By Brendan Scanland
WASHINGTON, D.C. — On Monday, President Donald Trump took new executive actions to target jurisdictions that allow defendants to walk free without posting bail while they await trial.
Cashless bail allows defendants to be released while they wait for a hearing or trial without having to put up money. Supporters of the policy say it levels the playing field for low-income Americans, who are often unable to pay large amounts of money. But opponents say it is too soft on crime.
According to a White House fact sheet, the executive order signed by the president Monday directs the attorney general “to determine whether the District of Columbia continues to maintain its cashless bail policy for crimes that pose a clear threat to public safety, including murder, rape, carjacking, assault, burglary, looting, and more.” If the district’s cashless bail policy remains in place, the fact sheet says, then the administration is required to “take appropriate actions,” which could include withholding federal funds.
“All over the country. Cashless bail, we’re ending it, but we’re starting by ending it in D.C.,” said Trump, who also directed the attorney general to compile a list of cities and states where the practice is in place as the administration looks into similar action across the U.S.
“People who distinguished themselves as being dangerous should be removed from society until we can have a trial with a presumption of innocence and make a determination,” said attorney Lance LoRusso, founder of Blue Line Lawyer Institute and the LoRusso Law Firm.
“This entire philosophy has been spun as being a person who gets arrested for a traffic violation, and they’re going to sit in jail for three years waiting for their hearing. That is not what is putting communities in danger,” said LoRusso. “What’s putting communities in danger is people who have literally distinguished themselves by their violent past and their complete adherence to lawlessness.”
LoRusso said in recent years — since 2015 or so — cashless bail has removed discretion from judges.
“What really has been particularly dangerous and damaging to communities is foregoing the analysis as to whether or not the person was a danger to the community and going to re-offend,” he said. “It’s not the cash issue, it’s reducing or taking the judge’s discretion away. So they could not say this particular person with these particular charges should either have a cash bond or they should be held in custody until their trial,” LoRusso added.
LoRusso also said if murders, armed robberies, carjackings and other aggravated assault charges are removed from the equation, communities are much safer.
“And if you take repeat offenders who are committing those crimes, which most of the time that’s what it is, and you say to them, ‘this is your third time committing a carjacking, you’re not getting out of jail until your trial.’ It will have an effect on crime,” LoRusso said.
“The president’s attempt to end cash bail risks increasing pretrial detention, which is not a real solution to preventing crime in D.C. It can actually have a negative effect on public safety, by separating people from their support networks, jobs, and housing,” said Alicia Yass, supervisory policy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of the District of Columbia.
But supporters of cashless bail, including the ACLU, say it levels the playing field for low-income Americans.
“Even short periods of unnecessary detention increase a person’s risk of re-arrest, and cash bail has been associated with a 6 to 9 percent increase in reoffending or committing another crime. Cash bail has long punished people living below the poverty line — especially Black and Brown communities. It is our constitutional right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty. Pretrial detention does just the opposite — it treats certain people as guilty until proven innocent,” said Yass.
