By Dan Christensen, FloridaBulldog. org
In a move that on its face is at odds with Florida law, Broward’s chief judge ordered an end to the assessment of cash bail for most defendants charged with non-violent, third-degree felonies or misdemeanors before their first appearance in court.
Instead, defendants arrested for a wide variety of lower-level criminal offenses are now being released from jail before trial on their own recognizance, or in the justice system’s vernacular, ROR’d.
“When I took over we had people in the jail on $25 bonds,” said Chief Judge Jack Tuter. “We can’t just house everybody in custody that has committed a minor offense. They may have to come back and spend time in jail later, but their pre-trial housing” is unnecessarily costly for taxpayers.
Tuter said it costs $197 a day to keep an inmate in Broward’s jail system. That doesn’t count the large additional costs for about 300 inmates requiring psychotropic medicines and mental health treatment. Annual spending on the jail is $330 million, plus an additional $26 million on healthcare for inmates, he said.
The post Despite state law, bail reform comes to Broward in bid to end unjust treatment of poor, minorities  appeared first on Florida Bulldog.
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