Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is considering a legal challenge to a controversial Georgia law that goes into effect Monday forbidding the release of people on unsecured bonds for many low-level offenses, according to an email she sent Wednesday morning.
Senate Bill 63 already faces a legal challenge from the ACLU of Georgia. Now Willis may join in, according to the email sent to assistant DAs, judges, county commissioners and other law enforcement in Fulton.
“I believe this law will create overcrowding and new victims in the jail within the first 6 months of its enactment,” she wrote. “Please note I am extremely concerned about the impact this law may have on citizens of this county and that I am currently considering an independent challenge to the law and will be consulting legal counsel.”
Willis declined to comment beyond the contents of the email on Wednesday.
“Please note as the District Attorney of this county in many ways I believe this Senate Bill criminalizes being poor and those good Samaritans who attempt to help the poor,” she wrote in the email. “The ACLU has already filed a law suit against the Governor, the Fulton County Solicitor and others in reference to the bill. We shall see if what I believe is an unconstitutional bill survives constitutional challenges.”
In the email, Willis nevertheless directs her office to study the law’s provisions and implement them. It notes that when she took office, the Fulton County jail population was around 3,700. It has now declined to about 2,500.
“We all know that most of those inmates are young men between the age of 17‐27,” Willis wrote.
The new law will require cash bail for 30 additional crimes, including 18 that are always or often misdemeanors, such as failure to appear in court for a traffic citation. It also limits people and organizations from posting more than three cash bonds in a year unless they meet requirements to become bail bond companies, which would require background checks, fees, a business license, approval from the local sheriff and establishing a cash escrow account or other collateral.
That provision was a response to bail funds that help Atlanta Public Safety Training Center protesters get out of jail.
The law’s Republican backers say it will help ensure arrestees who have been released on bond return for trial. Democrats argued it would worsen jail overcrowding and fall disproportionately on poor, minority defendants. They called it a gift to bail-bond company profits.
Criminal justice advocates say it is unfair to keep people in jail for long periods because they are unable to pay a cash bond.
“The ACLU of Georgia fully agrees with District Attorney Willis about the cruelty of this law, and are encouraged by her and anyone else’s willingness to join us in the fight against it,” Cory Isaacson, ACLU of Georgia legal director, said Wednesday afternoon.
Fulton County Solicitor General Keith Gammage, named as a party in the ACLU’s lawsuit, said he was unable to comment due to that litigation. But his office provided an internal memorandum on the expected impact of SB 63 on the justice system’s operation.
Based on a case calendar for two weeks in June, the requirements of SB 63 would demand a cash bond in 78 of 213 cases that would otherwise likely qualify for a signature, or unsecured bond, the memo says.
That will shift office resources from serious and violent crimes to low-level offenses that have previously been dealt with quickly, ultimately requiring more staff attorneys, investigators and victim advocates, according to the memo.
Fulton County Commissioner Dana Barrett said she’s concerned that implementation of SB 63 will make chronic crowding-related problems at the Fulton County jail worse. She predicted the jail population will go up.
“We are going to have a significant added expense,” she said, adding that money to cover that increase will undercut efforts to reduce court backlogs, repair or replace the jail, and improve the justice system’s efficiency overall.
“We were on a good trajectory, and this will set us back,” Barrett said.
In early June, the national nonprofit Bail Project, which helps low-income people in jail, closed its Atlanta branch as a consequence of SB 63.
The ACLU of Georgia filed a federal suit June 21 against the section of SB 63 limiting bail funds. The ACLU filed on behalf of Barred Business, an Atlanta nonprofit that has a program for those who can’t afford bail; and two members of the Oconee Street United Methodist Church in Athens that also has a charitable bail fund.
The lawsuit claims the plaintiffs’ charitable bail work is constitutionally protected. A hearing in the case is scheduled for Friday.
