| Updated: 9:01 p.m.
Last legislative session, Rep. Stephanie Pitcher wrangled together groups from across the criminal justice system to solve what she sees as a longstanding flaw in the way Utah treats defendants before trial, when their guilt or innocence hasn’t yet been established in court.
Her problem was this: Why should relatively low-risk defendants sit behind bars
for weeks or months awaiting trial
because they’re poor, while rich people can simply post bail and walk free?
It’s a question that has prompted a bail reform movement across the nation in recent years, but also one that has bedeviled states given the high stakes involved, with some debates pitting public safety versus personal liberty. So it astonished some last year when Pitcher, a Salt Lake City Democrat whose full-time job is as a prosecutor, managed to assemble a broadly supported reform package and to win approval from the Republican-dominated Legislature.