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The Bail Post

The Bail Post

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What do we know about criminal justice reforms or bail reform?  How do we evaluate whether reforms are helping or making the situation worse?  How can we take politics out of criminal justice and focus on public safety?  The Bail Post seeks to be a place where legislators and the public can educate themselves on a host of criminal justice/bail reform issues.  With various attempts at criminal justice reform from New York to Texas to California, many people are confused as to what is working and what is not.  With the passage of time, more and more data is coming to light over what successful reform looks like and what reforms have been found to not be working.  The rise in violent crime across the country has been startling and law makers and the public alike are desperate to find legislation that is effective.   Some might ask whether some of the reforms making the situation worse?  The Bail Post is an on-going discussion that seeks to cut to the core to provide education on the various issues raised and to highlight what successful criminal justice reform looks like and what measures have been disastrous. Join us and educate yourself about the best practices that jurisdictions must implement to keep their communities safe, while ensuring fairness to defendants.  As a someone said recently "Public safety is the foundation of a society.  Without public safety we do not have a society."

If you would like to listen other episodes of The Bail Post you can find a subject matter index of the different episodes at-  https://pbtx.blogspot.com/p/subject-index-to-bail-post-podcasts.html.

The host is Ken W. Good; an attorney in Tyler, Texas who has been licensed for over 30 years.  He has argued cases before the Supreme Court of Texas and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.  Mr. Good has written a book on bail called "Goods On Bail."  He has also has had numerous papers published on Criminal Justice Reform issues.  Mr. Good is a board member of PBT and serves on the legislative committee.  Mr. Good is married and has two daughters.

65 Episodes
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On this episode of The Bail Post, we discuss the major bail bills pending before the Texas Legislature. There are two proposed constitutional amendments: SJR 1 and SJR 5. There are also two bills: SB 9 and SB 40. SJR 1 is a proposed constitutional amendment that states if you are charged with a felony and you are in Texas illegally and did not enter a port of entry properly, then you are not entitled to bail. SJR 5 is a proposed constitutional amendment to expan...
At the end of the Star Wars movie "New Hope" the rebels have a great victory only to see the victory short lived in "The Empire Strikes Back." On this episode of The Bail Post we find out the great victory of the November election is already slipping away in California and the entrenched advocates are well on the way with their "Plan B." Our guest is a returning guest. He is retired Chief Patrick Jordan. He worked for the L.A. County Sheriff's office for over 30 years....
"History is full of examples where good intentions paved the way to disastrous outcomes. Today, we are witnessing another such moment -- a social experiment in criminal justice reform that has unleashed unforeseen consequences on our urban communities. This experiment was built on two flawed premises. The first was that bail is unnecessary and people would voluntarily appear in court without financial incentives. The second was that “soft-on-crime” policies would not lead t...
This Episode of The Bail Post was recorded several months before the election last November. When we attempted to post information regarding this episode on social media, it was immediately deleted. After multiple attempts to post the information we began to question our decision to cover this matter. Were we duped? Were we just wrong? Then the issue of cartels and drugs became an issue in the Presidential election. Now that the election is over, it appears...
On this episode of The Bail Post we discuss an important case involving a recovery agent who was licensed in Louisiana. A defendant who was charged with a misdemeanor failed to appear for court and then went to the state of Missouri where she was staying at the time she was filed. The recovery agent and his partner traveled to Missouri, took the defendant into their custody and began traveling back to Louisiana. The defendant was eventually dropped off at a sheriff's office ...
The district clerk wears many hats. As we have seen the expansion of the digital formats and e-filing, the hats that the district clerk has to wear has only expanded. As many counties have overseen the conversion of old software systems to new over the last couple of years, some have experienced more problems that others. Our guest on this episode of The Bail Post is the District Clerk of McLennan County. Mr. Gimble has overseen software conversion, has been appointed ...
On this episode of The Bail Post we meet the new President of PBUS David Stuckman as we discuss multiple issues. One of the issues that we highlight is the recent data breach of Capitar's cloud based bail software and the responses by bail agents. We also discuss bail in the state of Kansas and we find out that there are both property bondsmen and corporate bondsmen. We also discuss the laws in Kansas for returning the defendant to custody. We also discuss the Professi...
Our guest on this episode of The Bail Post is the sitting district attorney for Harris County- Kim Ogg. D.A. Ogg was first elected to become district attorney in 2016 with the support of a Soros political group. She was re-elected in 2020 without the support of a Soros political group. D.A. Ogg was present for all the inside political discussions for criminal justice reform/bail reform in Harris County. D.A. Ogg initially supported the reforms, but once she concluded that th...
This is the second of two episodes regarding Charitable Bail Funds. The first part was episode number 5 of The Bail Post. On this episode on The Bail Post we highlight what states have done since Texas enacted a bill requiring transparency for Charitable Bail Funds. The state of Indiana limited these funds so that they could not post a bond over a certain size. Also, recently, the state of Georgia passed a bill limiting these funds from posting no more than 3 bonds in ...
Retired Chief Patrick Jordan worked for the L.A. County Sheriff's office for over 30 years. He has intimate knowledge regarding the California Criminal Justice System the reforms that have been pushed for years. He talks about the litigation that began attacking the State's failure to provide proper mental health care and medical care which lead to a three judge panel placing a cap on the State's prison population. The cases went all the way to the United States Suprem...
The United States Supreme Court denied the petition for cert. filed by the plaintiffs in Daves v. Dallas County in January. In February, the United States Supreme Court filed another petition for cert. filed in Little v. Doguet from Louisiana on a similar issue. Therefore, the Daves v. Dallas County case has finally been concluded. On this episode of The Bail Post we discuss the legacy of this case and the other important case called ODonnell v. Harris County.
J.E. "Eddie" Guerra is the Sheriff of Hidalgo servicing around 1 million people. Sheriff Guerra was appointed to office after his predecessor resigned as a result of scandal. Sheriff Guerra rebuilt trust with the public and was reelected multiple times by the voters. Sheriff Guerra talks about the steps he took to rebuild trust with the public. Hidalgo County is a border county with Mexico. As a result, Sheriff Guerra deals with all the things that a sheriff has to de...
On this episode of The Bail Post, we reach several milestones. First, this is episode number 50. Second this is the start of Season 3 of the Bail Post. On Season 1, the first episode focused on what bondsmen do. On Season 2, the first episode highlighted why the private industry was so much more successful than any other release mechanism. For Season 3, the first episode focuses on what it is that PBT does for the bondsmen of Texas. Our guest is the new president of PB...
Lucy Adame-Clark was born in San Antonio, Texas. She attended Sidney Lanier High School and attended Southern Careers Institute in San Antonio for paralegal studies. Prior to becoming county clerk, Adame-Clark worked in the Bexar County Sheriff's office from 1997 to 2018. There she worked as a booking ID clerk from 1997 to 2008, a latent print examiner/AFIS in the criminal investigation division from 2008 to 2012, and a criminal processing clerk from 2013 until her election in 2018. Accordin...
Following the death of George Floyd, the Illinois Legislative Black Caucus proposed an extensive legislative package that included criminal justice reforms alongside reforms in education, health care and human services, and economic policy. The bill was referred to as The Safety, Accountability, Fairness and Equity-Today Act, commonly known as the SAFE-T Act. The bill made a number of reforms to the criminal justice system, affecting policing, pretrial detention and bail, sentencing, an...
David Zimmer is a Policy Fellow at Center of the American Experiment, where he writes about criminal justice and public safety. Mr. Zimmer served 33 years in local law enforcement with the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office, retiring as a Captain. During his law enforcement career, Mr. Zimmer served as a deputy and a supervisor in areas including the Jail, Courts, Patrol/Water Patrol, Investigations, and Tactical Command. Mr. Zimmer was recognized as a collaborative law enforcement leader who ...
On Episode No. 45 on The Bail Post, we discuss a debate that we recently participated in against a representative of Civil Rights Corps. This is the organization that has filed bail reform and criminal justice reform litigation across the United States. This organization filed all of the cases in Texas that made their way to the United States Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit. These cases include: ODonnell v. Harris County, Daves v. Dallas County, Russell v. Harris ...
On this Episode of the Bail Post we are at the PBT Annual Meeting and we are recording "live" to tape where we have a panel discussion regarding the Inside Scoop about Bail Bond Boards. Our guests are Ethel Segura and Michelle Turner. Ethel Segura is the Bail Bond Administrator for the Bexar County Bail Bond Board. Michelle Turner is the 1st Assistant County Attorney for Fort Bend County and is the attorney for the Fort Bend County Bail Bond Board. On this unique and differ...
A County Judge can be the judge of a constitutional county court, a judge of a county court at law or the judge presiding over a county's commissioners court. On this episode of The Bail Post our guest is the The Honorable Judge Tim O'Hare. He is the Tarrant County Judge over the commissioners court. After graduating from The University of Texas at Austin in 1991 with a BBA in Finance, he went on to earn his law degree from SMU School of Law in 1995. Tim spent ...
On this episode of The Bail Post, we discuss two different counties approaches to federal bail litigation. In both counties, the federal courts entered preliminary injunctions to fundamentally change local bail procedures. In Schultz v. Alabama, the county appealed, refused to settle and fought the litigation every step of the way. The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the preliminary injunction and returned control of bail back to the county. In contrast, in ...
Anne Marie Schubert is a career prosecutor. Schubert earned a bachelor's degree from Saint Mary’s College of California in 1986 and a J.D. from the University of San Francisco in 1989. Her career experience includes being the Sacramento County District Attorney, Supervising Deputy District Attorney of the Sacramento District Attorney's Office, and Deputy District Attorney of Contra Costa and Solano Counties. Schubert has been a board member of the National District Attorneys Association...
In Texas, the new rules for magistration went into effect on April 1, 2022 that required the review of a Public Safety Report setting out the defendant's criminal history before bail is set. On Episode Number 40 of The Bail Post we discuss the lessons that have been learned after magistrating under the new rules for the last year. Our guest is The Honorable Tamara Tinney who is a magistrate judge from Burnett County. We discuss issues regarding certification of magistrations...
On this Episode of The Bail Post we get a report of the Texas Legislative Session looking at Criminal Justice Issues including SB 1318, SJR 44, HB 227 and others. We also touch on whether bail will be part of any upcoming Special Sessions and the elephant in the room regarding the Impeachment trial planned for September. Our guest is the PBT Legislative Committee Chair- Scott Walstad.
On May 1, 2023, Florida's Governor Ron DeSantis signed HB 1627. The bill was described as Florida's response to disastrous “bad bail reforms” being pushed by liberal politicians and prosecutors in high-crime jurisdictions throughout the country. In this episode of the Bail Post we discuss HB 1627 and other bail bills passed in the most recent Florida Legislative Session. Several highlights of the legislations is that the bill: Requires the Florida Supreme Court to develop a unifo...
New York recently passed the third or fourth round of roll backs of the bail reform it passed at the start of the pandemic. On this Episode of The Bail Post we learn all about the bail reforms that New York passed and the various roll backs passed since. Our guest is Michelle Esquenazi who is the President of The National Association of Bail Agents.
On the 36th episode of the Bail Post we talk about the importance of accountability in bail and in the Criminal Justice System in general. Our guest is the Honorable Maria T. Jackson who has been the presiding Judge of the 339th State District Court in Houston, Harris County, Texas since the election of 2008 until she decided not to run for re-election. Judge Jackson received her B.A. degree in Political Science from The University of Texas at Arlington. She received her Doctor of...
In the bail reform debate, periodically we hear that changes should emulate the Washington D.C. system of bail which replaced the private sector of bail and with a government pretrial services department. The guest for this episode of The Bail Post is a life long resident of Washington D.C. He is Frederick Douglas Cooke, Jr. and he was born and raised in the District of Columbia. He attended the District of Columbia public school system and graduated from McKinley Technical...
Over the last few years, reformers have been advocating that changes should be made to the Criminal Justice System on the grounds that bail was not needed; that defendants would go to court anyway. During the COVID-19 pandemic, many of these policies were used and gave us a preview of what the bail reform movement would look like if the policies were retained after the pandemic. Jeff Reisig is the Independent District Attorney for Yolo County in California. Mr. Reisig rele...
Our guest today is the current district clerk of Tarrant County, Texas, Tom Wilder. Tom took office in 1995 and was recently re-elected for another 4-year term last November. He serves on the Tarrant County Information Technology Steering Committee, Justice Executive Planning Committee, Criminal Justice Coordinating Committee, E-Gov Committee, and chairs the Tarrant County Bail Bond Board. Mr. Wilder sits on the Board of Directors for the District Court Alliance and is a me...
On March 31, 2023, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit handed down the long awaited second en banc opinion in Daves v. Dallas County. The opinon has some strident language. The court of appeals held that neither Daves v. Dallas County, nor ODonnell v. Harris County should have ever been litigated in federal court. On this weeks episode of The Bail Post we discuss the new opinion from the Fifth Circuit and address its potential impact the opinion will hav...
The Honorable Ron Rangel is the sitting judge for the 379th District Court in Bexar County. He has been served for 15 years. Join us on this episode of The Bail Post as we learn about Bexar County justice. Judge Rangel also discusses how COVID impacted the Bexar County Criminal Justice System. Other issues include implementation of SB6 and bail reform issues.
Shawn Foster has worked with the Florida Bail Agents Association before the Florida Legislature for the last 8 years. On this episode of The Bail Post, instead of soaking up the Florida sun, we are soaking up "Florida Bail." Learn how the Florida's bail system and legislative process work. See if they are doing something that could be beneficial to Texas as well.
Tillmin Welch have been a bondsmen for over 30 years. He is a past president of the Professional Bondsmen of Texas. He is a former board member. He has been honored as Bondsmen of The Year and has been awarded a honorary lifetime membership. He is also the former long serving chair of the PBT Legislative Committee. Join us as we discuss how PBT has navigated past legislative sessions. Tillmin also discusses how he has helped families to get loved ones to change ...
Randy Cauthen has a unique perspective on bail. Randy worked in law enforcement for over 27 years. After retiring, Randy was not ready to be idle. So he began a second career in the bail industry. He is the President of the North Carolina Bail Agents Association and was a 2019 inductee into the Hall of Fame for the bail agents association. Join us as we learn about how bail operates in North Carolina and we compare it to how bail operates in Texas.
Season 2 is HERE! This season begins much like the way that Season 1 began; a back to basics. We start Season 2 by asking the question of "Why is the private surety system so effective?" Throughout the United States the different release mechanisms used can be grouped into four categories: the private surety bail system, cash bonds, personal bonds and preventative detention. The private surety system has the lowest failure to appear rate by far of any the release...
Josh Tetens has been practicing law throughout Central Texas since 2006. He originally came to Waco in 1997 to attend Baylor University where he graduated with a Bachelor's degree. Following that, he went to Baylor Law School graduating in 2005. Josh applied for jobs as a prosecutor but was not able to find a position. Therefore, he set up his own office and grew as a criminal defense attorney. In the most recent campagin season, Josh Tetens was approa...
SB 6 was a major bail reform bill passed in the last Texas Legislative Session. As a part of the reforms, SB 6 enacted 17.027 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure which applies when a defendant is out on bond for a felony charge and is arrested again on a new felony charge in the same county. Article 17.027 states that the defendant must be magistrated by the judge over his pending case. The statute also says that the provision is not to be interpreted to change the timin...
On this episode of our podcast, we discuss the impact of rising crime on economic development. In areas across the country we are seeing the impact of bad bail reform policies where business are suffering or closing because of decriminalization policies. Our guest is Eric Granof who has been a guest in the past. Eric discusses a recent presentation he gave at annual meeting for PBT on this matter. Eric is also working on paper on the subject. Eric Granof is the Vice P...
Sean Kennedy is a writer and public policy expert focusing on crime, justice, and urban policy. His work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, City Journal, CNN, and the Chicago Tribune, among others. In August 2021, Mr. Kennedy wrote an article entitled, "Losing the Victory Over Crime" and he joins us to discuss his article. This article was the original idea for a series of article that appear in the Quarterly Newsletters for PBT this year. Join us as we addr...
California has been the epicenter of the Criminal Justice Reform/Bail Reform movement. Our guest is Bill Armstrong who is the President of the California Bail Agents Association. California has seen several attempts to reform and get rid of the bail industry. These changes can be traced back to when the State changed many felony offenses and made them misdemeanor offenses and then prosecutors in several urban areas decided that they would no longer prosecute these crimes.&nb...
Have you ever heard of the expression that you cannot believe your "lying eyes?" Its a way of saying don't believe what you see, believe what you are being told. No where is this more evident than in Harris County regarding misdemeanor bail reform. Reformers tell us over and over that the reforms are working and that we should not believe anyone else who says otherwise (even the Democrat District Attorney). In this episode of The Bail Post, we evaluate whether the misdemean...
In the last few months Representative Ann Johnson publicly called for Texas to get rid of bondsmen and replace the current system of release in Texas with the system referred to as "The New Jersey Plan." On this episode learn what the New Jersey Plan is and how pretrial release is handled under this release system. Our guest is Michelle Esquenazi who is a bondsman from New York. Join us as we learn about a release/detain system that relies on an algorithm called a r...
The next Guest on "The Bail Post" is James Lindblad. He has been a bondsman in Hawaii for over 35 years. He has witnessed many changes to the criminal justice system over the years. Join us as we discuss HB 1567, its passage and the publics' response which caused the Governor of Hawaii to veto the bill. Mr. Lindblad suggests that the real fight was over the need for a new jail. HB 1567 was the response of progressives so that a new jail would not be needed. But ...
J.R. Woolley is the Justice of the Peace of Precinct 2 for Waller County, Texas. Judge Wooley is also the Legislative Committee Chair for the Justices of the Peace Association and he testifies before the legislature about bills that may impact the association. On this episode of the Bail Post, Judge Woolley talks about the implementation of SB6 which is the major Criminal Justice Reform/Bail Reform Bill passed by the Texas Legislature in the most recent session and special sessions.
Our guest on this episode is Tarrant County Sheriff Bill E. Waybourn. Bill began his career in service when he joined the U.S. Air Force in 1978, serving in both the active duty and reserves. On April 30, 1981, after serving active duty, Bill began working for Dalworthington Gardens Police Department. Bill was promoted to Chief of Police on June 1, 1984; making him the youngest police chief in the state of Texas. Later, he united the city through combining the police and fire services m...
Five-time Emmy award winner Randy Wallace graduated from Eastern Kentucky University with a B.A. in Broadcasting. Randy came to Houston where he was quickly hired by KPRC Radio. He spent several years there, making a name for himself as a competitive reporter covering the police beat. In December of 1989, Randy was offered a job at KRIV FOX 26, and became one of the first reporters to appear on the station's highly acclaimed City Under Siege program. Randy Wallace is our guest as we br...
The Honorable Ralph Strother retired from the 19th District Court in Waco, McClennan County, Texas. He was on the bench for 22 years where he tried many high profile criminal cases. He was appointed to the bench by then Governor George Bush. In this episode of the Bail Post, Judge Strother talks about his incredible career, his family and his insights for addressing increasing case backlogs, setting bail and bail reform. Judge Strother has great insights about the pr...
The Houston Police Officers Union recently issued a report addressing how misdemeanor bail reform was working in Harris County. The report has some jaw dropping numbers: 76% failure to appear rate, 16% overall appearance rate, 72% of cases are dismissed and 176% growth in the backlog of cases over 10 years. Office Griffith discusses the report, the district attorney's report issues last year stating some of these same things and the monitor's report which is issued every 4 months...
Shelly Alexander is the President of the Tennessee Association of Professional Bail Agents (TAPBA). She was the Office Manager and a Bail Bondsman for Danny Blankenship Bonding until his sudden passing in 2017. At that time Shelly opened A Close Bonding Co., LLC, which has 17 agents in West and Middle Tennessee serving 23 counties. Ms. Alexander has been a volunteer for the Tennessee Association of Professional Bail Agents (TAPBA) for nine years and has served on the TAPBA Educati...
Topo Padilla is a second generation bondsmen from California. On this episode of the Bail Post, Mr. Padilla discusses bail in California and other bail reform issues across the country. Mr. Padilla is the newly elected President of the Professional Bail Agents of the United States.
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