SANTA FE, N.M. _ When New Mexicans voted on Election Day to change their state's constitution, altering the bail process here, they did much more than simply OK a new amendment.
They unwittingly endorsed a proposal engineered by a well-oiled lobbying effort by the state's bail bondsmen who wanted to preserve their industry. In New Mexico, Louisiana, Maryland and anywhere legislative efforts attempt to end cash bail, the bail industry fights back.
Their lobbying machine spins up, letters are written, donations are made, swanky dinners and luxurious events are rolled out, arms are twisted.
And predictably, their efforts work.
Consider:
_Following the intervention of the bail industry in New Mexico, the language of the constitutional amendment was changed to essentially protect money bail.
_In Louisiana, years-ago legislative action "inserted bail into the very heart of the criminal justice system." Now bail bondsmen and the state's elected judges work hand-in-hand to protect the system, raise campaign cash and even work for each other.
_After lobbyists for the bail industry in Maryland spent thousands of dollars to wine and dine key legislators at a local yacht club and a steakhouse not far from the state capitol building in Annapolis, proposals to end cash bail stopped in their tracks. On Oct. 25, Maryland's attorney general tried again, and is finding tough opposition.
The pro-bail pressure comes as the nation _ shaken by the consequences of mass incarceration and a fault-filled criminal justice system _ is evaluating the basic fairness of a bail system that jails the poor before any proof of guilt for no other reason than the accused is indigent. Pending lawsuits on behalf of inmates in Cook County, Ill., and around the country contend that it violates the constitution to hold anyone in custody simply because he or she is too poor to post bail.
The U.S. Justice Department even told prosecutors across the country that it opposes bail for the poor on constitutional grounds, and a bill was filed in Congress this year to end the system of cash bail.
The argument for bail reform is further spurred by pressure to relieve jail overcrowding and to cut the costs of incarcerating people awaiting trial on nonviolent charges. In late November, two-thirds of those in Cook County jail were being held because they had failed to post the cash bail set for them.
Some jurisdictions, like Cook County, would save millions of dollars each year by releasing the accused to await trial outside of jail.
But the reform efforts face significant obstacles, and one major stumbling block is the bail bond industry.
The industry is keeping a close eye on reform efforts in Illinois even though the state eliminated its role in 1963, the response to a Cook County bail-fixing scandal.
The chief judge of what was then Municipal Court in Chicago, Raymond P. Drymalski, two of his aides, two state prosecutors and four bail bondsmen were charged with "corruptly, unlawfully, wrongfully, wickedly, deceitfully, willfully and fraudulently" obstructing justice and defrauding the government in the setting of bail.
The charges against Drymalski ultimately were tossed out. But the scandal prompted the state legislature to end the business of bail bondsmen.
For decades since, Illinois has continued the system of judges considering cash bail in each case, but suspects pay 10 percent bond in either cash or secured property to the court system. Illinois is one of only four states in the nation to eliminate bail bondsmen from the process.
That hardly means bail bondsmen are staying out of it as a growing number of Illinois officials are calling for an end to cash bail.
To the contrary, the policy director of the American Bail Coalition this month wrote of Illinois: "Bail reform activists have invaded the state, selling an end to all monetary conditions of bail in various regional forums in Illinois by advocating for significant changes to statutes, court rules, and of course the Illinois State Constitution."
Jeffrey J. Clayton, the coalition's policy director, wrote members of his coalition that a downstate Illinois judge is warning of a "traveling band of progressives" seeking to change Illinois' long-standing reliance on cash bail, though such a change "is neither inevitable, nor perhaps even necessary."
Attached to his warning was the 15-page letter by Circuit Judge Craig H. DeArmond of Danville, which Clayton advised bail coalition members to distribute as widely as possible.
