Civil rights groups filed a lawsuit against Riverside County regarding its cash bail system, highlighting the inhumane conditions within jails linked to the inability to pay bail. This follows a state Supreme Court ruling deeming cash bail unconstitutional if it leads to detention solely due to financial status. The 80-page complaint cites multiple inmate deaths, particularly a heightened toll in 2022. Attorneys for the plaintiffs assert that the system unfairly targets impoverished individuals, regardless of their actual risk or danger to society, seeking an end to cash bail in the county.
Every day, Riverside County imprisons people based on nothing more than their inability to pay an arbitrary, pre-set amount of cash that Defendants demand for their release.
The suit was brought by the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit Civil Rights Corps, Public Justice in Oakland and several other law firms on behalf of two people incarcerated in Riverside County jails...
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