The Kentucky legislature is again considering the possibility of following through on legislation that would cap the amount that charitable bail organizations could post for bail and limit the types of crimes for which they could post.
House Bill 313 advanced out of the House in the 2022 legislative session but failed to make it out of the Senate. The Interim Committee on Judiciary met last week to discuss the bill and the possibility of it being re-filed in the 2023 session.
Organizations like the Bail Project were formed to help post bail for people who have been arrested and are in need. In the summer of 2020, the Bail Project aided people who were arrested during racial justice protests in Louisville.
“The Bail Project has been subject to some attempts at regulation, and these attempts to create bills that regulate charitable bail funds from our perspective are extremely misguided,” said Jeremy Cherson, senior policy advisor at the Bail Project, to LINK nky “We’re a charity organization. We raise money to undo the injustice of the two-tiered system of cash bail. We’re intervening after a point at which a judge has set bail, where basically any person can pay bail for that person.”
The non-profit charitable bail organization operates in 28 out of 120 Kentucky counties, with 4,000 clients statewide. Launched in 2018 in Kentucky, Cherson reiterated they aren’t traditional bail bondsmen, which were outlawed in Kentucky in 1976, becoming the first state to do so.
“We are intervening from a charitable perspective,” Cherson said.
Initially, House Bill 313 sought to ban charitable bail organizations statewide, but in the final version moving through the legislature, it sought just to cap the amount the organizations can post for bail at $5,000. Rep. John Blanton (R-Salyersville) sponsored the bill and said that he worked with Carrie Cole and Shameka Parrish-Wright of the Louisville-based group during the session.
While Blanton said his work with the group was “amicable,” he noted that the group isn’t the only charitable bail organization in Kentucky. Some are concerned about those who commit violent crimes and re-offend while out on bail. His goal, he said, was to try to protect victims and prevent tragedies.
“Let’s be cautious,” Blanton said. “Let’s not go down this road of getting under the guise of feel-good things that make us feel better about ourselves and create a society where we create more crimes because when you have more crimes, you have more victims.”
The Bail Project operates in Boone, Kenton, and Campbell counties. While the group didn’t immediately provide statistics on its operations in Northern Kentucky, it provides services here.
“We’ve done some support for clients in Northern Kentucky, but not to the scale we have been able to in Jefferson County,” Cole said.
In Kenton County, there haven’t been any significant cases where a bail organization has posted bail, according to Kenton County Commonwealth’s Attorney Rob Sanders.
“We don’t get a notice when a defendant posts bail or who posted it, though we can find out if we go look up the records,” Sanders said in an interview with LINK nky. “If they have, it’s not been in a case of any significance.”
But, according to Sanders, the whole notion behind bail is the defendant’s promise to show up for court and to live by the bond’s conditions, which always include not committing new offenses.
“If they fail to appear or fail to live by the bond’s conditions, then the bond can be forfeited,” Sanders said. “If the money posted as bail is the defendant’s or someone close to the defendant, then, at least theoretically, the defendant won’t want to lose that money and will uphold their promises. If the money comes from a bail organization, then the defendant has no skin in the game. The defendant can jump bail or break the bond conditions without losing anything.”
Cherson said that the majority of people the group supports show up for court after posting bail. However, some people don’t show up to court for numerous reasons, including forgetting or being unable to attend their trials, Cherson said. The Bail Project can help in this area, too, by helping with transportation and other aspects of having to appear in court.
“We’re showing that people appear in court regardless of whether they have skin in the game,” Cherson said. “I think it’s sort of a fallacy that that’s a requirement. I think people show up to court because they want to resolve their cases, because many people are accused of crimes that they’re not necessarily responsible for.”
During the committee meeting, Cole said that when the Bail Project receives a referral, they consider the bail amount, charge, and flight risk before deciding on whether to post bail.
“Our referrals generally focus on people who are stuck in poverty and can’t get out (of jail), and they’re usually lower-level offenses,” Parrish-Wright said.
“My policy is to not even ask for a cash bond unless the defendant poses a danger to the community,” Sanders said. “There really isn’t much of a need for charitable bail organizations here because of it.”
