The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to take up a case that accused a Texas county of having cash bail practices that violate the constitutional rights of detainees by discriminating against those who are poor.
The Supreme Court denied a petition for certiorari on Jan. 8 in the case, which had its beginnings in 2018 when a coalition of groups—including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)—filed a lawsuit on behalf of six plaintiffs, alleging systemic unconstitutional pretrial detention practices in Dallas County.
Dallas County judges established a system of bail “schedules,” which correlate bail amounts with specific criminal charges. These schedules are used by magistrates to order preset cash bail amounts as a condition of release, and arrestees who can’t afford their bail amounts are detained for weeks or months before getting a chance to be released….
