March 14, 2023 • 34 mins
Yolo County District Attorney Jeff Reisig joins us to discuss his new study on the devastating impacts of zero bail. Read the full study and summary here.
(Originally aired March 14, 23)
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S1 (00:00):
The views and opinions expressed in this program are those
of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views
or positions of any entities they represent, including Olas Media.
S2 (00:11):
OLA Media. Olas media presents nation state of play.
S3 (00:37):
Welcome to the Nation State of Play podcast. I'm your host,
Bryan Miller. On each episode, we explore the political stories
that are driving public policy in California. We explore these
stories with political insiders, business leaders, journalists and policy makers
themselves to get below the surface of the headlines and
show you the true forces shaping our nation state. All right. Well,
we have a fantastic guest today, District Attorney Jeff Reisig from
(01:00):
Yolo County just outside of Sacramento. And he is here
to talk about two studies that he's recently done on
the impacts of zero bail and particularly the high, high
rates of recidivism that we have seen people released on
zero bail. Reason I want to talk about this issue
is this is sort of this is the issue that
will not go away. This is something that keeps coming
(01:23):
back in Sacramento for some reason. It's like a bad
nightmare of people still trying to introduce policies that have
had devastating impacts on our community, some really notable crimes
that I think a lot of us have seen in
the news. But what Jeff's study really shows uniquely so
far is how this has had broad based impact on
our communities. And so he's he's really at the forefront
(01:47):
of looking at these issues. It's great to have him on,
to talk about it and talk about the implications statewide. So, Jeff,
Yolo County district attorney, stay with us. Coming up right
after this.
S4 (01:58):
Listen to our weekly podcast, How to Win Friends and
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UU (02:17):
Welcome back to the.
S3 (02:18):
Nation State of Play podcast. District Attorney Reisig, thank you
so much for being on the show today. It's a
privilege to have you here.
S5 (02:26):
Thank you for having me.
S3 (02:27):
All right. So my my first question is, when you're
traveling outside of Yolo County, at what frequency do you
get jokes about the word YOLO?
S5 (02:36):
Yeah, every day. I just got back from Miami a
couple days ago and that was the first joke I got.
So yeah, all the time.
S3 (02:43):
So people, people know the word in different and different
contexts and it's okay. But but for those Californians who
maybe aren't super familiar, don't, don't remember exactly where on
the map YOLO is. Can you kind of walk us
through the geography and who you represent?
S5 (02:59):
Absolutely. So Yolo County, it is not you only live once,
it's Yolo County is one of California's original counties and
we are in Northern California. We border Sacramento to the
east Sacramento County, the capital is just a stone's throw
from my county line. And then to the west you
start getting into the Bay Area. So we're about 225,000
(03:23):
people are big landmarks. Here would be the University of
California at Davis, West Sacramento, the gateway to the Capitol,
which gives us, you know, a lot of influence, frankly,
and kind of capital politics, because a lot of our
cases and stories are related to what's happening in the region.
And our office is a medium sized office for California.
(03:46):
We've got about 40 prosecutors, 120 total staff. I will
say what's interesting is California is so huge that when
I say we have 40 prosecutors and that makes us
a medium sized DA's office in California on a national scale,
it puts us in the top 15%.
S3 (04:05):
So great perspective. Great perspective. Don't. Don't realize that that's
what you're saying. Yeah. Okay. So you've gotten a lot
of attention for a few studies now that you've done
on this zero zero bail issue. And that's what I
wanted to focus on. So I think your experience with
this actually starts sort of in the middle of. Is
(04:26):
that right? Tell me tell me how you how and
when you started to look at this issue.
S5 (04:31):
We started at the very outset of COVID, actually in
2020 when the Supreme Court of California issued an order
implementing zero bail for it was about three months that
the Supreme Court order was in effect. And essentially what
that meant was throughout California, law enforcement was ordered to
(04:54):
release people immediately after arrest on zero bail should they
be arrested for certain offenses. Now, the rationale behind the
order was probably pretty obvious, and at the time, we
didn't know how serious COVID was going to be. We
didn't want jails being too crowded and people dying. And
so the the thought was, let's get people out of
(05:14):
these confined environments until we have a better grasp. So
the Supreme Court order was in effect for three months,
and then they allowed it, each county to choose whether
to continue or not. It wasn't mandated by the Supreme Court,
but it was optional for each county, and my county
decided to stick with it. And we did for 13 months.
(05:36):
And I tracked the information on the individuals who were
being released under that program from day one.
S3 (05:44):
Okay. So let me make sure I've got the contours.
So each county prosecutor basically, who is making the decision
at that point, at the county level, how did how
did that work?
S5 (05:53):
Yeah, great question. It's the judges. It's the court. The
court has all the discretion when it comes to setting bail.
That's important for people to know. It's not the DA.
You know, the judges decide whether or not they're going
to release somebody. They decide whether or not it's going
to be on bail or zero bail or what the
conditions are. The DA just offers an opinion.
S3 (06:14):
Rep. Okay. So did that authority, that county by county
authority level then expire at some point?
S5 (06:21):
It's it ultimately did. And for us anyway, in Yolo County,
we stopped zero bail in. It was May of 2022,
I believe. So it was 13 months. It was in
effect here in my county and it was stopped by
our court.
S3 (06:40):
Okay. And now it is stopped in every county. Is
that right?
S5 (06:44):
Yeah, that's right. It's over now in every county.
S3 (06:47):
Okay. Yeah. So so we during this time, we saw
some pretty notable horrific crimes that that were directly linked
to zero bail. And one of the cases I just
I just want to remind listeners that they got a
lot of attention. We've talked about it on the show
is is the Tibbetts case, which is county, I guess
county next door to you. But, you know, obviously in
(07:08):
your own backyard. Would you just remind listeners what what
happened in that case?
S5 (07:14):
Yeah, the short version is Miss Tibbetts. The victim was
home and land park just south of the capital. When
a man who long criminal history was released on zero
bail under this exact policy and he went to her
house and broke in and raped her and killed her
(07:37):
dogs and set her house on fire. He was the
poster child for the problem with this zero bail policy.
S3 (07:45):
And amazingly, at the time, my recollection is legislators were
were then pushing a sort of a permanent zero bail
policy throughout the state. Right. Can you explain what was
kind of happening in the legislature at the time?
S5 (08:02):
Yeah, right before that happened, there was a bill moving
through the legislature sponsored by Senator Hertzberg which would have
once again implemented some form of zero bail in California,
even though voters had rejected zero bail on the ballot
in 2020. You know, he came back and had a
new bill and then the Tibbetts murder happened and the
(08:26):
bill was pulled.
S3 (08:28):
And and I'm just I'm just going to fly it
for listeners and particularly those in the capital, that we
expect that bill to be back very soon in some form.
We certainly I've certainly heard a lot of discussion that
despite the fact of this horrible murder and the fact
that I'm glad Jeff pointed out that the voters had
rejected this already when it was when it was referenda
(08:49):
on the ballot. That's still likely to be back this session.
So this is very much a live issue. Okay. So
that's great background. Appreciate you walking through. Now let's talk
about your first study. Okay. So so when did you
do the first study and what were you looking at?
S5 (09:03):
The first study was completed in August of 22, and
what we were looking at was just what was the
recidivism rate for all of those individuals in Yolo County
who had been released on zero bail? That was it.
I just wanted to report out on what their recidivism
rate was, what the crime types were. And it was
(09:23):
a high number. I mean, it was over 70% of
all of those individuals. And there were almost 600 in
my my county who were released on zero bail, meaning
they were immediately released after their they committed a crime,
often felony crimes. They weren't required to post any bond.
There was no risk assessment. There was no supervision. There
(09:44):
was no ankle monitor. There was no treatment. There was
no support. The policy of zero bail is you're just released.
And you get a court date in the future and
then you're expected to come to court. So out of
the 600 people approximately that were released, it was over
a 70% recidivism rate. And the crimes that they were
committed included murder, attempted murder, robbery, shootings, carjacking. Mean it
(10:09):
was a pretty horrific list and it got a lot
of attention. The study got a lot of attention on
a statewide and a national scale because nobody else had
done it. We were the only county in California that
had actually tracked that data.
S3 (10:26):
Yeah. And I'm glad we walked through the geography at
the beginning of the show. One of the reasons I
wanted to do that is to point out. So when
you're looking at recidivism here now, these could be people
committing new crimes in any county, I take it, right,
Because like, criminals aren't going to particularly care about whether
it's on the YOLO side of the Sacramento Bridge or
the Sacramento County side of the bridge. Right. So so
I assume you're looking at this recidivism anywhere, including right
(10:48):
in the capital, right?
S5 (10:49):
Yeah, no, a great point. We're tracking it statewide. And
a lot of the crimes were committed in Sacramento, the
Bay Area down south. We were following them, you know,
statewide for, you know, a good period of time.
S3 (11:01):
So is there a way in that study that you're
able to compare that recidivism rate to any sort of
other background number? I guess if you've got this broad
based zero bail, that's what's happening at the time. But
is there a way to compare that to a non
zero bail situation?
S5 (11:17):
Well, there is, and that's why we did the second
part of the study. So the first study, again, in
August of 22 was only focused on the recidivism rate
for those released on zero bail. We didn't have a
control group for people who had been released on a
traditional bail because that wasn't happening during COVID. I mean,
(11:37):
there are people were just being released, you know, at
least for the the list of offenses that we're talking about,
which included a lot of felony offenses, burglary, auto theft,
a whole slew of financial crimes. So the second study
that we just completed in February of 23 looked at
(11:58):
the control group of similar group of people committed similar
crimes in the period immediately before COVID. So during a
period of time where they were appearing before judges having
their risk assessed and having judges set bail. And so
we compared apples to apples. We looked at people who
(12:18):
were released on bail and the people who were released
during zero bail. To get the numbers to do a comparison.
S3 (12:26):
Okay. And so what did the second study show?
S5 (12:28):
It was really bad. Mean it showed that the people
who were released on zero bail committed 163% more crime
than people who were released on traditional bail. The people
on zero bail committed 200% more violent crime. Than people
on traditional bail and in every single category for every
single crime type people released on zero bail, vastly overfunded
(12:55):
reoffended compared to the posted bail group.
S3 (12:58):
Okay. So so this is the study I want to
drill down here more. So let me make sure I've
got it. If somebody is released with bail, they have
a much lower recidivism rate. That's what the study showed.
But they could be released at the same time as
the person on zero bail in that study. Is that
the way? I should understand that? It's just that they're
they have to do it by posting bail. Is that right?
S5 (13:20):
Well, in the study, just keep in mind, we had
a control group that was from a time period immediately
before COVID because that was you know, we had people
posting bail once COVID hit and we went into the
zero bail order, people weren't posting bail for the most part,
at least on the offenses that we're looking at here.
Not every offense qualified for zero bail, by the way,
(13:43):
mean murder and rape. That was not a zero bail offense,
but there was a long list of other offenses that
were and those are the two groups of crimes we
compared before COVID during the zero bail policy, during COVID.
S3 (13:58):
But so in the study, you can see somebody released,
let's just say, immediately. But on bail versus somebody released
immediately on zero bail, you're able to compare that apples
to apples, right?
S5 (14:12):
Yeah, absolutely. And that was the goal. We wanted the
we wanted the samples to be as similar as possible.
And so we had a researcher, you know, help us
structure the study. It was carefully. It was random samples.
It was, you know, blind. We didn't have any bias
in the selection of the sample individuals or the sample numbers.
(14:35):
And ultimately, we also had it evaluated by a a
pro to make sure that our sample size was sufficient,
which it was.
S6 (14:44):
Okay.
S3 (14:45):
So let me ask a really basic. This is going
to sound like a dumb question, but why do you
think that is? Somebody who doesn't serve prison time is
out on bail, somebody who doesn't serve prison time? Is
that on zero bail? And and the first group has
much lower recidivism rate than the latter group. Why do
you think that is?
S5 (15:05):
It's just accountability. You know, it's when you have somebody
who is arrested for crime and then required to appear
in front of a judge and be assessed, I mean,
the judge, you know, does this risk assessment with the
individual before setting bail, There's a conversation, there's an exchange
of information. The judge is looking at the rap sheet.
(15:27):
There's information being provided by victims of crime. And so
when bail is set by the court and by the way,
the judge also considers the person's ability to pay in California,
that's part of the law now. Right. So the judge
already has that discretion. But when they set bail, there
is accountability. Now cloaked over that individual. If they managed
(15:49):
to post the bond and get out, they know that
the court, you know, is watching them. There's going to
be a bail agent involved in the situation almost always,
and that's another layer of accountability. And there is an
incentive for them not to re-offend because if they do re-offend,
they're going back into custody and they're going to have
to post another bond. They're going to be out money. Right.
(16:11):
So maybe, you know, the simplest explanation is, well, nobody
wants to lose money. And every time, you know, they
they re-offend in a bail scenario, they're going to be
posting more money in the zero bail scenario. There's no accountability.
There's no oversight. There's no victim input. There's no supervision.
And they're not going to lose a dime.
S3 (16:31):
Right? Right. Yeah. And I'm imagining, like the typical person posting,
they might be borrowing some of this money from family
members and close friends. And like, you're you're sort of creating, like,
a community of accountability in some ways. Yeah, that's fair.
S5 (16:44):
That's a great point. And it's a real known phenomenon
that when people post bail, often, as you said, it's
family members, friends, others that are coming in to help them.
And so then you have this support system on the
outside that are kind of keeping them on the, you know,
walking the line. Out of trouble. And so that's we've
just seen that. You know, I've been a prosecutor for
(17:06):
27 years. That's how it works when people post bail.
S3 (17:11):
So there's a related issue and maybe and I'd actually
love to have you back on the show some time
to talk about early release. I wanted to I want
to draw a line between these two issues here just
for the purpose of this, because there's so much in
your study I still want to talk about. But but
there's a related issue of rehabilitation that happens when people
actually serve sentences and lower. And I think there's a
lot of data support. The fact that there's a lower
(17:32):
recidivism rates that come out of people serving more of
their sentences than less of their sentences. But just as
a tease and yeah, I would love to dig deeper
on this one as the session goes on, Is that
your view and experience beyond the the bail issue, but
actually the serving the sentence issue that that leads to
higher recidivism as well?
S5 (17:51):
100%. I mean, we've seen it in California with all
of the early releases and the increases in recidivism. Violent
crime has been on an upward tick for a number
of years in California. And again in my county, we
have spent time tracking the recidivism rates for those released
early under Prop 57 and other sentence reduction acts. And
(18:12):
it's not good data. It doesn't look good for public safety.
S3 (18:16):
Okay. So we're going to be dealing with both of
these issues this legislative session. I just want to call
that out to staffers and members and other advocates who
are listening to these two things are both hugely important
and they're kind of two sides of the same coin,
in my opinion. But but back to your study, because
I think there's a lot of really interesting takeaways from here.
So so yeah, other headlines from the study that you
(18:38):
want to call out.
S5 (18:39):
Well, I think when you look at the reoffending rate
for those released on bail, one of the things that
was really troubling to us was the domestic violence re-offending
rates that was eight times higher than the people who
were posting bond. So that's troubling. You know, and obviously,
there were other violent crimes that were even more serious
(19:01):
than that. But it's the violence That's what really it
was shocking to me. I mean, I knew that there
was going to be a higher recidivism rate just based
on anecdotal analysis over that period of time. But when
we saw how much more violent crime, 200% more violent crime,
the people on zero bail were involved in, that was
(19:22):
a real staggering number. And those are real victims. You know,
those are people that have been murdered and raped and beaten.
And it's hard to, you know, to look back at
why we put this policy in place, why the court
did it. The court put the policy in place to
protect people from COVID, from dying inmates, people who committed crimes.
(19:44):
But when it ended up happening is actually more people
in the community. Innocent people were violently hurt as a
result of these policies. And so I know you say, well,
you've got to balance the equities there. But for me
as a prosecutor and I think anybody in public safety,
you know, seeing the huge uptick in victims and victimization
(20:04):
as a result of this policy equals policy failure.
S3 (20:09):
Okay. But but to your point, the COVID emergency is
over and all the emergency orders, I think, expired a
few weeks ago, not just on this, but statewide emergency.
So I never like to ask guests to make the
other side's argument. But but let me ask you, what
do you think is behind this continued push to zero
bail in a post-COVID emergency situation?
S5 (20:30):
Yeah, I understand it really clearly. And the argument goes
like this The proponents of bail reform will say that
the bail system is biased against obviously people, poor people
who are lesser means than the rich. They'll also say
that it's disproportionately impacting people of color, which can be
(20:54):
related to the poverty issue. And those are fair arguments.
I mean, that's absolutely true. But the answer is not
zero bail. And that's what this study has shown, that,
you know, the idea that we're going to implement a
system where people just are arrested and immediately released because
of the nature of the crime without any type of
(21:14):
judicial oversight, supervision, treatment and ankle monitor, etcetera. It's just
it makes no sense in light of what we see
in the data and in this study. So the proponents
of zero bail, I think many are ideologically driven and
(21:34):
I can trace it right back to numerous national groups
who have made bail reform and in particular, zero bail,
the elimination of cash bail. They're one of their foundational issues,
and they are supporting candidates at both the state and
local level who believe that or at least will sign
(21:55):
up for that. I know this. This is my fifth
term as the DA. I've been through many elections. I've
seen how the money flows and I've seen how candidates
that side with the bail reform groups on hard line
zero bail policies get their support. So I think that's
just the reality. That's the political reality. And I see
(22:18):
it in Sacramento and talking with certain members as well.
The groups that are pushing zero bail are powerful. Big
money coming from some of the biggest donors that we
all know. So that's what's happening.
S7 (22:33):
All right.
S3 (22:33):
Well, you teed up some politics. I wasn't going to
dwell on your election results, but you gave me an
opportunity to. And I just I just want to, first
of all, congratulate you on your re-election last year, which
was a double digit re-election in a very progressive county. And,
you know, I'm just I'm curious, like when you're out
there on the campaign trail, like, you know, I know
you're the kind of guy who knocks on a lot
of doors and talks to a lot of your constituents
(22:55):
when these issues come up with maybe somebody who necessarily
isn't inclined to agree with you on this topic. How
does a conversation like that go? Can you give us
a little flavor for one of those one on one
conversations and somebody who might otherwise be inclined to disagree
with you?
S5 (23:10):
Yeah, for sure. And it's worth noting that my county
is very progressive. Mean we are a deep blue county.
Yolo County hasn't voted for a Republican for president since Eisenhower,
you know. So when I go out and talk to folks,
my message is, look, this is a balance. You know,
I believe in bail reform. I do. But it's got
to be smart. Bail reform and you have to balance
(23:32):
the bail reform policies with public safety and victims. And
we need to come up with an equation that that,
you know, isn't going to expose the public to these
violent individuals, but also make sure that the court, the
judges are empowered to use their discretion to set a
lower bail if the person truly is, you know, not
(23:52):
of the means to pay it. And the judge also
has to be able to look at the individual's criminal
history and assess the risk. They also need to hear
from the victims. So there are lots of things that
go into this soup, you know, with bail reform. And
I support, again, you know, smart policies that I think
get us to where a lot of the proponents want
(24:13):
to go, which is a system that is more overall
fair and empowering judges to consider individual circumstances of an
individual's ability to pay. ET cetera. What a lot of
people don't know and I explained this when I walked
and I talked, is, you know, in California, we already
have case law that requires the judges to consider an
(24:36):
individual's ability to pay. And when a judge sets bail,
they are specifically considering that as part of their final
whatever the amount is they pick. Now, there's other things, obviously,
that I mentioned, but we've got a pretty good system
in California. It can be tweaked for sure. And I'm
all game for having those conversations with lawmakers and others. But,
(25:01):
you know, this idea that we're just going to throw
out bail, we're going to get rid of bail. No,
that's too extreme.
S3 (25:08):
Yeah, I try to imagine what that actually looks like
in practice, and it's a really hard thing for me
to get my head around other than imagining exactly what
you studied and what you're talking about. The results are
just devastating for communities. But but on a more permanent basis,
I've heard some people sort of compare it to like
the way the federal system works. I imagine you have
(25:28):
some familiarity with that. That actually sounds kind of more
draconian to me, where my understanding is judges can basically
just be like, I'm not getting out and I'm just
lock you up and throw away the key and there's
no chance for for bail. Could you kind of give
listeners because I think it's a useful comparison like like
a sense of how that works.
S5 (25:45):
Yeah, it's a great comparison. You know, this idea that,
you know, the federal system where systems where there essentially
is no cash bail and it's just up to a
judge to make a call on each case whether the
person will be released. All the data shows that more
people are being detained because judges are less likely to,
you know, release somebody on a zero because it's a
(26:07):
zero bail system there. They have other tools that they use,
but they're just less likely to release them under those guidelines.
So what bail actually, the bail system in California, the
way it kind of blends into, I think a more
balanced approach is it does create another option for an
individual to secure their release once the court has looked
(26:28):
at the crime and their individual circumstances. And if they
then post the bond, it brings in all those other
things that we talked about the family, the support system,
the outside kind of guardrails to keep them from re-offending
and the bail agents. And, you know, people like to
bash on the bail industry. And I'm you know, I'm
not I'm not in bed with the bail industry, but
(26:50):
they serve a vital purpose in our state. I mean,
we have too few cops on the street. I can
tell you right now in my county that we have
almost 7000 warrants that have been issued by courts. That have.
We're not going to serve them. No one's ever going
to go out and arrest people on these warrants. But
if they were on bail. The bail agent's going to
(27:11):
get him into court. So that's huge. Yeah.
S3 (27:14):
Yeah. I mean, I would just ask anybody who's considering
what zero bail actually means to to think about that
federal comparison in their head, because I think the result
could actually be much worse for your goals than what
the current system is. Because if it results in a
situation where it's the judge just, you know, not taking
the chance and saying, okay, well, throwing away the key
(27:35):
until the trial, like, like that's, that's it. Um, and
you'd have to have some ability for judges to make
those decisions, presumably. I mean, I can't imagine anyone's actually
suggesting that, hey, you automatically get out on zero bail
or you automatic. Let's just let's understand that. I can't
imagine anyone actually wants a situation where you automatically get
(27:56):
out pretrial period until the trial. No, that would that
would be insane. You'd have murderers and rapists and carjackers
and and everybody else running around. So this would have
to be replaced with something which ultimately, I think the
only other option is more discretion on behalf of judges,
(28:16):
in which case you have less options for people to
get out pretrial. Am I missing something there?
S5 (28:22):
No, that's dead on. And that's why my experience, the
proponents of bail reform don't like any scenario where judges
have more discretion. Right. To retain people, to detain people.
And so and that's come up just in California history,
where we've seen these interesting alliances between reform groups and
(28:43):
the bail agents. For example, a few years ago when
they sought to overturn the bail law. So, yeah, absolutely.
What the proponents really want is an algorithm, you know,
essentially something that's going to like, you know, you plug
in the data and it'll just generate. A release decision.
(29:04):
Without the judge being able to veto it. And then
there will be other conditions put on for the release,
including some type of support and wraparound services. That's the
idea that I've heard floated by many of the opponents.
I'll tell you that in my county. I mean, I
said I support smart bail reform. And to prove that
years ago I worked with one of the national groups
(29:27):
called Vera. And Vera is a leader in bail reform issues.
I had them come to my county. We built a
pretrial release program based on a bail policy that. I
set a presumption that we're not going to ask for
bail in certain offenses, mostly misdemeanor crimes. That presumption can
(29:49):
be overcome by circumstances and facts and discretion. And so
when we go before the judge, if it's a certain crime,
there's a presumption. We look at the facts. We make
our pitch to the judge. And in many of the cases,
we don't ask for bail. Instead, we ask them to
be released on a supervised program where they're assigned a
(30:11):
probation officer and other individuals to monitor them while they're
pending trial. So we're already doing that in Yolo County.
The key, though, the key to that is everybody has discretion.
The judge has a ton of discretion. The DA has discretion.
And so we're trying to make these decisions based on
actual risk and likelihood that the person will come back
(30:33):
to court. And sometimes the only way to do it
is by also including some bail amount.
S3 (30:39):
So it'd be great to see other counties do similar studies.
Can you give us a sense of kind of resources?
Time complexity is involved in something like this. And if
you if you don't mind me asking any conversations with
your fellow colleagues about other counties replicating this work to
see if the numbers are similar.
S5 (30:57):
There's a lot of interest in other counties. I've talked
to many, including right here in the capital region. The
DA's want to do it. We're working on it right
now with the California DA's Association. I can tell you
safely that we've got at least a dozen counties and
it probably be 30 or 40 by the time we're
(31:18):
done who want to do this on a statewide basis.
It's a lot of work, and that's why I was
the only county to do it early on was because
it was so much work. And frankly, you also have
to have the data available to crunch the numbers. And
I have a system. I've had a system for a
long time that's made me kind of, you know, front
(31:39):
of the line in California because of our case management.
S3 (31:42):
You're talking about a technical software system that made that
available for you to do. And yeah, exactly right.
S5 (31:50):
But the good news is, I think that within the
a short window here, we're going to have a coalition
of elected DA's from around California who are going to
be coming together to do a zero bail study on a,
you know, regional basis for sure, maybe statewide. And I
think the numbers I don't expect them to be a
lot different than what I saw in YOLO. I'm open
(32:12):
to that. And we're working with outside researchers, outside groups
to do the study. So we'll see.
S3 (32:19):
Well, that was going to be my next question. No
reason that you can think of to expect it to
be different. It might be even worse in places that
have more violent crime per capita or something along those lines. Right.
I mean, if anything, you expect if you threw it
in San Francisco and probably be worse if anything, is
that is that fair?
S5 (32:36):
I think it's fair. I mean, again, a lot of
it's just based on, you know, my county is a
pretty good snapshot and a small scale of the whole
state of California. I mean, and I say that because
we're diverse like California. You know, I've got we're about 40% Latino,
about 15% Asian Pacific Islander. We have you know. And
(32:57):
so if you look. At California. Yolo County is a
really good model and so I don't think it's going
to be much different. But I agree with you that
it'll probably be worse in some of the big urban counties.
S3 (33:11):
Yeah. Which which, you know, just just by their sheer girth.
If you added those up on a per capita basis,
you know, you might see substantially worse statewide numbers. Okay.
So we would, of course, love to have you back
to talk about a statewide or regional study or whatever.
You have hope you will come back when that time comes.
And yeah, would love to have you to talk about.
Early release and mandatory mental health care was allowed as
(33:33):
she's gone on in the session. You're at the front
line of so many of these things but I really
appreciate the time today to drill down just on this. Now,
people want to read both either of the studies. Where
can they go? Where can they find out more information?
S5 (33:45):
Yeah, all the studies are posted online at YOLO da
org under the media section and it's right there at
zero bail studies. They can read everything.
S3 (33:56):
Great District attorney Jeff Resig, thanks so much for everything
you're doing. Thanks for being on the show today. It
was a pleasure to have you. Thank you, Brian. We
invite you to share ideas for guests, ask questions and comments.
S8 (34:08):
You can find us at neptune.com. Follow us and subscribe
wherever you listen to your podcasts as we continue to
explore the inside stories of driving California politics. This is
the Nation State of Play podcast. I'm your host, Bryan Miller,
and thank you for listening.
S2 (34:26):
Olas media.
The views and opinions expressed in this program are those
of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views
or positions of any entities they represent, including Olas Media.
S2 (00:11):
OLA Media. Olas media presents nation state of play.
S3 (00:37):
Welcome to the Nation State of Play podcast. I'm your host,
Bryan Miller. On each episode, we explore the political stories
that are driving public policy in California. We explore these
stories with political insiders, business leaders, journalists and policy makers
themselves to get below the surface of the headlines and
show you the true forces shaping our nation state. All right. Well,
we have a fantastic guest today, District Attorney Jeff Reisig from
(01:00):
Yolo County just outside of Sacramento. And he is here
to talk about two studies that he's recently done on
the impacts of zero bail and particularly the high, high
rates of recidivism that we have seen people released on
zero bail. Reason I want to talk about this issue
is this is sort of this is the issue that
will not go away. This is something that keeps coming
(01:23):
back in Sacramento for some reason. It's like a bad
nightmare of people still trying to introduce policies that have
had devastating impacts on our community, some really notable crimes
that I think a lot of us have seen in
the news. But what Jeff's study really shows uniquely so
far is how this has had broad based impact on
our communities. And so he's he's really at the forefront
(01:47):
of looking at these issues. It's great to have him on,
to talk about it and talk about the implications statewide. So, Jeff,
Yolo County district attorney, stay with us. Coming up right
after this.
S4 (01:58):
Listen to our weekly podcast, How to Win Friends and
Save the Republic. To hear the latest updates from the
Democracy Reform Space. Subscribe and learn more about us at
nonpartisan reformers.org.
UU (02:17):
Welcome back to the.
S3 (02:18):
Nation State of Play podcast. District Attorney Reisig, thank you
so much for being on the show today. It's a
privilege to have you here.
S5 (02:26):
Thank you for having me.
S3 (02:27):
All right. So my my first question is, when you're
traveling outside of Yolo County, at what frequency do you
get jokes about the word YOLO?
S5 (02:36):
Yeah, every day. I just got back from Miami a
couple days ago and that was the first joke I got.
So yeah, all the time.
S3 (02:43):
So people, people know the word in different and different
contexts and it's okay. But but for those Californians who
maybe aren't super familiar, don't, don't remember exactly where on
the map YOLO is. Can you kind of walk us
through the geography and who you represent?
S5 (02:59):
Absolutely. So Yolo County, it is not you only live once,
it's Yolo County is one of California's original counties and
we are in Northern California. We border Sacramento to the
east Sacramento County, the capital is just a stone's throw
from my county line. And then to the west you
start getting into the Bay Area. So we're about 225,000
(03:23):
people are big landmarks. Here would be the University of
California at Davis, West Sacramento, the gateway to the Capitol,
which gives us, you know, a lot of influence, frankly,
and kind of capital politics, because a lot of our
cases and stories are related to what's happening in the region.
And our office is a medium sized office for California.
(03:46):
We've got about 40 prosecutors, 120 total staff. I will
say what's interesting is California is so huge that when
I say we have 40 prosecutors and that makes us
a medium sized DA's office in California on a national scale,
it puts us in the top 15%.
S3 (04:05):
So great perspective. Great perspective. Don't. Don't realize that that's
what you're saying. Yeah. Okay. So you've gotten a lot
of attention for a few studies now that you've done
on this zero zero bail issue. And that's what I
wanted to focus on. So I think your experience with
this actually starts sort of in the middle of. Is
(04:26):
that right? Tell me tell me how you how and
when you started to look at this issue.
S5 (04:31):
We started at the very outset of COVID, actually in
2020 when the Supreme Court of California issued an order
implementing zero bail for it was about three months that
the Supreme Court order was in effect. And essentially what
that meant was throughout California, law enforcement was ordered to
(04:54):
release people immediately after arrest on zero bail should they
be arrested for certain offenses. Now, the rationale behind the
order was probably pretty obvious, and at the time, we
didn't know how serious COVID was going to be. We
didn't want jails being too crowded and people dying. And
so the the thought was, let's get people out of
(05:14):
these confined environments until we have a better grasp. So
the Supreme Court order was in effect for three months,
and then they allowed it, each county to choose whether
to continue or not. It wasn't mandated by the Supreme Court,
but it was optional for each county, and my county
decided to stick with it. And we did for 13 months.
(05:36):
And I tracked the information on the individuals who were
being released under that program from day one.
S3 (05:44):
Okay. So let me make sure I've got the contours.
So each county prosecutor basically, who is making the decision
at that point, at the county level, how did how
did that work?
S5 (05:53):
Yeah, great question. It's the judges. It's the court. The
court has all the discretion when it comes to setting bail.
That's important for people to know. It's not the DA.
You know, the judges decide whether or not they're going
to release somebody. They decide whether or not it's going
to be on bail or zero bail or what the
conditions are. The DA just offers an opinion.
S3 (06:14):
Rep. Okay. So did that authority, that county by county
authority level then expire at some point?
S5 (06:21):
It's it ultimately did. And for us anyway, in Yolo County,
we stopped zero bail in. It was May of 2022,
I believe. So it was 13 months. It was in
effect here in my county and it was stopped by
our court.
S3 (06:40):
Okay. And now it is stopped in every county. Is
that right?
S5 (06:44):
Yeah, that's right. It's over now in every county.
S3 (06:47):
Okay. Yeah. So so we during this time, we saw
some pretty notable horrific crimes that that were directly linked
to zero bail. And one of the cases I just
I just want to remind listeners that they got a
lot of attention. We've talked about it on the show
is is the Tibbetts case, which is county, I guess
county next door to you. But, you know, obviously in
(07:08):
your own backyard. Would you just remind listeners what what
happened in that case?
S5 (07:14):
Yeah, the short version is Miss Tibbetts. The victim was
home and land park just south of the capital. When
a man who long criminal history was released on zero
bail under this exact policy and he went to her
house and broke in and raped her and killed her
(07:37):
dogs and set her house on fire. He was the
poster child for the problem with this zero bail policy.
S3 (07:45):
And amazingly, at the time, my recollection is legislators were
were then pushing a sort of a permanent zero bail
policy throughout the state. Right. Can you explain what was
kind of happening in the legislature at the time?
S5 (08:02):
Yeah, right before that happened, there was a bill moving
through the legislature sponsored by Senator Hertzberg which would have
once again implemented some form of zero bail in California,
even though voters had rejected zero bail on the ballot
in 2020. You know, he came back and had a
new bill and then the Tibbetts murder happened and the
(08:26):
bill was pulled.
S3 (08:28):
And and I'm just I'm just going to fly it
for listeners and particularly those in the capital, that we
expect that bill to be back very soon in some form.
We certainly I've certainly heard a lot of discussion that
despite the fact of this horrible murder and the fact
that I'm glad Jeff pointed out that the voters had
rejected this already when it was when it was referenda
(08:49):
on the ballot. That's still likely to be back this session.
So this is very much a live issue. Okay. So
that's great background. Appreciate you walking through. Now let's talk
about your first study. Okay. So so when did you
do the first study and what were you looking at?
S5 (09:03):
The first study was completed in August of 22, and
what we were looking at was just what was the
recidivism rate for all of those individuals in Yolo County
who had been released on zero bail? That was it.
I just wanted to report out on what their recidivism
rate was, what the crime types were. And it was
(09:23):
a high number. I mean, it was over 70% of
all of those individuals. And there were almost 600 in
my my county who were released on zero bail, meaning
they were immediately released after their they committed a crime,
often felony crimes. They weren't required to post any bond.
There was no risk assessment. There was no supervision. There
(09:44):
was no ankle monitor. There was no treatment. There was
no support. The policy of zero bail is you're just released.
And you get a court date in the future and
then you're expected to come to court. So out of
the 600 people approximately that were released, it was over
a 70% recidivism rate. And the crimes that they were
committed included murder, attempted murder, robbery, shootings, carjacking. Mean it
(10:09):
was a pretty horrific list and it got a lot
of attention. The study got a lot of attention on
a statewide and a national scale because nobody else had
done it. We were the only county in California that
had actually tracked that data.
S3 (10:26):
Yeah. And I'm glad we walked through the geography at
the beginning of the show. One of the reasons I
wanted to do that is to point out. So when
you're looking at recidivism here now, these could be people
committing new crimes in any county, I take it, right,
Because like, criminals aren't going to particularly care about whether
it's on the YOLO side of the Sacramento Bridge or
the Sacramento County side of the bridge. Right. So so
I assume you're looking at this recidivism anywhere, including right
(10:48):
in the capital, right?
S5 (10:49):
Yeah, no, a great point. We're tracking it statewide. And
a lot of the crimes were committed in Sacramento, the
Bay Area down south. We were following them, you know,
statewide for, you know, a good period of time.
S3 (11:01):
So is there a way in that study that you're
able to compare that recidivism rate to any sort of
other background number? I guess if you've got this broad
based zero bail, that's what's happening at the time. But
is there a way to compare that to a non
zero bail situation?
S5 (11:17):
Well, there is, and that's why we did the second
part of the study. So the first study, again, in
August of 22 was only focused on the recidivism rate
for those released on zero bail. We didn't have a
control group for people who had been released on a
traditional bail because that wasn't happening during COVID. I mean,
(11:37):
there are people were just being released, you know, at
least for the the list of offenses that we're talking about,
which included a lot of felony offenses, burglary, auto theft,
a whole slew of financial crimes. So the second study
that we just completed in February of 23 looked at
(11:58):
the control group of similar group of people committed similar
crimes in the period immediately before COVID. So during a
period of time where they were appearing before judges having
their risk assessed and having judges set bail. And so
we compared apples to apples. We looked at people who
(12:18):
were released on bail and the people who were released
during zero bail. To get the numbers to do a comparison.
S3 (12:26):
Okay. And so what did the second study show?
S5 (12:28):
It was really bad. Mean it showed that the people
who were released on zero bail committed 163% more crime
than people who were released on traditional bail. The people
on zero bail committed 200% more violent crime. Than people
on traditional bail and in every single category for every
single crime type people released on zero bail, vastly overfunded
(12:55):
reoffended compared to the posted bail group.
S3 (12:58):
Okay. So so this is the study I want to
drill down here more. So let me make sure I've
got it. If somebody is released with bail, they have
a much lower recidivism rate. That's what the study showed.
But they could be released at the same time as
the person on zero bail in that study. Is that
the way? I should understand that? It's just that they're
they have to do it by posting bail. Is that right?
S5 (13:20):
Well, in the study, just keep in mind, we had
a control group that was from a time period immediately
before COVID because that was you know, we had people
posting bail once COVID hit and we went into the
zero bail order, people weren't posting bail for the most part,
at least on the offenses that we're looking at here.
Not every offense qualified for zero bail, by the way,
(13:43):
mean murder and rape. That was not a zero bail offense,
but there was a long list of other offenses that
were and those are the two groups of crimes we
compared before COVID during the zero bail policy, during COVID.
S3 (13:58):
But so in the study, you can see somebody released,
let's just say, immediately. But on bail versus somebody released
immediately on zero bail, you're able to compare that apples
to apples, right?
S5 (14:12):
Yeah, absolutely. And that was the goal. We wanted the
we wanted the samples to be as similar as possible.
And so we had a researcher, you know, help us
structure the study. It was carefully. It was random samples.
It was, you know, blind. We didn't have any bias
in the selection of the sample individuals or the sample numbers.
(14:35):
And ultimately, we also had it evaluated by a a
pro to make sure that our sample size was sufficient,
which it was.
S6 (14:44):
Okay.
S3 (14:45):
So let me ask a really basic. This is going
to sound like a dumb question, but why do you
think that is? Somebody who doesn't serve prison time is
out on bail, somebody who doesn't serve prison time? Is
that on zero bail? And and the first group has
much lower recidivism rate than the latter group. Why do
you think that is?
S5 (15:05):
It's just accountability. You know, it's when you have somebody
who is arrested for crime and then required to appear
in front of a judge and be assessed, I mean,
the judge, you know, does this risk assessment with the
individual before setting bail, There's a conversation, there's an exchange
of information. The judge is looking at the rap sheet.
(15:27):
There's information being provided by victims of crime. And so
when bail is set by the court and by the way,
the judge also considers the person's ability to pay in California,
that's part of the law now. Right. So the judge
already has that discretion. But when they set bail, there
is accountability. Now cloaked over that individual. If they managed
(15:49):
to post the bond and get out, they know that
the court, you know, is watching them. There's going to
be a bail agent involved in the situation almost always,
and that's another layer of accountability. And there is an
incentive for them not to re-offend because if they do re-offend,
they're going back into custody and they're going to have
to post another bond. They're going to be out money. Right.
(16:11):
So maybe, you know, the simplest explanation is, well, nobody
wants to lose money. And every time, you know, they
they re-offend in a bail scenario, they're going to be
posting more money in the zero bail scenario. There's no accountability.
There's no oversight. There's no victim input. There's no supervision.
And they're not going to lose a dime.
S3 (16:31):
Right? Right. Yeah. And I'm imagining, like the typical person posting,
they might be borrowing some of this money from family
members and close friends. And like, you're you're sort of creating, like,
a community of accountability in some ways. Yeah, that's fair.
S5 (16:44):
That's a great point. And it's a real known phenomenon
that when people post bail, often, as you said, it's
family members, friends, others that are coming in to help them.
And so then you have this support system on the
outside that are kind of keeping them on the, you know,
walking the line. Out of trouble. And so that's we've
just seen that. You know, I've been a prosecutor for
(17:06):
27 years. That's how it works when people post bail.
S3 (17:11):
So there's a related issue and maybe and I'd actually
love to have you back on the show some time
to talk about early release. I wanted to I want
to draw a line between these two issues here just
for the purpose of this, because there's so much in
your study I still want to talk about. But but
there's a related issue of rehabilitation that happens when people
actually serve sentences and lower. And I think there's a
lot of data support. The fact that there's a lower
(17:32):
recidivism rates that come out of people serving more of
their sentences than less of their sentences. But just as
a tease and yeah, I would love to dig deeper
on this one as the session goes on, Is that
your view and experience beyond the the bail issue, but
actually the serving the sentence issue that that leads to
higher recidivism as well?
S5 (17:51):
100%. I mean, we've seen it in California with all
of the early releases and the increases in recidivism. Violent
crime has been on an upward tick for a number
of years in California. And again in my county, we
have spent time tracking the recidivism rates for those released
early under Prop 57 and other sentence reduction acts. And
(18:12):
it's not good data. It doesn't look good for public safety.
S3 (18:16):
Okay. So we're going to be dealing with both of
these issues this legislative session. I just want to call
that out to staffers and members and other advocates who
are listening to these two things are both hugely important
and they're kind of two sides of the same coin,
in my opinion. But but back to your study, because
I think there's a lot of really interesting takeaways from here.
So so yeah, other headlines from the study that you
(18:38):
want to call out.
S5 (18:39):
Well, I think when you look at the reoffending rate
for those released on bail, one of the things that
was really troubling to us was the domestic violence re-offending
rates that was eight times higher than the people who
were posting bond. So that's troubling. You know, and obviously,
there were other violent crimes that were even more serious
(19:01):
than that. But it's the violence That's what really it
was shocking to me. I mean, I knew that there
was going to be a higher recidivism rate just based
on anecdotal analysis over that period of time. But when
we saw how much more violent crime, 200% more violent crime,
the people on zero bail were involved in, that was
(19:22):
a real staggering number. And those are real victims. You know,
those are people that have been murdered and raped and beaten.
And it's hard to, you know, to look back at
why we put this policy in place, why the court
did it. The court put the policy in place to
protect people from COVID, from dying inmates, people who committed crimes.
(19:44):
But when it ended up happening is actually more people
in the community. Innocent people were violently hurt as a
result of these policies. And so I know you say, well,
you've got to balance the equities there. But for me
as a prosecutor and I think anybody in public safety,
you know, seeing the huge uptick in victims and victimization
(20:04):
as a result of this policy equals policy failure.
S3 (20:09):
Okay. But but to your point, the COVID emergency is
over and all the emergency orders, I think, expired a
few weeks ago, not just on this, but statewide emergency.
So I never like to ask guests to make the
other side's argument. But but let me ask you, what
do you think is behind this continued push to zero
bail in a post-COVID emergency situation?
S5 (20:30):
Yeah, I understand it really clearly. And the argument goes
like this The proponents of bail reform will say that
the bail system is biased against obviously people, poor people
who are lesser means than the rich. They'll also say
that it's disproportionately impacting people of color, which can be
(20:54):
related to the poverty issue. And those are fair arguments.
I mean, that's absolutely true. But the answer is not
zero bail. And that's what this study has shown, that,
you know, the idea that we're going to implement a
system where people just are arrested and immediately released because
of the nature of the crime without any type of
(21:14):
judicial oversight, supervision, treatment and ankle monitor, etcetera. It's just
it makes no sense in light of what we see
in the data and in this study. So the proponents
of zero bail, I think many are ideologically driven and
(21:34):
I can trace it right back to numerous national groups
who have made bail reform and in particular, zero bail,
the elimination of cash bail. They're one of their foundational issues,
and they are supporting candidates at both the state and
local level who believe that or at least will sign
(21:55):
up for that. I know this. This is my fifth
term as the DA. I've been through many elections. I've
seen how the money flows and I've seen how candidates
that side with the bail reform groups on hard line
zero bail policies get their support. So I think that's
just the reality. That's the political reality. And I see
(22:18):
it in Sacramento and talking with certain members as well.
The groups that are pushing zero bail are powerful. Big
money coming from some of the biggest donors that we
all know. So that's what's happening.
S7 (22:33):
All right.
S3 (22:33):
Well, you teed up some politics. I wasn't going to
dwell on your election results, but you gave me an
opportunity to. And I just I just want to, first
of all, congratulate you on your re-election last year, which
was a double digit re-election in a very progressive county. And,
you know, I'm just I'm curious, like when you're out
there on the campaign trail, like, you know, I know
you're the kind of guy who knocks on a lot
of doors and talks to a lot of your constituents
(22:55):
when these issues come up with maybe somebody who necessarily
isn't inclined to agree with you on this topic. How
does a conversation like that go? Can you give us
a little flavor for one of those one on one
conversations and somebody who might otherwise be inclined to disagree
with you?
S5 (23:10):
Yeah, for sure. And it's worth noting that my county
is very progressive. Mean we are a deep blue county.
Yolo County hasn't voted for a Republican for president since Eisenhower,
you know. So when I go out and talk to folks,
my message is, look, this is a balance. You know,
I believe in bail reform. I do. But it's got
to be smart. Bail reform and you have to balance
(23:32):
the bail reform policies with public safety and victims. And
we need to come up with an equation that that,
you know, isn't going to expose the public to these
violent individuals, but also make sure that the court, the
judges are empowered to use their discretion to set a
lower bail if the person truly is, you know, not
(23:52):
of the means to pay it. And the judge also
has to be able to look at the individual's criminal
history and assess the risk. They also need to hear
from the victims. So there are lots of things that
go into this soup, you know, with bail reform. And
I support, again, you know, smart policies that I think
get us to where a lot of the proponents want
(24:13):
to go, which is a system that is more overall
fair and empowering judges to consider individual circumstances of an
individual's ability to pay. ET cetera. What a lot of
people don't know and I explained this when I walked
and I talked, is, you know, in California, we already
have case law that requires the judges to consider an
(24:36):
individual's ability to pay. And when a judge sets bail,
they are specifically considering that as part of their final
whatever the amount is they pick. Now, there's other things, obviously,
that I mentioned, but we've got a pretty good system
in California. It can be tweaked for sure. And I'm
all game for having those conversations with lawmakers and others. But,
(25:01):
you know, this idea that we're just going to throw
out bail, we're going to get rid of bail. No,
that's too extreme.
S3 (25:08):
Yeah, I try to imagine what that actually looks like
in practice, and it's a really hard thing for me
to get my head around other than imagining exactly what
you studied and what you're talking about. The results are
just devastating for communities. But but on a more permanent basis,
I've heard some people sort of compare it to like
the way the federal system works. I imagine you have
(25:28):
some familiarity with that. That actually sounds kind of more
draconian to me, where my understanding is judges can basically
just be like, I'm not getting out and I'm just
lock you up and throw away the key and there's
no chance for for bail. Could you kind of give
listeners because I think it's a useful comparison like like
a sense of how that works.
S5 (25:45):
Yeah, it's a great comparison. You know, this idea that,
you know, the federal system where systems where there essentially
is no cash bail and it's just up to a
judge to make a call on each case whether the
person will be released. All the data shows that more
people are being detained because judges are less likely to,
you know, release somebody on a zero because it's a
(26:07):
zero bail system there. They have other tools that they use,
but they're just less likely to release them under those guidelines.
So what bail actually, the bail system in California, the
way it kind of blends into, I think a more
balanced approach is it does create another option for an
individual to secure their release once the court has looked
(26:28):
at the crime and their individual circumstances. And if they
then post the bond, it brings in all those other
things that we talked about the family, the support system,
the outside kind of guardrails to keep them from re-offending
and the bail agents. And, you know, people like to
bash on the bail industry. And I'm you know, I'm
not I'm not in bed with the bail industry, but
(26:50):
they serve a vital purpose in our state. I mean,
we have too few cops on the street. I can
tell you right now in my county that we have
almost 7000 warrants that have been issued by courts. That have.
We're not going to serve them. No one's ever going
to go out and arrest people on these warrants. But
if they were on bail. The bail agent's going to
(27:11):
get him into court. So that's huge. Yeah.
S3 (27:14):
Yeah. I mean, I would just ask anybody who's considering
what zero bail actually means to to think about that
federal comparison in their head, because I think the result
could actually be much worse for your goals than what
the current system is. Because if it results in a
situation where it's the judge just, you know, not taking
the chance and saying, okay, well, throwing away the key
(27:35):
until the trial, like, like that's, that's it. Um, and
you'd have to have some ability for judges to make
those decisions, presumably. I mean, I can't imagine anyone's actually
suggesting that, hey, you automatically get out on zero bail
or you automatic. Let's just let's understand that. I can't
imagine anyone actually wants a situation where you automatically get
(27:56):
out pretrial period until the trial. No, that would that
would be insane. You'd have murderers and rapists and carjackers
and and everybody else running around. So this would have
to be replaced with something which ultimately, I think the
only other option is more discretion on behalf of judges,
(28:16):
in which case you have less options for people to
get out pretrial. Am I missing something there?
S5 (28:22):
No, that's dead on. And that's why my experience, the
proponents of bail reform don't like any scenario where judges
have more discretion. Right. To retain people, to detain people.
And so and that's come up just in California history,
where we've seen these interesting alliances between reform groups and
(28:43):
the bail agents. For example, a few years ago when
they sought to overturn the bail law. So, yeah, absolutely.
What the proponents really want is an algorithm, you know,
essentially something that's going to like, you know, you plug
in the data and it'll just generate. A release decision.
(29:04):
Without the judge being able to veto it. And then
there will be other conditions put on for the release,
including some type of support and wraparound services. That's the
idea that I've heard floated by many of the opponents.
I'll tell you that in my county. I mean, I
said I support smart bail reform. And to prove that
years ago I worked with one of the national groups
(29:27):
called Vera. And Vera is a leader in bail reform issues.
I had them come to my county. We built a
pretrial release program based on a bail policy that. I
set a presumption that we're not going to ask for
bail in certain offenses, mostly misdemeanor crimes. That presumption can
(29:49):
be overcome by circumstances and facts and discretion. And so
when we go before the judge, if it's a certain crime,
there's a presumption. We look at the facts. We make
our pitch to the judge. And in many of the cases,
we don't ask for bail. Instead, we ask them to
be released on a supervised program where they're assigned a
(30:11):
probation officer and other individuals to monitor them while they're
pending trial. So we're already doing that in Yolo County.
The key, though, the key to that is everybody has discretion.
The judge has a ton of discretion. The DA has discretion.
And so we're trying to make these decisions based on
actual risk and likelihood that the person will come back
(30:33):
to court. And sometimes the only way to do it
is by also including some bail amount.
S3 (30:39):
So it'd be great to see other counties do similar studies.
Can you give us a sense of kind of resources?
Time complexity is involved in something like this. And if
you if you don't mind me asking any conversations with
your fellow colleagues about other counties replicating this work to
see if the numbers are similar.
S5 (30:57):
There's a lot of interest in other counties. I've talked
to many, including right here in the capital region. The
DA's want to do it. We're working on it right
now with the California DA's Association. I can tell you
safely that we've got at least a dozen counties and
it probably be 30 or 40 by the time we're
(31:18):
done who want to do this on a statewide basis.
It's a lot of work, and that's why I was
the only county to do it early on was because
it was so much work. And frankly, you also have
to have the data available to crunch the numbers. And
I have a system. I've had a system for a
long time that's made me kind of, you know, front
(31:39):
of the line in California because of our case management.
S3 (31:42):
You're talking about a technical software system that made that
available for you to do. And yeah, exactly right.
S5 (31:50):
But the good news is, I think that within the
a short window here, we're going to have a coalition
of elected DA's from around California who are going to
be coming together to do a zero bail study on a,
you know, regional basis for sure, maybe statewide. And I
think the numbers I don't expect them to be a
lot different than what I saw in YOLO. I'm open
(32:12):
to that. And we're working with outside researchers, outside groups
to do the study. So we'll see.
S3 (32:19):
Well, that was going to be my next question. No
reason that you can think of to expect it to
be different. It might be even worse in places that
have more violent crime per capita or something along those lines. Right.
I mean, if anything, you expect if you threw it
in San Francisco and probably be worse if anything, is
that is that fair?
S5 (32:36):
I think it's fair. I mean, again, a lot of
it's just based on, you know, my county is a
pretty good snapshot and a small scale of the whole
state of California. I mean, and I say that because
we're diverse like California. You know, I've got we're about 40% Latino,
about 15% Asian Pacific Islander. We have you know. And
(32:57):
so if you look. At California. Yolo County is a
really good model and so I don't think it's going
to be much different. But I agree with you that
it'll probably be worse in some of the big urban counties.
S3 (33:11):
Yeah. Which which, you know, just just by their sheer girth.
If you added those up on a per capita basis,
you know, you might see substantially worse statewide numbers. Okay.
So we would, of course, love to have you back
to talk about a statewide or regional study or whatever.
You have hope you will come back when that time comes.
And yeah, would love to have you to talk about.
Early release and mandatory mental health care was allowed as
(33:33):
she's gone on in the session. You're at the front
line of so many of these things but I really
appreciate the time today to drill down just on this. Now,
people want to read both either of the studies. Where
can they go? Where can they find out more information?
S5 (33:45):
Yeah, all the studies are posted online at YOLO da
org under the media section and it's right there at
zero bail studies. They can read everything.
S3 (33:56):
Great District attorney Jeff Resig, thanks so much for everything
you're doing. Thanks for being on the show today. It
was a pleasure to have you. Thank you, Brian. We
invite you to share ideas for guests, ask questions and comments.
S8 (34:08):
You can find us at neptune.com. Follow us and subscribe
wherever you listen to your podcasts as we continue to
explore the inside stories of driving California politics. This is
the Nation State of Play podcast. I'm your host, Bryan Miller,
and thank you for listening.
S2 (34:26):
Olas media.
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