Everyday Injustice Podcast Episode 110: Humphrey Decision’s Impact on Bail and Pretrial Detention

When the California Supreme Court ruled in March in the Humphrey decision, that the judges are required to consider a person’s ability to pay when setting their bail amounts, a big question was whether that would lead to more pretrial release or whether judges would simply detain more people without bail, citing a public safety concern. In a new policy brief released in late May by the nonpartisan California Policy Lab, the early results show that when San Francisco was required to set more affordable bail amounts, judges in San Francisco chose to release more people to intensive supervision programs instead. This new analysis provides a preview of what may happen in other counties after the California Supreme Court applied that decision to the rest of the state earlier this year. Talking about this study and what it means is Dr. Johanna Lacoe, Research Director at the California Policy Lab, and a co-author of the analysis.