The vast majority of individuals detained in jails in the United States have not been convicted and are awaiting trial. The Wilson Center studies efforts to eliminate cash bail and leads efforts to implement large scale bail policy changes, such as in the ODonnell vs. Harris County case, where Faculty Director Brandon Garrett serves as the independent bail monitor. We also study other pretrial policies, including supervision programs and risk assessments.
ODonnell v. Harris County Independent Monitorship
In 2016, Maranda ODonnell was arrested in Harris County, Texas for driving on a suspended license and jailed when she could not afford bail set at $2,500. She and the other plaintiffs filed a class action suit that alleged that the county’s bail practices led to the systematic jailing of an average of 500 people per night solely on account of their inability to pay the money bail set in their misdemeanor cases.
The case resulted in a consent decree that requires prompt release on unsecured bonds for the vast majority of people arrested for misdemeanor offenses, a major shift in pretrial detention. It sets forth a blueprint for creating a transparent pretrial system that protects Constitutional due process and equal protection rights. Faculty Director Brandon Garrett was appointed the independent monitor in the case and he and the monitoring team have released a series of reports on Harris County's implementation and compliance with the decree. So far, as the independent monitor, Garrett and the team have found that there has been a significant drop in the use of cash bail with no negative impacts on public safety.
Learn more on the independent monitor's website.
Selected Publications
- Liberty, Safety, and Misdemeanor Bail By: in Florida Law Review (2024)
- Court date reminders reduce court nonappearance: A meta-analysis By: Samantha A. Zottola, William E. Crozier, Deniz Ariturk, and Sarah L. Desmarais in Criminology and Public Policy (2022)
- The Transparency of Jail Data By: William Crozier, Brandon L. Garrett and Arvind Krishnamurthy in Wake Forest Law Review (2020)