MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Shelby County’s bail system is coming into focus lately as suspects are getting out of jail and are charged with more crimes, some being deadly.
WREG investigators sat down with those behind bail reform, as many say their push has contributed to the rampant crime in our community.
When it comes to jail reform, Josh Spickler and his organization Just City have been at the forefront.
“I think what we’ve seen in Shelby County historically is overuse of our jail,” said Spickler.
Just City and other organizations called for change regarding who is locked up and for how long in Shelby County.
“What we found was that it’s not constitutional,” he said. “We said we would like for Shelby County to get in compliance with state law. And if Shelby County refuses to do that, we feel we have a good lawsuit,”
The lawsuit was never filed because the County agreed to make changes.
“It’s money. So much of this system is dependent upon whether you have money or not,” said Spickler.
Out of negotiations came the bail system Shelby County has today, individualized bail hearings within 72 hours of arrest, and the consideration of factors like ability to pay when setting bail.
“We’d never had that before. We’d never given people attorneys as quickly as we are now for that process,” said Spickler.
But some say the changes had another result — the rampant crime we are now seeing.
“It’s not the jay walkers that are causing the problems here. It’s the violent offenders, the people who have rap sheets as long as King Kong’s arm that are being released back into the public. And we see this time and time and time again,” said Senator Brent Taylor.
They say criminals who should have remained behind bars are getting out and committing even more crimes, sometimes deadly.
Like the shooting that killed Memphis Police Officer Joseph McKinney earlier this year.
Eighteen-year-old Jaylen Lobley, who was also killed, had recently been released from jail without bond after being found with a stolen car. He also had an illegal Glock switch that turned a handgun into a machine gun.
“With the Officer McKinney case– that was a case where the system failed because the system fails. It’s a system made up of people and it’s imperfect. It’s always going to be imperfect no matter how many improvements we make to it,” said Spickler. “He got a bail amount, a decision that was very normal, that was in keeping with the rules that we helped set out. It was in keeping with history in Shelby County. The decision that the judicial commissioner made was the right one. In hindsight, it was the exact wrong one.”
Some are now calling for Judicial Commissioners to be eliminated. Senator Brent Taylor wants to consider having judges decide bail.
“Those decisions ought to be made by judges who are held accountable to the public and have to stand for election,” said Taylor.
The Shelby County Commission appoints Judicial Commissioners. Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris thinks it’s time to change who appoints them.
“We should probably take the county commission out of the selection process for judicial commissioners. I think that that’s a leftover when county government was dispersed,” said Harris. “A lot of power was dispersed among a lot of various different people, but that relic of history of doing things that way is probably not good for us moving forward.”
Mayor Harris says that he believes a better approach would be to give the county mayor a role in the selection process.
“I think that would make the process a little bit more deliberate. Because you know, we’re full-time folks, and have a lot of resources to put to bear on that process. The county commissioners are part-time.” Harris said.
Senator Taylor was also behind removing the ability to pay as a consideration for bail, citing Jaylen Lobley as an example.
“He went to the bail hearing room, where they used the ability to pay calculator and determined that he had no resources, so they essentially let him out on his own recognizance. Had we not had that ability to pay calculator, perhaps we could have had a different outcome,” said Senator Taylor.
“But the ability to pay is not the end all, be all, it is part of the system. It has to be part of the system so that we avoid wealth-based detention,” said Spickler.
Spickler says the claims of bail causing a revolving door of crime are actually not true. He says Just City data shows people out on bail are very rarely charged with a violent crime, less than 2% of the time.
“When we’re talking about bail and bail changes, it’s working. There’s no data to suggest that it’s not. The critics do not bring to us data that say violence is going up because we’re letting more people out of jail. That’s not true,” he said.
Spickler says the problem is a system that has been broken for a long time and you have to look outside of bail first.
“To attack bail reform and the changes we’ve made in Shelby County right now is completely misguided,” he said. “There’s no data to support it. In fact, there’s data to support that it’s made us safer.”
Several new bail laws passed this legislative season, including one that removed the “ability to pay” as a consideration for bail.