The Inequities of Miami-Dade’s Pre-trial Release System

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The Judge says “CTS plus court costs” into the large TV monitor linked from the courtroom in the Gerstein Criminal Justice building to the chapel at the Miami-Dade County jail. In just a matter of seconds, each of the hundreds of recently arrested defendants must choose between “credit for time served” so they can go home to their jobs and/or families and getting a bond and fighting the charges. In Miami-Dade County, there were a total of 20,112 defendants who attended felony bond hearings during the 2007-08 fiscal year. With so many cases, the court has little time for each one, and since indigent defendants and the public defender are in different buildings, consultation with one’s attorney is limited at best.

If you have the misfortune of being arrested, you generally want to be released as soon as possible and with as little negative impact on your life and reputation as you can manage. If you are poor, your chances of obtaining your freedom quickly without immediate adverse consequences are greatly diminished. Often, you are offered a Hobson’s choice: Plead guilty and acquire a criminal record and a fine along with your release, or maintain your innocence, stay in jail because you are unable to pay for bail, and end up being found guilty because you cannot adequately assist in preparing your defense.

Poor defendants are less likely to be offered release through any of the mechanisms offered by the judicial system. Unless the offense is a minor one on which the police are authorized to set one free, the path to liberty involves an appearance before a judge through one of three means: Release on one’s own recognizance (ROR), release on bail, or release with conditions through the pre-trial release program. ROR is granted rarely especially to low-income defendants, while bail requires posting a non-refundable fee with a bail bondsman in the amount of ten percent of bail, and eligibility for pre-trial release is far from certain.

Although Article I, section 14, of the Florida Constitution provides that every person charged with a crime except capital crimes and those punishable by life, shall be entitled to pretrial release on reasonable conditions, and section 907.041 of the Florida Statutes makes it clear that the legislative intent is to create a presumption in favor of release on non-monetary conditions for persons not charged with dangerous crimes, fewer than one-third of those interviewed for pre-trial release were granted it in Miami-Dade County in 2008.

The fact is that many poor defendants who refuse to plead guilty remain in jail because they are unable to post bond and are denied pre-trial release. National studies show that defendants waiting in jail are far more likely to plead guilty than defendants who are no longer in custody. Defendants who cannot afford to bond out of jail languish behind bars as they wait, sometimes for weeks, just to be formally charged by the State Attorney’s office. Many end up losing their jobs, apartments, cars, etc. because they are unable to go to work, earn money and pay their bills. It is small wonder that many low-income defendants choose to plead guilty so that they can get out of jail immediately and hopefully keep their jobs and homes.

The result of this dysfunctional pre-trial release system is twofold: overcrowded jails (Miami-Dade County’s jails are operating at 121% of capacity) and a large proportion of poor people with criminal records who were simply too poor to fight the charges against them.

If you are faced with Florida criminal charges that are backed by the formidable power of the government • the State of Florida or the United States Department of Justice • you can depend on the criminal defense legal team at the law firm of Robbins, Tunkey, Ross, Amsel, Raben & Waxman in Miami, Florida. You will find more than an effective, experienced Miami defense attorney who will aggressively and affirmatively represent you. Your case will benefit from the collaboration of six criminal defense lawyers with more than 175 years of combined experienced.

Article Source: http://depositarticles.com/

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