Baltimore: The Puzzling Question of Disparate Bail or WTF?

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If there’s a question of who is at fault in the criminal justice system, my experience and education will tend to favor the government.  For example, our long time resident cartoonist, J. Bado, submitted a cartoon for publication Sunday that spoke to the curious and clearly unfair assignment of bail to police officers charged with murder, manslaughter, and etc., and an 18-year old, who voluntarily turned himself in, who was accused of vandalizing a police car.

Protesters break the window of a police car during a demonstration in Baltimore, Maryland, on April 25, 2015, against the death of Freddie Gray while in police custody. Photo by Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images
Protesters break the window of a police car during a demonstration in Baltimore, Maryland, on April 25, 2015, against the death of Freddie Gray while in police custody.
Photo by Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images

Initially, I saw his illustration as yet another example of mindless cop bashing, at least until I did my research, where I discovered there is no clear reason I can find for the court to set $500,000 bail for an apparent vandal.

From Slate:

When Baltimore’s chief prosecutor charged one police officer with murder and five others with separate crimes related to the death of Freddie Gray, many cheered the decision. But the injustice of the justice system quickly became evident after they were arrested and received lower bails than a Baltimore teenager who turned himself in after he was photographed smashing a police car window with a traffic cone. Allen Bullock, 18, voluntarily turned himself into authorities at the urging of his parents and was held on $500,000 bail, according to the Guardian. The accused officers, meanwhile, all received bails of between $250,000 and $350,000, according to theBaltimore Sun.

All six police officers charged in the death were quickly released Friday night after posting bail. Bullock, meanwhile, remains in jail, and his parents told the Guardian the amount was completely out of reach for them. “It is just so much money,” Bullock’s mother, Bobbi Smallwood, said. “Who could afford to pay that?” His stepfather, Maurice Hawkins, who was allegedly the one who pushed Bullock to turn himself in said the police “are making an example of him and it is not right.”

The high bail amounts for those arrested while protesting is just one of the reasons why tensions between the community and police officers are likely to continue. “I think that that goes to continuing strained police-community relations,” F. Michael Higginbotham, a law professor at the University of Baltimore, told local NBC affiliate WBAL. “We need to take a step back and say, OK, how do we go forward from here? What is the way to improve police-community relations, not exacerbate it?” he said. “I think these high bail amounts will exacerbate it.”

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Professor Mike

Professor Mike is a left-leaning, dog loving, political junkie. He has written dozens of articles for Substack, Medium, Simily, and Tribel. Professor Mike has been published at Smerconish.com, among others. He is a strong proponent of the environment, and a passionate protector of animals. In addition he is a fierce anti-Trumper. Take a moment and share his work.
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8 years ago

I am bemused how humanity can’t get anything vaguely right even when the right thing is hitting them on the head.

Bill Formby
8 years ago

Mike, while I think both bail amounts are obscenely high since the purpose of bail is only to ensure the defendant return to face charges, it is still indicative of a major problem not just with our criminal justice system but with our ability to have any fairness across the board in society. It is typical of a view of the underclass from the perspective of the American justice system. If this line of thinking persists we may well revisit the late 1960’s style riots of Newark, Detroit, and Chicago. It seems that is the only way that society will listen to the plight of the poor, and this is a poor man’s issue. While the blacks are catch the brunt of it there are plenty of whites in the same bunch right now.

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