The complaint highlights that community members are being held pretrial just because of mere fact that they can't afford bail, said Sarait Escorza, a De-Bug organizer who helped lead the court-watching effort. We're asking for basic protections, and are holding judges accountable and making sure they get the training they need.
At issue is the application of the Humphrey ruling, made by the San Francisco-based First District Court of Appeal in 2018 and affirmed by the state Supreme Court in 2021. Humphrey mandated that state trial courts factor an arrestee's ability to pay when setting bail, and directed judges to more heavily consider non-cash release conditions like electronic monitoring programs and drug or alcohol treatment.
According to De-Bug and Civil Rights Corps, a team of court watchers that included Stanford University undergraduates attended arraignments between 2022 and 2024 and found that three court commissioners working arraignments either misapplied or failed to apply defendants' bail rights under Humphrey.
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