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Stop excessive bail and excessive sentences.

By Marks & Katz, LLC

I often hear people, including criminal defense colleagues, rallying around candidates for judges and chief prosecutors. Rarely do I hear talk in such promotions, and during confirmation hearings, about the extent to which the judge will be overly harsh with setting bonds and setting sentences.  Criminal defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. However, too many presumed-innocent defendants are caged pretrial, due to laws presuming no bail pretrial, judges simply giving no bond, or both. I even had a client whose bond was revoked on his then-pending drunk driving case merely because he was arrested a few weeks later for the same charge, even though he was still presumed innocent and even though I strenuously objected particularly to there having been an absence of any live witnesses at the bond revocation hearing and an absence of much facts even to support probable cause for the new arrest...continue to full post

Full post as published by Underdog on July 07, 2010 (boomark / email).