Lisa Falkenberg

Column: Crimes, not cash, should dictate decisions about bail http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Crimes-not-cash-should-dictate-decisions-about-11126939.php?t=c52ab433eb438d9cbb&cmpid=twitter-premium

Crimes, not cash, should dictate decisions about bail The latest version simply mandates automated risk assessments for criminal defendants who are eligible for bail. In layman's terms, it requires judges to make sure the people we're jailing actually need to be there, either because they're a flight risk or a danger to society or the alleged victim. H...

Harris County is spending millions in taxpayer dollars to fight FOR injustice, to defend a system of poverty jailing that a federal judge has found unconstitutional. Why? County Judge Ed Emmett says County Attorney Vince Ryan's office has told him the other side doesn't want to settle. The other side, civil rights groups and a local law firm, deny this. To prove it, plaintiff attorney Neal Manne included me in an email just this morning in which he offered yet again to settle with the county, saving taxpayers millions in legal fees, if officials would just follow U.S. District Judge Lee Rosenthal's ruling. In other words, stop violating the constitution = save money. Seems like a good deal to me. Today's column:
Why won't the county settle the lawsuit over the bail system? http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/columnists/falkenberg/article/Why-won-t-the-county-settle-the-lawsuit-over-the-11116615.php?t=2178c2b21e438d9cbb&cmpid=twitter-premium

Why won't the county settle the lawsuit over the bail system? Why are Harris County officials wasting millions in taxpayer money on high-dollar lawyers to defend a bail system that has now been declared unconstitutional by a federal judge? The county's handling of a class action lawsuit, which is intended to stop criminal court at law judges from jailing peopl...