Georgia’s new criminal bond law that hampers charitable efforts to help cash-strapped defendants is cruel and unconstitutional, according to a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia.
The complaint, filed Friday in the federal trial court in Atlanta, targets a section of Senate Bill 63, which was signed into law by Gov. Brian Kemp at the start of May and takes effect July 1. It restricts charitable funds or individuals from bailing out anyone anywhere in the state more than three times per year.
“SB 63 is cruel and costly, forcing people to languish in jail because they can’t pay for their release, and prohibiting others from being able to help them become free,” ACLU of Georgia legal director Cory Isaacson said in a news release. “With this law, the state of Georgia makes it illegal for people to exercise their First Amendment rights to help those who are detained solely because they are poor. It is mean and it is unconstitutional.”
The challenged provision was inspired by frustration with bail funds that helped spring Atlanta Public Safety Training Center protesters from jail.
When signing the bill, Kemp said it “carries out important bail reforms that will ensure dangerous individuals cannot walk our streets and commit further crimes.” The legislation was championed by other Republican state leaders including Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, who said it was needed to stop the “revolving door” of people being arrested and released without having to pay cash bail.
ACLU of Georgia filed the suit on behalf of Barred Business, an Atlanta nonprofit that has a bailout program for those who are detained pretrial on bail they can’t afford, and two members of the Oconee Street United Methodist Church in Athens that also has a charitable bail fund.
One of the initiatives supported by Barred Business aims to bail out Black mothers and caregivers so they can spend Mother’s Day with their families.
In 2023, the church paid cash bail for about 50 people. Many of them had bail amounts of less than $100.
Kemp and Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr are named as defendants in the case, alongside the solicitors general in Fulton and Athens-Clarke counties. Representatives for Kemp and Carr declined to comment Monday.
The new law imposes some of the most severe restrictions on charitable bail funds in the nation, the complaint states. It claims the plaintiffs’ charitable bail work is constitutionally protected.
Violators of the charitable bail part of the new law will be guilty of a misdemeanor, the bill states.
“Plaintiffs and others will be forced to stop their work helping people languishing in jail solely on account of their poverty by July 1, or face criminal penalties,” the ACLU of Georgia said.
The case, which is supported by the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection at Georgetown University Law Center, seeks to immediately block enforcement of the challenged section of the new law.
A hearing in the case has been scheduled for Friday afternoon.
The legislation also adds dozens of new offenses, such as a second trespassing offense or failure to appear in court for a traffic citation, that would require cash bail to be released from jail. It was sponsored by Sen. Randy Robertson, R-Cataula, a former Muscogee County sheriff’s deputy.
