WBA Debate Topic: Conditions For Bail

The trial of Darrell Brooks got underway this week in Waukesha County. He’s charged with killing six people in the Waukesha Christmas parade after getting out of jail on bail. The case has raised the issue of which pre-trial defendants should be kept behind bars. A bill introduced in Congress last year discourages states from making the payment of money a condition for pretrial defendants to be released from jail. It details how defendants with access to money can buy their way out of jail, while poorer defendants remain locked up. Would you agree that conditions for keeping a defendant locked up should be based on whether the defendant is a threat to public safety, and/or likely to fail to appear back in court – and not the ability to pay bail?

• PolitiFact checks Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes’ claim that under his plan “the Waukesha perpetrator wouldn’t have been released.” 
• Time Magazine: Milwaukee’s Soaring Homicide Rate Renews The Debate Over Cash Bail.