As a Virginia bail bondsman, I don’t keep up with Maryland politics. However, I caught this December 9 interview of Maryland attorney general Brian Frosh on the Marc Steiner Show.
The topic was Maryland bail reform. The Annapolis Summit will begin this coming January 11, and attorney general Frosh is hoping to influence the Judiciary to dramatically change the Maryland bail system from private to public pretrial release alternatives.
His means to achieve this bail reform agenda is to ask the judiciary to implement a rule change for judges to consider monetary bail as a last resort and instead either release the defendants on their own recognizance or have them released on non-monetary bail, meaning pretrial services. This, he and other bail-reformers reason, will resolve the issue of the poor having to remain in jail while awaiting trial because they can’t afford the 10% bond fee.
I’ve explained in previous blogs how the bail reform movement is being advanced by immoral charlatans showboating to help the poor while selfishly exploiting the poor. Listening to this 11-minute discussion not only reinforced this idea, but I would have to conclude attorney general Frosh is a perfect example of these nefarious bail reform proponents with an agenda. In addition, his means of accomplishing it is a by circumventing the Maryland General Assembly because the votes aren’t there to achieve his goal democratically.
There’s a very simple truism this reminds me of:
If a cause is right and just, one should never have to overstate the case, exaggerate, or lie to advance the cause.
Frosh violated all three throughout the interview, which is the reason I’ve concluded Maryland attorney general Brian E. Frosh is a dishonest, immoral, charlatan exploiting defendants for a political agenda.
The Attorney General’s Power Grab
Maryland Attorney General Frosh is asking the judiciary to consider monetary bail as a last resort. Frosh first explained the cause as putting a stop to the poor sitting in jail awaiting trial because they can’t pay the bond fee. At almost nine minutes into the interview, he suggested the judiciary should stop issuing high bail bonds for dangerous or risky defendants. No bail should be set. Also, rather than set a $2500 bond for a lower risk defendant, he defendant should be released without bond.
His explanation reveals this has nothing to do with helping the poor, rather it has everything to do with ending commercial bail. First, he wants the rule to include a no-bond be issued rather than a $500,000 bond. Unless he believes the poor includes having an extra $50,000 to pay a bond, this would have no effect on the poor. Second, he’s suggesting not having lower bonds at all, but rather releasing defendants without bail. Note there is no distinguishing poor defendants from defendants who have the means to pay their bail.
The point is what Frosh’s proposal will do is make the taxpayers pay for and accept the risk of middle and upper class defendants who do have the means to pay for it. Again, the agenda is to end commercial bail, not rescue the poor.
Regardless, almost 6 minutes into the interview, Marc Steiner asked Frosh if court decision would render the discussion in the general assembly moot and unimportant. His answer exposes his arrogance and shows him to have little respect for the rule of law as it pertains to governance:
“No, there is much the general assembly could do that would be very important and continue to improve the pretrial justice system in Maryland. For example, they could direct each local jurisdiction… to create a pretrial system that uses evidence-based/science-based analysis of whether the person is likely to offend or not… So our general assembly could set up that kind of county-based system and the state could help the counties with the money if they wanted to,… or certainly create incentives for the counties in one way or another. That would be a great way of making progress.”1
That translates to “No, the general assembly will remain relevant on this issue as long as they pass laws to further the anti-bail agenda. They should also mandate that jurisdictions create and fund pretrial service agencies”. A good follow-up question would have been, “So, the judiciary should disregard the general assembly on this issue unless they conform to your proposal?”
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