolina Democrat Sam Ervin Jr., a member of the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee and usually no supporter of libertarian causes, was incensed. Preventive detention, he said, is "inconsistent with a free...
Unfair to the Poor. The argument has, in fact, been raging for several years. In 1966, Congress passed the Bail Reform Act, which enables federal judges to release a man without bail when a check into his background indicates that he can be counted on not to run away before his trial. But a large number of those freed on bail (estimates in different studies vary from 8% to 45%) have become repeaters even before they come to trial. Some felons, say the authorities, rob a second time in order to pay a lawyer to defend them on the first...
Defenders of the Bail Reform Act point out that money bail has always been unfair to the poor. The original aim of bail was only to assure that a man would show up for his trial, and although the Constitution forbids excessive bail, judges commonly set high figures for many crimes. The result is a form of preventive detention for the poor man who does not have the cash or credit to pay. Pretrial jailing not only punishes a man who may be innocent, but effectively prevents him from working to pay for his defense. Moreover, studies have shown that...
Because the bail system discriminates against the poor, Italy, Denmark and Sweden do not employ it. In all three nations, however, magistrates have the power to detain a man after his arrest. In Italy, lawyers have protested that too many persons are imprisoned for long periods and, if they are later declared innocent, may not recover damages for false imprisonment. Even in Britain, where a man may obtain his release by merely promising to pay bail, judges have broad power to lock up persons whom they consider dangerous. That such a system can be abused has been dramatically demonstrated...
Police State? The possibility of letting violent men loose on bail to repeat their crimes is abhorrent to most citizens. But constitutional experts agree that to keep an accused person in prison because of a judge's belief that he may commit a crime while at liberty could very well violate the due-process clause of the Fifth Amendment. Jim Martin, president of the Dallas County Criminal Bar Association, calls it "most certainly the first step toward a police state." Harold Greene, Chief Judge of the capital's Court...