An Example of Soft on Crime Bail Bond “Reform”
Meet Lisa Marie Webb, beneficiary of the soft on crime agenda. At the end of April of last year her Husband Michael Webb obtained a protective order after an altercation involving their kids, one of the grandmothers, and the couple. The emergency order was granted and on June 18th of that year Mr. Webb asked for the VPO to be dropped as he was trying to get along with the woman as they shared kids.
Not a smart move on his part, six days later he was refiling for a protective order. Lisa was stalking her soon to be ex husband, parking in his driveway, making phone calls and texts, even making veiled threats saying he might wake up dead. The VPO is granted but by January of this year Lisa Webb has refused to pay the approximately $360.00 in fines and fees so a warrant is issued for her arrest. She is arrested a few days later and let out on a PR bond, Personal Recognizance, the same thing as an OR or Own Recongnizance bond.
Around the sixth of July in 2018, the Mr. Webb files for divorce, which is granted in January of this year. But by August 29th of 2018 Lisa Webb has been bad, an arrest warrant for felony stalking has been issued. Lisa had been seen walking around Mr. Webb's home with a handgun after making threatening text messages. In fact, while the deputy was investigating the mother of Mr. Webb comes over with Lisa on the phone harassing the mother. A few days later Lisa Webb is out on bond. Yet a month later she is given a PR bond for some reason. She is declared indigent by the court and a public defender is appointed. The most likely reason she went from paid professional bond to a PR bond is that someone told her she couldn't get a public defender if she paid professional bond.
Just a few weeks later on the 13th of September 2018 Lisa Webb is arrested with drug paraphernalia and once again is released on a PR bond. In February of this year she is declared indigent and a public defender appointed.
In October of 2018 Lisa Webb is again arrested for violating the protective order. She is let out on a PR bond about six days after she is jailed. At the end of November 2018 she is again arrested for violating the protective order and this time she spends 13 days in the McClain County Jail before she is let on on a PR bond. Then again on January 16th 2019 she was arrested again on a misdemeanor charge of possession of drug paraphernalia. Again she is out on PR bond. This is her sixth PR bond in nearly as many months. But by the 23rd of that month she is arrested for failure to appear and is out again on her seventh PR bond.
This is important because in the next story you will see a long list of crimes that OR or PR bonds (same thing) are prohibited and on that list are stalking and violating a protective order. And despite the law we see a woman getting seven PR bonds in as many months.
Ask yourself if this woman would have continued to break the law had she been paying attorney retainers and bail bondsmen. Would she have straightened up if she had skin in the game, would Mr. Webb's family gone through months of harassment? Would Lisa Webb have thousands of dollars in court fees and fines racked up as a result of the eight arrests or VPO filings? And ask yourself as you read the next story about SB 252 if changing a law that isn't being followed anyway a good thing to do?
And the harassment? It started once again on March 20th....chances are she will have her eight PR bond or she might just take a walk around Mr. Webb's house again.
Comrade Chris Kannady on Russian TV defending terrorists
Senator Thompson and Representative Kannady's
Soft on Crime Catch and Release Program
And no we are not talking about fishing. Thompson and Kannady's soft on crime legislation SB 252 will gut the professional bail bond industry, cost the state and local governments millions of dollars in new costs, and flood the streets with criminals of all levels by releasing them without bail. It already passed the Senate with a 40 to 8 vote.
We are asking everyone to call their state rep and state senator and ask them to fight against this law. The bill will have to make it through the House, into Conference Committee, then back to both chambers for a final vote. A literal legal reading of this law allows bail to be denied to anyone regardless of our Constitutional right to reasonable bail.
If this passes the house the legislation will make a number of changes to existing law:
Top of page two, when bail should and is denied, proof is required with clear and convincing evidence and that there must be no condition that would that would assure the defendants return to court, and that any risk to the community must be proven with clear and convincing evidence.
Right now there is a rebuttable presumption that no conditions of release would ensure the safety of the public and the return of the defendant to court if clear and convincing evidence is given by the prosecutors office. This bill removes that automatic safety to the public.
Under the new law bail cannot be set higher than what is required to assure the defendant will return to court and cannot be set so high that it results in the pre trial detention of the defendant. Courts will have to consider the ability of the defendant to pay and must set bail only if the defendant has the present ability to actually pay the bail. That means that a criminal can get out without any cash bond or a very low cash bond if he has no money in the bank or no job. Of course criminals won't admit to having any money....
If bail is denied for any reason the court has to now justify why, including a written determination supported by clear and convincing evidence that no condition of release would assure the criminal returns to face justice.
On page four the legislation strips the judge of refusing bail to defendants with a history of obeying court orders and inserts the word protective order, in effect a defendant with a history of refusing to show up for court will be released as long as they haven't disobeyed in protective orders. It also changes the height of the bar for those criminals that might be a danger to others, requiring a specific person be endangered if the criminal is released. The new law also strips the judge from considering any alcohol or drug abuse or dependency. Currently if the person was arrested for manufacturing drugs
or for possession of drugs, or if the person committed the crime in order to pay for or obtain drugs for their dependency bail can be denied. The new law literally strips the ability of the judge to deny bail to drug addicts that commit crimes to feed their drug habit.
Down on page 7 of the bill we find that an arrested criminal MUST be taken before a judge without delay and within 48 hours of their arrest, inclusive of weekends and holidays, meaning that the longest a criminal will spend behind bars is 48 hours or they are released without bond.
New sections are added that require a hearing immediately before the judge or be done within three to five days depending on which party requests a continence and that the state must provide an attorney to the defendant if he can't afford one (or says the same) and that the defendant gets to bring in witnesses and provide testimony and cross examine witnesses. Not only is a mini trial performed, the rules of evidence are relaxed meaning hearsay and evidence unsupported by a custody chain can be used. Normally prosecutors have months to prepare for trial after an arraignment, no more. Shotgun justice can be used by criminals.
On page eight the new law REQUIRES that all defendants be released without bail unless they are charged with a violent felony, violation of a protective order, has been charged with stalking, or has been charged with felony attempts to escape jail, prison, or custody. The exceptions other than the former are:
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The OR (Own Recognizance) will not ensure the defendant will show up at court.
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a previous record of disobeying court orders (but previous sections of the new law said only protective orders).
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Other pending criminal cases before the court.
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If the defendant might obstruct justice or threaten or intimidate witnesses or jurors.
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If the person might engage in conduct that threatens others or himself (earlier removed from existing law)
Why strike these existing exceptions from law only to add them under conditions?
There are currently 39 crimes that are allowed no bail.
Aggravated DUI (over .15 blood alcohol) and felony DUI
Drug trafficking, if a defendant has a violent felony conviction in the last ten years, Appeal bonds
(after a conviction), arson, assault and battery on a police officer, bail jumping, bribery of a public
official, burglary, civil court contempt cases, distribution of illegal drugs, domestic abuse, DUI
where property damage or injury occurs, felony shooting from a vehicle, felony sex charges, fugitive
bond, immigration charges, kidnapping, juvenile or youthful offender detention, manslaughter,
manufacturing of controlled dangerous substances (drugs), first and second degree murder,
negligent homicide, out of county holds, defendants on pre trial release arrested on new charges,
possession of an explosive device, possession of class I and II dangerous controlled substances
(drugs), possession of a gun during a felony, possession of a stolen vehicle, first and second
degree rape, robbery by force or fear, robbery with a firearm or dangerous weapon, sexual assault
or violent offenses against children, shooting with intent to kill, stalking or violation of a protection
order, two or more felony convictions, and unauthorized use of a vehicle (basically a stolen car or
one taken by force or fear).
The problem of course is that few district courts follow the law and allow bail for many of these offenses especially in Oklahoma County where they make their own law.
On page twenty of this bill changes are made for bail jumpers. Currently bail jumpers on felony charges have five days after the date for forfeiture to turn themselves in or face a thousand dollar fine and a year in jail. This bill changes that to 30 days grace before criminal bail jumping charges are filed. If the bail was for a misdemeanor charge, current law is the same. This bill changes bail jumping on misdemeanor charges to six months and a $500.00 fine. It also adds exceptions for bail jumping on appeal bonds, remember that courts aren't supposed to give bonds after a conviction.
Currently bail bond is a Constitutionally protected right thanks to the U.S. Constitution. This bill strips that right and allows the courts broad discretion to give you bail or not. The Oklahoma Constitution also guarantees bail. People can put up the entire amount in cash with the Court Clerk, post property valued at that amount or greater as long as the bond is added to the property records at the County Clerk office, or people can hire a bondsman to loan them the money for the bond and pay usually a ten percent fee for the risk. OR bonds are allowed under current law, other than that list of 39 crimes posted above, if the judge prescribes conditions to ensure the defendant returns to court to face justice.
But all of this aside, does bail bond “reform” and allowing nearly everyone out of jail without bond work? This video says no, it doesn't work. The video goes over a study of why prisoners were in jail and studied those released on bail, OR releases or pre trial releases. The study found that most people in jail were in jail for serious crimes, 12% murder, rape, and robbery. 12% were there for drugs. Most had prior arrests, an average of 3.2 prior felony arrests and five misdemeanor arrests. Two thirds were released without bail, most of the rest that were released were on commercial bail. Around 15% failed to appear, 25% were rearrested on new crimes, 3% of those were violent crimes.
The study found that those that did not use commercial bail had twice as many arrests and convictions, with an average of six felony arrests and four failure to appears. Those out on commercial bail were 28% more likely to show up and 50% more likely to be caught if they didn't show up to court. This is because the bondsmen have bounty hunters looking for the bail jumpers to prevent them having to pay the forfeited bond money. Those that run on OR bonds or pre trial release programs only get caught when they are arrested for another crime or in a traffic stop.
Another study out of Florida shows that Florida jails did not have a languishing jail population full of misdemeanor crimes. The study covered 9300 cases from 29 counties across the state between October 1st of 2017 through September 30th 2018.
Under 2% were in jail because they couldn't afford commercial bail bond.
Sixty percent of those booked into jail were released within three days
66% were released within seven days.
The majority of the jail populations were serving misdemeanor sentences, on hold for probation, parole, pre trial violation, or transfer to another state or county. There were some in protective custody, immigration cases waiting to be sent to ICE, awaiting federal trial, convicted offenders awaiting transfer to state prisons, and yes, there were some that were in jail because a judge thought they were too dangerous to release on bond due to the gravity of the offense whether they could afford bail or not.
Many of these cases were murder, rape, domestic battery, human trafficking, and child related crimes.
Of the 9,300 cases, 40% were released on commercial bail bond, 15% were released on unsecured pre trial release programs, 17% were being held for another jail or state, and around 25% were in jail following their conviction and sentencing. Just under 2% were in jail due to the inability to pay commercial bail.
Now what that really means is that 2% had families and friends that refused to bond them out of jail if they couldn't afford to pay the bondsman. Usually because the families are sick of bonding out career criminals or drug addicts, sometimes they fear for their family member's safety and prefer them being in jail for safety reasons.
Six of the 29 counties in the study had a disproportionate share of inmates with prolonged stays due to pre trial detention and five of those six counties operated taxpayer funded pre trail release programs. In fact, 68% of these people were from the five counties that already had a liberal get out of jail free program in place.
Another study was done comparing New York City and Los Angeles jails. Eric Siddal, a former V.P. With the Association of Deputy District Attorneys in L.A. found a higher number of people held without bail. 91% of these were felonies, 62% were violent crimes against people, weapons charges (felons with guns), and sex offenses. Drug offenders made up 0.7% of pre trial detainees, less than one percent. Misdemeanor crimes made up 1.7% of the detainees.
A study done on Rikers Prison in New York was similar. Around 11% were there for murder, attempted murder, or manslaughter, around 20% were there for robbery or burglarly, and 25% were in jail for weapons charges, felony assault, selling drugs, rape, or sexual offenses. The average number of people held on charges of jumping a subway turnstile or smoking weed average 1.5 prisoners per day out of the total population. And the majority of prisoners held were serving out a sentence, had outstanding warrants on other charges, or were awaiting trial for serious crimes.
The cost of Florida pre trial release programs in 29 counties was over $95,000,000.00 in 2015, 2015, and 2017. That is $31.7 million per year, $87,000 per day, for operating these non secured pre traial release programs that are paid for by the Florida taxpayers.
A TV station investigated a county in New York state to see how many inmates were languishing in jail without the cash to pay for a bail bond. Seven out of ten inmates were locked up before being sentenced for their crimes according to Gov. Cuomo. News 10 NBC put that to the test and found that far fewer than seven out of ten were languishing in jail. Out of the 954 inmates on March 15th, 679 had yet to be sentenced for their crimes but only 67 were there for non violent or misdemeanor crimes. If the governor's bail reform passes, 9% would be eligible for release under the new more liberal laws, unless they start releasing violent felonies without bail. The simple fact is that New York Judges are like judges in most of the country, they use digression carefully and do not jail inmates unless it is needed.
.But what about Oklahoma County jail? We have a reputation for having the most people in jail so surely we are locking up weed smokers and people that have broken petty laws, right?
Well no, of the 2444 inmates on February 11th 2016, 2136 were being held on pre trial reasons and 308 were being held for other reasons (awaiting transfer to another county, state, or prison, or immigration holds). Of those 2136 pre trail inmates 90.5% were waiting on felony trials, 5.5% were waiting on misdemeanor trials, and 3.5% were waiting on municipal trials.
Of those 308 inmates being held for other reasons than pre trial, 195 were prisoners serving prison sentences in beds leased by the DOC. 61 inmates were in jail serving weekends only and would leave Sunday night. 45 inmates were being held for other agencies, and seven inmates were there on civil court contempt cases.
Of the 2136 inmates there for felonies, sixteen were “walk through” cases that spent less than an hour being booked before the bondsman walked them out, 120 of the inmates were there on murder charges, and 100 inmates were there on sex charges.
Seventy percent of the inmates being held had violent felony charges and weapons charges after becoming a convicted felon. Around 50% already had a record with the Department of Corrections (DOC), as in ex convicts. Fifty inmates were there to answer local criminal charges and would be returned to other jails or prisons after they were convicted or acquitted of the local charges. Eventually they might come back to serve out their sentences unless a judge allows them to serve concurrent sentences.
The point being that less than 9% of all of the inmates were being held on misdemeanor charges.
Now lets look at the failure to appear rate for criminals out on pre trial release programs either OR or one of the programs that the prisoners pay as much as $10.00 per day to use. We will look at the easiest court date of them all, the arraignment court date, no attorney needed. Show up, plead guilty or not guilty, or no contest and walk out of there if you are already out on bail or OR or pre trial release.
In January of 2019 54% of the pre trial release program and OR bonds refused to show up for arraignment. In February of 2019 57% of the pre trial release program and OR bond program criminals refused to show up for arraignment. As the cases work their way through the justice system the rate of no shows goes up to 70%.
But the people behind these soft on crime bail elimination schemes are well meaning, right? No, the biggest proponent was Kris Steele, former speaker of the house, who's golden parachute was a non profit offering services to ex cons. Steele earns a six figure salary running TEEM. TEEM charges $40.00 per visit, some have to visit each week, some once a month, plus each defendant has to perform 100 hours of community service. All of this before they are even convicted.... and they can escape those community service hours by paying TEEM $1000 in cash, check, or credit card. TEEM turns around and sells the community service hours or “gives” them to those that donate to their non profit.
The average bail is less than $5000, much is written for $2000 or less. So for ten percent, $500 to $200, paid one time, a bondsman takes responsibility for your showing up for court. Or you can fall for TEEM's program and pay $140 per month plus the 100 hours of community service, and pay each month until you are brought to trial. Other companies charge as much as $300 per month.
You have to hand it to these non profit do gooders. They saw around $35,000,000 per year being paid out in bond forfeitures, around twenty times hat going out in commercial bail bond contracts, around $70,000,000 per year going to bail bond companies which would net the bondsmen around $7,000,000 per year if they were good businessmen and lucky. These charlatans were able to use legislator to begin shoveling some of that cash into their businesses and in the process they get more money than the bondsmen were charging and escaped all responsibility if the criminals runs away. No one forfeits money, no one has to chase down the criminal. Instead these programs rake in hundreds of millions per year and pay out some overhead and cheap labor, usually ex convicts. Few of the programs are audited or accountable to anyone, with their books either hidden in private companies or hidden behind non profit status and delaying filing the tax returns for years by using extensions.
In fact my question to bondsmen is why not join the gravy train?
The answer is that many are small businessmen, former cops, former military, and they want to see society protected and enjoy their work. They know that jailing criminals prevents criminals from working and their work is breaking into homes or committing other crimes. That is their job and most tend to be good at it till they are caught. Sitting in jail means a reprieve for homeowners and businesses in the area, tough to sell drugs or commit more crimes sitting in county jail. Being out on bail means being able to work for another year, even two years, before being convicted and sent to prison or county jail.
The OKGOP leaves yet another bad impression
*editors note: this was written by a freshman GOP House member last week and given to us by an ally. The only thing changed was we added Pam Pollard's name behind the first reference to the State Chair and our source suggested the title to reflect his views on the result of the corruption.
Let me explain why I'm extending a frame of reference to those who may come up to the Capitol to talk party politics with some of us in the freshmen class.
I freely admit, I jumped into the deep end of politics winning my House race this election cycle and being a part of what I hope is positive change for the state. I've always felt more conservative at the national level but that things need to be local control at the state level. We've been on the wrong track with poor leadership here at home for years. What I have learned so far is that each district has different priorities and ideas, and this is a team effort to move the ball on hard policy. We got a huge amount of bills passed from both chambers and the mood seems good.
I was talking with some other Representatives after our Tuesday's freshman lunch and the discussion was about whether the party is a hindrance or benefit to us. What has happened just recently in Coal Co., among others, is a textbook example of why many of my new colleagues have a disdain towards the state party.
In Coal County, a by-the-rules GOP county convention was called for on a Friday night with the absolute minimum of notice (I believe Wednesday night it went out, and with the State Chair's (Pam Pollard) full blessing). This set the stage to put the thumb on the scale of the county convention. The State Chair working with a political consultant, was able to seat 15 registered Republicans. I'm assuming it was intended to be an in-and-out to get their agenda done. A local conservative was able to muster enough registered Republicans (17 in total) to show up to put a halt to their acts.
The convention went forward, Chair and Vice Chair were voted on, and the county convention adjourned. Now, as I've come to understand, when the county convention ends, it's case closed. However, the State Chair is now refusing to seat the delegates from Coal County because she was defeated. I'm not interested in casting stones all that much, but it's a very poor reflection of character to cheat people of their duly elected representation.
I'm a Republican with an R next to my district number. But it sure seems very Hillary like to come in, put your thumb on a convention's scales, throw a hissy fit over the result, and then pretend it never happened! Whether it was because the State Chair became upset a personal friend lost, or she was working in cahoots with a pay-to-play consultant; it's just bad form. I know that similar calendar tactics have been done recently in other counties, but I will have to leave that with the readers to infer why someone would play those games.
If the state party and it's cheerleaders would like to be friendly with lawmakers; it might help to listen to their own medicine of follow-the-rules, and local control is best control! Maybe the OKGOP will right the ship, but that'll take a real change in leadership and culture.
