Transcripts For ALJAZAM Fault Lines 20240622

Let us bow our heads for a word of prayer. Our father and our most gracious god. As this family, the murdough family and their friends, as they gather, we ask that you send your comforter, your holy spirit, your guide, to be with them. Queens, new york. Jerome murdoughs family is laying him to rest. Four months ago, 56yearold jerome was arrested for trespassing, and booked into new yorks Rikers Island jail. You going to be missed big bro. Me and him, we had a special connection, special relationship. Seven days later, he was found dead in his cell. They said he was baked to death. Heat. His Room Temperature reached well over 100 degrees with no ventilation. Theres no words to explain. It just looks like you came from a building that caught on fire. He was blacker than my hair. He was darker than my hair. Jerome was a former marine, who suffered from bipolar disorder and alcohol abuse. A week went by and we didnt hear from him, then two weeks, then it was 3 weeks. Then my mother started saying, something it aint right. His family says he never should have been in jail. But a judge had set his bail at two thousand five hundred dollars. Thats how much it would have cost him to walk free before his trial. Since jerome couldnt afford to pay, he was sent back to Rikers Island, to wait for his trial. In this episode of fault lines we look at how courts handle the accused before trial. Its a story about a multibilliondollar industry bail bonds and a Justice System in which money determines who goes free, and who stays behind bars. Its four pm in the sacramento suburbs. Were riding with a team of bounty hunters, looking for a fugitive. So this is a skip of somebody who was charged with drug possession and shes on a 20 thousand dollar bail, and she failed to turn up for court in december. Around fifteen thousand bounty hunters operate in the United States. Bail Bond Companies hire them to track down criminal defendants who have skipped their court dates. Were with rob dick, one of americas most famous bounty hunters. This is his partner, roger adair. Yeah its right here, in that court, on the left side. Hey. Theres a suburban in the driveway. Its in the court. The house to the last one on the left side. They are hunting for a woman charged with drug possession. If they cant find her, the bondsman who bailed her out of jail will owe the local court twenty thousand dollars. If it is her, ill just do Something Like hey or, you know, hey. Thats your key to come, that its her. Bounty hunters, and the bail Bond Companies they work for are the core of a uniquely american industry commercial bail. Bail Bond Companies in the us earn over 2 billion dollars every year. They got three pit bulls inside. In all but four states, the companies are legally allowed to take almost any measure necessary to capture a client including crossing state lines and breaking into homes. Its a dangerous business for everyone involved, with few rules and little oversight. Hey, stevie . Get your dogs back before i shoot em. Okay. Get your dogs back before i shoot them alright, well get your dogs in a room right now. Alright stevie. What the hell . We just got to deal with your warrants. Its no big deal. Thats fine. Okay . Put some pants on. Lets go. Anybody else in the house . Alright. Whatever you need put some pants on or something just got to be careful what youre grabbing for is all, you know. Seven months ago, stevie light was arrested for growing marijuana with an expired permit, and possession of cocaine. A judge set her bail at twenty thousand dollars. She couldnt afford it, so her father went to a bail bond company. For ten percent down two thousand dollars the company bailed her out of jail. When stevie didnt show up to court, the Company Became liable for the full twenty thousand. How old are you . Im 21. I turn 22 in october. What you think is going to happen next . Well, im going to be locked back up and then im probably going to stay in there until my court date. And from there i probably will get sentenced. I guess i just have to do it and get it out of the way. That is how the system works. I mean everyone at the end of the day is just doing their job. The us and the philippines are the only countries in the world that allow private companies to bail people out of jail at a profit. Under california bail rules, stevie can get out of jail again by paying the same Company Another one thousand dollars. The assumption that defendants who pay money up front are more likely to return to court is central to the way Justice Works in the United States. Every time someone is arrested a judge must determine whether they will be incarcerated or released before trial. We would actually be asking for an o. R. , or a very low bail. Most defendants ask to be released for free, on the understanding that theyll show up for their court date. My biggest concern is your likelihood to appear in court, as well as the fact. But most have to pay im going to set your bail at 20,000, which is actually below schedule. For bail bondsmen, the court is where the market is set. Each bail decision can mean a new payday, when defendants are willing to come up with ten percent of their bail to but their release. Its the reason why this courthouse, like most others across the country, is surrounded by bail bond shops. In california, if its a 25 thousand dollar bond and you aint got the money to afford it, i understand youre innocent until proven guilty, but youre going to stay in jail until you go to trial. Leonard padilla is the face of the bail business in sacramento. This is some office you have. Rattlesnakes, you ever heard of them . Stick your tongue out for him, come on. Good girl. Youre quite into wildlife. Now semiretired, he says he spends more time in his office talking to his parrot than chasing fugitives. Leonard and rob used to star in their own tv show. Tracking down fugitives no one else can find. Leonard told us that in Sacramento County alone, courts set twelve Million Dollars in bail every month. Twelve million a month, thats 144 in a year. Thats 10 of the total penal amount in california, which is usually between a billion and a half and two billion. And you take 8 to 10 of that, thats a big chunk of cash. All of a sudden youve got people saying if we got our hands on some of this wed be in good shape. From your perspective, its probably better that people keep getting arrested, right . Because then you have to keep bailing them out of prison. The more arrests the more people are needed for bail. The more skip, the better off i am. Were it not for crime, there are a lot of jobs that wouldnt be available. Were the only ones in the business that dont make the money off the taxpayer. In which business . In the crime business. Everybody is in the crime business. The criminal, the judge, the defendants, attorney, the guy that builds the jail, the people that pass the laws over at the legislature. They all make a chunk of money off the crimes. Catch more faultlines episodes on demand or at aljazeera. Com faultlines. Were here to fully get into the nuances of everything thats going on not just in this country but around the world. Getting the news from the people who are affected. People need to demand reform. Ali velshi on target weeknights 10 30p et downtown baltimore. With one of the highest arrest rates in the country, its a great place to be a bail bondsman. Across the street from the court, James Daniels and his family have stopped in to make a payment. A few months ago, james was charged with theft, and his bail was set at three thousand five hundred dollars. They give bails sometimes too high for some of the littlest things. But i guess its to teach you a lesson. He didnt have the money for the 350 fee, but this bondsman agreed to accept payment in installments. Have a nice day. Alright man. Thanks for workinwith me take care of them babies. Oh yeah, im trying to. Bail bonds so youre eight minutes away. Just bring him into the office. Another bondsman, dennis sew, just got a call that two bounty hunters he hired are on their way theyve captured one of his skips. On about september 9th, 2013, we bail out tony Deshawn Mccoy from the Baltimore County Detention Center. How much was his bail . 50,000 dollars. Thats a high one. Yeah. So its petty theft basically. Its theft, but multiple counts. Tony mccoy was arrested for writing bad checks. Hed missed a court date one month ago. Dennis tracked him down in north carolina. Welcome back to baltimore the bounty hunters grabbed tony at four this morning in charlotte. Most of tonys family lives there, including his fiancee and young son. How come you didnt go to court, man . Because my brother, right now hes sick, hes a diabetic, he about died about a week ago, and hes still in critical condition, and i was down there. Theyre going to take deshawn and charge him, book him on the bench warrant when he missed court. Theyre going to take him to jail . To the central bookings . Yes. If they offered you the same 50,000 bail, how easy is that for you to get that kind of money together to post . [shakes head] nothing is easy for me. I dont have nobodys number i can contact. I cant get in touch with anybody. What do you think is going to happen next . I think the worst Case Scenario is probably a couple months. A couple of months is enough to lose your life, simple. When you are a person thats living from check to check, or job to job, nothing put away. You dont have a nice 401k put away, you miss one paycheck thats rent. Now they filing eviction papers. Now they padlocking. When they padlock thats everything you own, cause you cant get that. So, what i have on right here, right now, when i walk out, this is what i have on. Thatll be everything i own. Its over. Tony is headed to the Baltimore City Detention Center, one of the largest jails in the country. Ninety percent of its inmates have not yet gone to trial. Some defendants spend as long as four months in here awaiting trial. The average wait for those who cant afford bail is over six weeks. People who are incarcerated before trial are far more likely to plead guilty. They often face more time in jail than the length of their potential sentence. If you are detained even briefly pretrial, there is a provable dramatic increase in the length and severity of the ultimate outcome of a criminal case just because youre held pretrial. Judge Truman Morrison serves on the superior court of the district of columbia. For years he has advocated for bail reform. Twothirds of the jail population in the United States of america tonight are people awaiting trial. People who our law presumes to be innocent because they have not yet had their trial. Those people have not been put there because they have been found by any process to be too dangerous or too unlikely to come back. Theyre almost all there simply because they dont have the money to purchase their freedom. We wanted to speak to inmates who find themselves in that position. But baltimores jail refused to allow us inside. We were granted access to the second largest jail in maryland the Prince Georges County Detention Center. Every year, thirty thousand people pass through this facility. The ones who remain inside tend to be like samuel kayira out of touch with family, with a history of misdemeanors. Samuel was arrested for stealing from a wine store. His bail was set at two thousand dollars. Hey, hows it going . Im sebastian. Im sam. Good to meet you sam. So, would they have been able to help, your family . With a 2,000 bail, that means they would have had to front you 200 in order for you to be released on bail. Well, its 2,000 if you dont have a bondsman. And, i never, to be honest, i dont think they could afford it. Even just 200 bucks . Yeah. How long do you expect to be in here . At least until next month when my trial comes. Maybe they will drop my case. Im not too sure about that. But thats what im waiting for next month, trial case. Larry clark was arrested for trespassing. He has been in jail for a month and a half on a 2600 bond, and his first court date is three weeks away. If you aint got it, you aint got it. There was a time my bond was 250. So how much was that to bond out . 25 yeah. 25 dollars and you couldnt bail out on that either . So it doesnt really matter how much they set. Youre staying in jail, because you dont have the money. Yep. Larry is 58. He has been homeless for a decade. Since 2004, how much time would you say you spent in jail . Its every year . Every month almost. No, every two months almost. Really . Yea. So how does that make you feel about this place . Its almost like a part of your life. Mmhmm. Hmm hmm. Catch more faultlines episodes on demand or at aljazeera. Com faultlines. Brittany menards decision to take her own life last year. Sparked a national debate. Brittany didnt want to die the brain tumor was killing her, she simp the purpose of money bail is to make sure that people who have been arrested ultimately show up for court. But if you drive just thirty minutes from maryland into washington dc, theres a completely different system in place. And yet, out of everyone arrested in this city, almost all of them show up for court. Judges in washington are allowed to set money bail only if the defendant can afford it. They are also allowed to detain without bail anyone they deem too risky for release. The results have been far fewer people spending time behind bars. We are the only city in america where tonight, at our jail, theres not a single man or woman who is sitting because they dont have the money to meet their money bond. Since the adoption of that rule twenty years ago, money bail, and bail Bond Companies, have all but disappeared. In their place, washington uses a federally funded Pretrial Program that functions like parole, requiring defendants to check in on a regular basis, or wear an ankle monitor. Ninety percent of the people come back, ninety percent of the people are not rearrested. We are proof, living proof, that you dont need money. The bail bond industry views Public Programs as a direct threat to business. In maryland this spring, it campaigned hard against a bill that would have mandated Pretrial Services statewide. The bill died in the state assembly. Our job was to point out our strengths, why commercial bail works better than any other form of release and thats what i did. Nothing more. Lobbyist barry udoff led the fight. He says the bail industry saves taxpayers money. You always hear the numbers that there are all these people in jail on very small bails of 2,500 dollars or less on any given day and these people dont belong in jail. First of all, i dont think theres that many of em. Well just down the street in Baltimore City Detention Center, its around one out of every fourteen people is on bail of less than 5,000 dollars. Okay. And. And 90 percent of the people in that Detention Center are there pretrial. Are there pretrial. Okay, yeah. In Baltimore City jail Detention Center. So under the Current System they have to just stay in jail. They have to stay in jail, correct. But theres a reason why a judge put a bond on them to begin with. Theyre high risk. Just because the bond is low doesnt necessarily mean that theyre not a high risk. A lot of these people are people who really belong in mental institutions, have no fixed addresses, so just release them . I dont see how you just release them because the bond is a low bond. I dont know what the answer is. I dont know that, i dont know that they dont belong in jail though. It may be the safest place for them in some cases. The price that we pay for allowing money and bail bondsmen is immense. Highrisk people buy their way out of jail. Low risk people sit in jail, all at tremendous cost. When Jerome Murdough was arrested, he was sleeping in an enclosed staircase in harlem public housing. His mother alma says hed been visiting a friend in the building. Just because my son is 50something years old, sleeping in the hallway, you give him a 2,500 bail for sleeping. Something is wrong with that picture. They need to check it out, real fast. Alma found out about jeromes death one month later, when she was called by a reporter. To this day, she has never been contacted by officials at Rikers Island jail, or by anyone in new york city government. Back in my days, if you was sleeping on the street, on a bench somewhere, they would tap you on the bottom of your feet and tell you to take a walk. And now they want to put you in jail so the city can pay the money. Thats ludicrous. Thats crazy. Just dont let it happen to another mothers son, thats all. Just dont think that hes homeless, he a bum, he have nobody because he has somebody. He got sisters and brothers. He got mothers and fathers. On the day jerome was arrested, the prosecutor had offered him sixty days in jail if he pled guilty. He rejected the offer. Our problem is not that we have people in jail. Our problem is that we have all the wrong people in jail, and having all the wrong people in jail is something we should all care about. The cold reality is that it is the powerless people who are kept in jail for want of a few hundred dollars. They are the people who suffer just because theyre too poor to purchase their liberty before their trial. Im ali velshi. On target tonight the great divide. Forget what you hear, the middle east biggest conflict have little to do with United States. American investors wondering whats next . Republican president ial hopeful Mike Huckabees headline grabbing comments last weekend over iran and the holocaust gave opportunity to feed a flawedflawed narrative about the middle