by This originally appeared on Dispatch.com on June 26, 2021.
Hamilton County Prosecutor Joseph Deters’ recent attack on bail reform (“Ohio prosecutor: Bail reform bills not the answer to crime,” July 22) reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of the legislation I co-sponsor.
While I share Mr. Deters concerns that we should not make excuses for bad behavior, the truth is that Senate Bill 182 and House Bill 315 are designed to fix real public safety problems in our current system that currently allow bad people to engage in bad behavior if they have enough cash to get out of jail.
These bills are far from dangerous and were designed with public safety uppermost in mind. I hope that Mr. Deters will re-evaluate his position and join fellow conservative advocates of change to avoid hurting those with few resources while allowing the well off to potentially harm innocent victims.
In Deters’ telling, our recent bail reform legislation suffers from the same public safety defects as efforts in other states and localities, but other states’ bail reform efforts Deters cites are readily distinguishable from Ohio.
New York, for example, long did not allow judges to even consider public safety in the pretrial decision. Illinois completely eliminated cash bail, and the cities Deters cites have uniformly ended the imposition of cash bail without corresponding pro-public safety reforms. While Deters is right to decry those efforts, he is ultimately comparing apples and oranges.
State Rep. Brett Hudson Hillyer, R-Uhrichsville, is an attorney. He represents the 98th District, which includes Tuscarawas County and part of Holmes County.
Our reform effort is fundamentally different than these efforts.
Senate Bill 182 and House Bill 315 seek to end our present system of wealth-based detention and instead focus the attention of the pretrial process on public safety and the likelihood a defendant will appear at trial- the ultimate and historical use of bail.
Deters fails to explain how our current system of imposing cash bail to promote public safety, often based on a bail schedule, keeps Ohio communities safe. That’s because there is nothing to suggest cash bail or bail schedules are useful public safety tools.
Under our current system, a rich and dangerous defendant can pay to secure their release, while poor defendants languish in jail pretrial, losing their job, their housing, and even in some cases, the custody of their children. How does such a system promote public safety and equal justice under the law? As a practicing attorney, I have seen this all too often in different counties across the State.
Let’s set the record straight.
Bail reform in Ohio has consistently been a bi-partisan issue with supporters from across the political spectrum as well as key members of the judiciary like Chief Justice O’Connor. Beginning with the Chief Justice’s Task Force for Bail Reform — a group of lawmakers, judges, policy experts and law enforcement professionals on which I was honored to serve — key Ohio leaders have studied this issue closely and have produced solid consensus reform proposals.
The bills would create a presumption that all Ohioans, who are innocent until proven guilty, are released pretrial. This presumption can be rebutted by evidence that the accused is unlikely to appear trial or poses a safety threat. If the accused is a flight risk or safety threat, the judge can hold a hearing setting up conditions of the defendant’s release or a hearing on detaining the individual pretrial if they are eligible.
This reasonable process balances the need to protect Ohio’s communities and the rights of the accused.
It ensures that truly dangerous defendants are either detained pretrial or given restrictive conditions of release. And, critically, our reforms also expand the list of crimes presently eligible for pretrial detention to felony domestic violence and violation of a protection order offenses. It also still allows judges to impose cash bail if the defendant is unlikely to appear at trial. Appearance was always the purpose of cash bail — the bond secures the accused’s appearance at trial. Other tools, like pretrial detention and release conditions like no-contact orders, supervised release, among many others, are designed to promote public safety.
These reforms clearly seek to move Ohio away from a dangerous system where the rich walk free and the poor are relegated to jail, even if defendants are accused of the same crime. Our pretrial justice system must better promote public safety and due process; that’s what Senate Bill 182 and House Bill 315 do. I look forward to working with criminal justice leaders across the State to pass this important piece of legislation for all Ohioans.
State Rep. Brett Hudson Hillyer, R-Uhrichsville, is an attorney. He represents the 98th District, which includes Tuscarawas County and part of Holmes County