Tony Messenger’s latest column, “Hubbub over released domestic violence defendant misses the point over cash bail,” misses the point over what the kerfuffle was all about. It had nothing to do with the cash bail system.
Mac Payne was arrested on domestic assault charges by police and taken to the St. Louis City Justice Center. While he was being booked, and while police applied to the Circuit Attorney’s Office to issue charges, he tested positive for COVID.
A person can be held for up to 24 hours without bond while charges are applied for. In this instance, however, someone — and we don’t seem to know who — decided to release Mr. Payne after just 3 hours, and while charges were still being considered by the CAO.
Mr. Messenger quotes Mindy Gorman, Mr. Payne’s attorney, as saying, “There’s really nothing about this particular domestic violence case that is really any different than any other domestic violence case.” While his case may be typical, how it was handled by authorities after it was learned he had COVID is not.
There is a procedure in place for when police take COVID-positive suspects to the Justice Center. Corrections Commissioner Jennifer Clemons-Abdullah said that the corrections department works with local hospitals, police, and the city sheriff’s department to deal with detainees on “a case-by-case basis to determine our best course of action while limiting exposure to the virus.” This involves the arresting officers calling a police supervisor to decide if the suspect is to be “medically released,” or whether they will be taken to a hospital to determine if they are “medically fit for confinement.” While at the hospital, the police chief then contacts the jail supervisor to receive approval to house the person at the jail. And, if the jail can’t house them, then the person will be held in confinement at the hospital.
But none of that happened in this case. As I said above, someone, and we don’t know who, released him while the CAO decided to issue charges. What we do know, is that the police and prosecutors did not release him.
Mr. Messenger seems to think all of this is no big deal. After all, he wrote that if Payne had been held, a “bond hearing would have been the next day; [and] the judge likely would have let him out on a personal recognizance bond.” He goes on to say that “[i]n domestic violence cases, judges in St. Louis regularly release defendants on personal recognizance bonds.”
Yes, they sometimes do, Mr. Messenger. But the whole point of the bail process is to have each case reviewed individually so as to provide a defendant with due process and best ensure the safety of the community (including potential victims). St. Louis judges also regularly detain persons charged with domestic violence because sometimes they determine it’s not safe to release the accused.
What if Mr. Payne, after being released, had gone back to his alleged victim’s home and killed her. Would Mr. Messenger still be on his soapbox saying that the bail system worked? No, because in this case the bail system never kicked in because the accused was improperly released. We are just fortunate that this mistake occurred with someone who, it turned out, wasn’t a danger to the community. But, the whole point of the city police union’s complaint (that brought all this to light) is that this shouldn’t be happening: potentially dangerous people should not be released until their case is reviewed and it determined that they are not a danger, or that safeguards be put in place prior to their release. The jail staff who apparently let Mr. Payne go are not permitted by law or equipped to make those determinations.
As it turns out, after Mr. Payne was rearrested, the CAO did ask a judge to have Mr. Payne detained without bond citing his danger to the alleged victim in his case. A judge, after a hearing involving the prosecutor, the defendant and his attorney, and the victim (who asked that Mr. Payne be detained) decided not to give him a personal recognizance bond but to imposed a cash bond with conditions designed to safeguard the alleged victim. These conditions were not in effect when Mr. Payne was improperly released from the Justice Center.
Mr. Messenger’s opines that the mistake releasing Mr. Payne isn’t important since it turned out that he was eventually released by a judge anyway. He seems blind to the fact that the real issue is that we can’t have the jail unilaterally deciding which inmates to release and which to detain. We need to find out how it happened and make sure it doesn’t happen again. It’s not a matter of “no harm, no foul.”