State leaders say stricter bail laws are needed to curtail a rise in the number of...
Inmates fold clean prison uniforms at the Bexar County Detention Center. Texas lawmakers are seeking an overhaul of bail laws.With an eye on violent crime rates in major cities, Texas lawmakers are considering new measures aimed at keeping more defendants accused of violent and sexual crimes behind bars as they await trial, building off recent changes that clamped down on the use of cashless bail in state courts.
This session, state Sen. Joan Huffman — the Houston Republican who authored the GOP’s priority bail bill in 2021 — is planning to take a second crack at an amendment that would authorize judges to deny bail “under some circumstances to a person accused of a violent or sexual offense.” “I signed a bail reform law last session to try to strengthen bail policies,” Abbott said last fall. “But to make sure that we achieve what we needed to achieve, we also needed to amend the Texas Constitution.”Huffman has said she also wants to expand the 2021 GOP bail bill to deny no-cost personal bonds to defendants charged with violating family violence protective orders and unlawfully possessing a weapon as a convicted felon.
State Rep. Ann Johnson, D-Houston, said she is “open” to a bail-related constitutional amendment, but only if Republicans also commit to changes to tackle mass incarceration and the backlog of cases that have built up in counties across Texas amid the pandemic. “I think what we have to be mindful of is not overdoing it. We’re talking about changing the foundation of our constitutional requirements,” said Johnson, the former chief human trafficking prosecutor in Harris County. “If I thought that would make you safer, I’m open to those things. But that, in the absence of the investment in the infrastructure of the public safety system, the criminal justice system, is expedient. Yeah, it sounds good.
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