Some Recent Victims of Pre Trial Release Programs
Catch, Release, or Detain Legislation up for Committee Vote on Tuesday
SB 252, covered in last week's newsletter, comes up for a vote on Tuesday in the House of Representatives. The committee vote will determine if the legislation gets heard on the House Floor, it has already sailed past the Senate.
Pre Trial Release Programs are ran by non profit, for profit, or government entities. They charge detained criminals a set fee per month to get them out of jail without bond and to supervise them while they are awaiting trial. This usually consists of regular drug testing and checking in at their office once a month or more. Some charge as much as $10.00 per day, and while the average bail bond might be $5,000 or $500.00 cash, that is easily eclipsed in a couple of months by the pre trial release programs. Worse, these programs are not responsible for tracking down those criminals that refuse to show up for court as there is no cash bond posted with the court system. They remain at large, sometimes not reported by the pre trial release program to prevent getting a bad failure to appear ratio.
Meet Charles Greenfield. In November of 2018 Greenfield is accused of killing a passenger in his car and a taxi driver while Greenfield was driving and high on PCP. He had three previous DUI convictions and no drivers license as it had been revoked. At the accident scene Greenfield had a broken leg but was showing no signs of pain, he was that high and out of his mind on PCP.
Greenfield had also pled guilty to drug charges and assault charges in 2003,2004, and 2014
In December of 2015 Greenfield had been arrested for DUI and possession of drug paraphernalia. He was found and arrested for these crimes in April of 2018 and bonded out on through a bail bondsman. The bail was $1500.00 or $150.00 cost from a bail bondsman. But by the beginning of November 2017 that bond was revoked and forfeited after Greenfield refused to show up for his court dates. Less than a couple of weeks after the bond was forfeited Greenfield was arrested by the bail bondsmen and returned to jail.
But a few weeks later on December 6th 2017 Northcare pre trial release program had filed an OR bond for Greenfield and six weeks later on January 24th 2018, Greenfield refused to show up for court again and the bond was forfeited. But no, there was no bond money forfeited at all as there was no cash bond in place to forfeit. In July of 2018 another arrest warrant had been sworn out against Greenfield as he missed court again. But with no bondsman on the hook there was no one out searching for Charles Lee Greenfield so he remained free until he caused the wreck that killed two people and critically injured two others.
By November 14th Greenfield was in custody after being in the wreck that killed two people. As he had an outstanding warrant, he was sent to jail after clearing the hospital. Three years after the original DUI arrest Greenfield had yet to face a judge for his crimes.
You can see from this court record that when Greenfield had commercial cash bond he was quickly returned to the jail after non cooperation. You can see that pre trial program provider Northcare got him released and Greenfield was free to wander around in Oklahoma until he killed two people.
Next meet Gabriel Carter who we talked about a few months ago. Carter was out on pre trial release for charges of possession of a stolen vehicle and for unauthorized use of a vehicle. He was also out on bail for a felony charge and another misdemeanor charge. On the 29th of January his PRT bond was revoked and he was supposed to turn himself in but he didn't.
Carter turns up next in the February 9th shooting of two police officers in Midwest City after being caught shoplifting. Despite being unable to legally possess guns, Carter was armed and when he had been arrested he opened fire on the two police officers that had came to arrest him. They returned the fire, killing Carter on the spot.
Next meet someone who is likely to be the next subject of a pre trial release program story. Logan W. Reed. Reed was stopped on December 19th 2017 for driving with a suspended license, most likely for a municipal DUI arrest that cost him his license. A few years ago a law was passed that started putting DUI arrests into the state OSCN.net data base so we won't know about any previous DUI arrests without a lot of research, for now one must assume there is a past history.
However there was one arrest for driving 95 miles per hour in a 75 mph zone in March of 2016 and that had a suspension notice sent to DPS. In April of 2018 Reed paid $686.00 in fines and fees to settle the suspended drivers license ticket case but that doesn't mean his license was valid afterward, that was just the ticket.
Then on September 12th 2018 Reed had been drinking with friends and drunk enough that they tried to take his keys away from him. Instead Reed raced his pick up truck at speeds as high as 90 mph down NE 23rd until he veered into the Westbound lane and killed a 48 year old woman. The reports said that she was driving at a normal rate of speed and hit her brakes two seconds before the collision but Reed never hit his brakes and was going 83 mph when he crossed the center line and killed the woman. First degree manslaughter charges are filed against Reed on the 1st of November 2018.
Reed was hospitalized for a few weeks in serious condition but around the 20th of December he appeared in court and was released on a pre trial release bond. But by the 22nd of February Reed was violating his agreement and a violation report was filed with the court by the pre trial release program. Reed shows up in court on March 21st yet on March 22nd another violation report is filed with the court.
By March 14th an arrest warrant is issued for Reed for failure to comply with his pre trial release program and by March 21rst Reed is in custody and bail is denied. By the 27th of March a motion has been made by the defense for reduced bail and by the 28th of March Logan Reed is back out on the streets to menace other drivers and families with no bond to insure he appears in court or complies with the pre trial release program.
Pre trial release is bad when done on a wholesale level. It is good that judges have that option available for the rare cases where someone without a long record with breaking the law needs a break. It is bad when used to let career criminals out or those who don't show up in court.
And the worst part of SB 252's new catch, release, or detain law is that only those that are pre determined guilty beyond a reasonable doubt are allowed to consider professional bond. Our system was built upon presuming innocence till prove guilty but those that are refused pre trail release bail will now be considered to be guilty beyond a reasonable doubt before their trial.
Stripping the judge of his ability to consider OR bonds or PR bonds and forcing a formula to take the place of common sense and good judgement is a bad idea.
The other part that is worrisome is the wholesale destruction of the bond industry. They need a stead flow of customers of all risk types in order to be profitable enough to pay a quarter million dollar forfeiture. Removing all of the lower risk bail clients means the money is just transferred to the PRT groups and the defendants spend three to six times more on monitoring that never happens instead of a one time 10% payment to the bondsman. And having no one to round up these criminals before they kill again or to transport them back should they flee the state and be caught on a traffic stop.
