Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Jails to open the doors, let bad guys walk free under shocking new laws

Episode Date: March 12, 2018

A criminal defendant's right to be freed from jail on bond while awaiting trial is guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution's Bill of Rights. The 8th amendment says a judge can't impose "excessive bail." But a national effort to reform bail laws is raising concern that dangerous inmates are being let out of jail where they can commit other crimes. Nancy Grace looks at the controversy with Beth Chapman, matriarch of the bounty-hunting Chapman family on the "Dog the Bounty Hunter" show and president of National Bail Bonds Association. Also in this discussion is Colorado bondsman Bobby Brown, and victims' rights advocate Marc Klaas. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace on Sirius XM Triumph, Channel 132. How many bail bond hearings have I conducted? So many, hundreds, maybe thousands, I don't know, over 10 years in inner city Atlanta felony courtrooms. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories, and I am on the alert. A major, major change in the bail bonding industry right now, and it is going to affect crime victims everywhere, and it is wrong. Please help us stop this travesty of justice. When I first heard this, I thought I was hearing wrong.

I thought I didn't understand what's happening. It's happening in multiple states, but I'm going to use California as my example. Because with me right now, you know her well, Beth Chapman, bounty hunter, along with her friend and colleague, Bobby Brown. Alan Duke with me. And also Mark Klass, crusader for crime victims' rights and a crime victim himself after the kidnap and murder of his little girl, Polly. I'm stunned, Mark Klass. I'm stunned at what they are trying to do in California and many jurisdictions. I don't want to make it complicated, but explain to me in simple terms what they're trying to do. Basically, open up the jail doors and let the offenders walk free. What about the victims, innocent victims, minding their own business when this goes down?

Oh, it breaks my heart. You know, it just breaks my heart. Criminals are the new victims, Nancy. That's the problem here. What this is all about, it's about eliminated cash bail so that offenders that are arrested for crimes can be released on their own recognizance under the assumption that they'll show up for trial, which I think is laughable in the face of it. Because the wrongful conviction rate in this country, certainly in California, is very, very, very low, despite what you see on TV and the episodic crime shows. So what they're doing is they're taking predominantly guilty individuals and allowing them to rotate through the system without any kind of repercussions whatsoever.

So in other words, somebody gets... Okay, okay. You're using way, way confusing words right now. Let me understand if I have it correct, Mark Klass, because at first I thought maybe Alan Duke had told me wrong. That was my first gut instinct that this can't possibly be true. But from what I understand, it's called Senate Bill 10, according to Beth Chapman joining me here.

And, you know, Mark, don't get me wrong. I've never really cared about a vendetta on homeless people that may urinate in public or somebody jaywalking. I don't want anybody with a traffic offense sitting behind bars. You know why? A, I don't think they should be behind bars, but B, them sitting there is taking the spot of a real criminal, like a killer, a rapist, a child molester, a drug lord. I want that bed open for a real criminal. I don't care if they quickly get out of jail and don't sit there waiting on their trial for urinating in public. But you have to have a bona fide, a real, a genuine bond hearing,

because when I would do bond hearings, Mark Klass, I needed to get the police report from the police department. I needed to run a GCIC, a Georgia rap sheet, a national rap sheet. I needed to know, who am I dealing with? Do I have somebody with a warrant out on them from another state? I mean, you can't just arrest somebody and then let them walk out. Hold on. Beth wants in. The whole premise of people being in jail because they're poor is just that it's premise. The fact is, is that people aren't in jail because they're poor. They're in jail because they broke the law. And what we're doing these days is we're shifting the sympathy from the victims where it should be, and we're putting

it back on the poor thug who now can't get out of jail. You know, look, nobody wants to see a guy, a first-time offender, someone who's never been in trouble before, someone who's not currently on bond, somebody who's not on parole or probation, languishing in jail simply because of money. There's no problem with that. But we all know in a real society that if a person can't come up with $100 or $200 to get out of jail, that's probably because he's a pretty bad guy, or he's probably burned all his bridges, his parents are sick of him, friends are sick of him. And you know, there's got to be parameters and there's no common sense to these regulations that they're implementing they're putting them in with a wide sweeping

brush they're saying anybody with a low-lying misdemeanor is eligible to get out so we're not talking about just urinating in public which is the example they keep throwing out. We're not talking about a traffic offense. Misdemeanors. You know what that says to me? Wife beaters, partner beaters, beating a, you know, you hit a kid, you hit your wife. Oh, that's just a misdemeanor. I don't want those guys walking right back out. Just for an example, here in California, rape of an intoxicated person is a misdemeanor, which would mean Andrew Luster, the illustrious career maker for my husband who had 187 counts of rape and poisoning would be eligible to get out of jail at this point. Okay. And another thing I don't want to ignore Beth is yeah, bail bondsman. This

is how they make their living there. You make money off bonding people out, but here's the rub. Already, so we can't say, oh, we have no interest. Of course you have an interest. Fine. But if we didn't have bail bondsmen, who's going to go look for the guys on the lam? Cops already are so thinly spread, they can't already get all the criminals so they're going to go find somebody out on bond they don't they don't have enough manpower for that they don't and we don't have resources to do that see what people forget is that bail bondsmen are a user-funded service

we are no tax we are at no cost to the taxpayers this pre-trial service program that they're trying to put in, implement into California is going to cost in the billions, Nancy. I mean, this is an already overstressed, overtaxed community where people are paying an enormous gas tax. And what they don't know is that their property taxes are going to be raised to implement this. This is not going to just cost no money. But why?

Mark Klass is joining us. I'm here in Vegas with Beth Chapman, Bobby Brown. Joining me, Mark Klass, crime victims champion. Mark, dumb me down for me. Explain to me. I almost can't believe it. Explain to me so I can understand what's happening. Well, what's happening, and this is part of a much larger trend in the in the country right now what's happening is that

criminals there's such a move to unload our prisons that everything's being dumbed down and certainly this bail issue is being dumbed down to everything that Beth just said. And what's happening is individuals that are being arrested for very real crimes are now going to be able to get out of prison, or I'm sorry, they won't even go to jail. They'll have a quick hearing with a judge. They'll be released back onto the street where they can, of course, commit more and more and more crimes. And there's no bond? I mean, wait a minute. What's their incentive to come back?

Hold on, Bobby. You have a theory. What? There is no incentive to come back. It's ridiculous. It's absurd. It's taking a guilty individual, releasing him on his own recognizance, and expecting him to come back for trial

and be convicted and put into prison. It's ridiculous, Mark. Bobby Brown? We have, one thing that people don't understand is that when we post a bond, we have a contract with the court that we will bring that person back to face the charges that they have been charged with. On pretrial, they get a pinky promise, and all they do is they say, yeah, of course I'll go to court. Well, what else are they going to say?

Do they go to court? No. Who's going to go out and pick them up? Nobody. We do that, and the disservice is to the victims it really is i mean i don't want these guys walking through my front yard i can tell you that much with my children and here here's the other thing to mark class beth bobby i remember and all the years i prosecuted felonies every week beginning and end we would get a notification. I ran the state's business in one courtroom out of many courtrooms of the jail camp. The cases assigned to my judge and me that were sitting in jail, not out on bond. And it was our duty to try those fake cases first we i was on trial every other week trying to keep my jail

count down down down or i you know i i get a butt chewing all right so here there's not going to be a jail count they just let the people out the heat is off but what's going to happen mark class when these people come to the bond there is is no bond hearing. They get charged. The judge says, okay, now show up on this date, and they walk out. Am I understanding this? And here's what happens. Just to be clear, what's going to happen is as soon as a person is arrested, they have to see a pretrial release worker. Then they are given an eight-question questionnaire that was made by the Arnold Foundation, which, by the way, is being sued in the state of. So they have to fill out a questionnaire. They won't fill it out.

They'll be asked those questions. So they will be asked these questions by a pretrial service worker. They will give whatever answers they give and they will be released mainly based on those things. The Arnold Foundation is being sued in the state of New Jersey because they deemed a guy named Jules Black, a very low lying criminal. He was caught with a gun. They gave him a PR bond on the gun. Three days later, he shot and killed June Rogers son in the street. The Arnold Foundation's risk assessment tool is flawed. It's flawed in California. It's flawed everywhere that they're implementing it. They're even implementing it in Georgia. But the fact is, is that you cannot trust an algorithm to be able to tell you what a person's past history is. And as part of this bail reform movement, they do not even want to let the

prosecutors, Nancy, they don't even want to let the prosecutors, Nancy, they don't even want to let the prosecutors take into consideration what their past history is, what their past crimes were, you know, and it's actually a hug-a-thug campaign. Well, I want to follow up on what Beth just told us. To Mark Klass, this is a real example of where this legislation is going. She mentioned this guy, Jules Black. He's now charged with murder. Now, he had been arrested just days earlier on a simple weapons charge and then released.

Three days later, 72 hours after being set free by the court, he guns down somebody else. I mean, that is where we're headed. That's what happened. And I'm taking a look at his victim. He was pulled over for having a 9, a 9-millimeter. It was confiscated. He was taken to Cumberland County Jail.

He appeared in front of a judge. They let him, no bail. He was let out ofumberland County Jail. He appeared in front of a judge. They let him. No bail. He was let out of jail the very same day. No bond hearing. No district attorney trying to hold him behind bars. No rap sheet. Run nothing.

He gets out. Bam. You got another dead body. 27 times he shot him. What about it, Mark Klass? Well, it breaks your heart, you know, and it flies right in the face of victims' rights as well, Nancy, because so many states have passed laws over the course of the last 20 years allowing victims or saying that victims need to be notified

when their offender is released from prison or is released from any kind of a bond type of a situation. And there are no situations anymore. These guys are being arrested. They're putting right back on the streets. They're endangering police. They're endangering their victims. They're endangering society at large. And absolutely nobody wins. This is going to be expensive. It's going to create a lot of misery in our society. And the victims are going to be p. It's going to create a lot of misery in our society, and the victims are going to be piling up upon each other. You know, Mark Glass, I can still remember. I had been on air all day.

I came down to my office. This was when I was at Court TV. Sat down, flipped on my computer, and there was an email from a viewer that said, Nancy, did you know your fiancé's murderer just got out of jail? I had no idea he had made parole. If they institute this, this legislation, victims' rights, well, there will be no such thing because the speed of putting the person out on the street with no bond or bail hearing, no notice to victims, how are they going to be heard? I mean, this flies directly in the face

of Mary's Law, of the Victim's Rights Campaign. No victim will have any say in any of this, Mark Klass. No, no, no, no. It's just a horrible situation. This is turning back the clock to the time when we had a crime epidemic in our society, back when your fiance was murdered, back when my daughter was murdered, when people were afraid to be out onto the streets, and when women were afraid to let their eyes off of their children. We're going right back to it. It's unbelievable. And the result is going to be soaring crime. We're already seeing it in California with a lot of the other moves that have been made. And it's just heartbreaking, Nancy.

When they keep using New Jersey as its poster child, the New Jersey senator and two assemblymen who wrote the bill in New Jersey wrote a letter. And it's probably in one of the packets that I sent you, Nancy. But they call it a complete disaster. And they wrote to the Senate leader, Rendon, in California and said, please do not implement these laws in California. It's a disaster here in New Jersey. What's going on there, Nancy, is people are being, like, they'll rob someone early in the morning and then they get arrested, and then by 2 o'clock they're in another district robbing someone again they get arrested the second time

in the same day and so on and so forth there's what about the atlantic city incident beth chapman just just this week a new york man arrested and released following a domestic violence assault, returns to his hotel to commit a sex assault and be arrested again. It was about 5.25 in the morning. Patrol officers respond to the Bally's parking garage. They get there. They separate the victim, a woman, and her boyfriend. The victim, of course, was covered in physical signs of a beating. She had to be treated by medical personnel. He's charged with simple assault. And according to the reformed guidelines, he's released on a summons, which means that Pinky promised to come back to court in the future.

What does he do? He gets out of booking and detention at 9 a.m. 11.33 a.m. Patrol officers respond to the Bally's Hotel and Casino on report of a hotel employee being sex assaulted. A 51-year-old woman pushed into a hotel room, physically assaulted, sex assaulted. By who? This guy, allegedly, Jamel Carlton, the 32-year-old guy that just promised he'd be back in court.

The woman is sex assaulted, dragged into a hotel room, beaten, and sex assaulted. He was just at the booking that morning, two hours before Mark Klass, two hours, and there was no bail bond hearing. Yeah, and there's absolutely no accountability. And they don't take the criminal history into account. It's a fake risk assessment that they have these guys fill out, which in no time at all will probably be all over the Internet. And every would-be criminal in the world will know how to answer these things and know how to get released back into the streets. It's a horrible situation. That's a good point, Mark, because, you know, they sit in jail with each other and they say, listen, when you go to the risk assessment, here's how you answer the questions.

There are eight questions. These are not hard. It's not like they have a revolving test. And, you know, Nancy, I just want to give you some perspective on what the misdemeanors are in California. Giving a gun to a known gang member is a misdemeanor. Bringing a bomb to a school is a misdemeanor. First and second degree rioting is a misdemeanor. You wonder why people are clouding our highways and walking and blocking traffic? Because it's not illegal to do so. You know, rape of an intoxicated person, rape of someone who is asleep. These are all nonviolent misdemeanors there. I don't want you to somehow minimize what we're saying because of the bail bond industry. Yes, they've got a dog in the fight. If there's not a bail bond industry, they go out of business. that does not mean that what they're saying is not true what they

are saying is true mark class I don't I feel like I'm not explaining it correctly because I really can't believe what I'm saying but right now California is about to pass a law, a referendum, that will completely change the face, the complexion of criminal law. Victims are going to be re-victimized yet again. I mean, this is a travesty. Mark, how can I state it more plainly about what California is considering? Well, California has been doing this for a number of years now. In fact, ever since Governor Brown was reelected, they're finding ways to turn the criminals into victims and the victims into non-entities. We are really the currency that drives the system that allows individuals to be

regurgitated back onto the streets time and time again. And this is exactly what this is. This is about regurgitating dangerous people back on the streets with absolutely no accountability, with absolutely no recompense to the victims. And they are just going to continue to recommit under false promises that they'll return to jail when the time is right. And it's absurd. It's absurd. It flies in the face of logic. It flies in the face of reason, and it flies in the face of good, known, strong policy that protects citizens. You know, here's another example.

Beth with me is Beth Chapman from A&E, one of my new homes. Bobby Brown, her colleague. Alan Duke with me here. Also with me, renowned victims' rights advocate, Mark Klass. Beth, you were telling me about, and I researched, the shooting incident in Newark. What happened? So this is a domestic violence victim who had repeatedly been beaten by the boyfriend, and the boyfriend had been released several times in the past.

There was a domestic violence incident happened, and he came back and killed her. And at that point, the Newark mayor came out, and because his, I think it was his sister, it was a family member, someone had been a victim of domestic violence. It hit really close to home for him. And this was just last week, Nancy, and the mayor came out and said, this is enough. It's enough. Now I went to New Jersey last year and I appealed to Chris Christie while he was still governor. And I told him, if you don't change this, it's going to be a bloodbath here in New Jersey. He laughed in my face. He laughed at me. And he said, you guys are just greedy bondsmen and you're just lining your pockets.

Okay, well, you know, it's been a bloodbath in New Jersey. And now even the Newark mayor is coming out saying it's got to stop. I think I sent you the press release. You did. You did. The Newark mayor is coming out saying it's got to stop i think i sent you the press release you did you did the newark mayor mark class really begging but you know what it's it's a done deal there unless they reverse it but what can we do to stop california and now georgia from following suit, Mark. Well, I think that the only thing that can be done now, Nancy, is to contact legislators and to contact legislators with absolute outrage.

I would suggest that anybody listening to this write an email to their local legislator. And I'm talking about on the state level, not the federal legislators at this point, to email them, to write them, to call their office, and to text them if they have the ability to do that, and let them know under no uncertain terms that they want to restore victim rights, they want to restore criminal accountability, and they want to ensure that we have safe streets. because otherwise this is a ball that's rolling down the hill, and it's rolling down fast. It's like a snowball. It's getting bigger and bigger and bigger based on the false information

that the proponents are giving to us. Well, I'll tell you another thing, Mark Klass. I feel like what you read about in the newspaper about the so-called reform, it sounds great when you just read it. It says, well, low-level offenses like urinating in public or a traffic offense. We don't want those people languishing behind bars. Right. I agree with that. But that's not really what it is. That's not the whole story. I think it's irresponsible, the way it's being portrayed. When I first read it, I thought, what's the big deal? Who cares?

Uh-uh. It's not that at all, Mark Klass. That is not what's happening. And there's no stopgaps. You know, Nancy, as Beth had mentioned earlier, California has reclassified a lot of really horrible felonies to misdemeanors over the course of the last several years. And in fact, there's only a very narrow list of violent offenses in the state of California. Anything else that's not narrowly defined is considered a nonviolent offense, including oral copulation of, I think, what did she say, of a passed out individual, an unconscious individual, child sex trafficking. You know, these are now considered nonviolent offenses. And somebody can have a list of offenses that goes back 40 years, and we're going to start

seeing that in no time at all. We've, in fact, been seeing it forever. And those individuals are not going to be judged on that criminal history. It's only going to be the pizza that they stole from a kid or whatever thing that they happened to get themselves into at the time. And they're going to be returned right back onto the streets with a big smile on their face and larceny in their hearts. And, you know, the thing about it is, you know, a lot of people, a lot of your listeners may have remembered Harlem in the 80s before the crime bill came. Mayor Giuliani, the Clintons, whatnot. You know, there was so much crime in Harlem that it was, you know, a war zone, basically. What proponents of this bill forget is that they are not going to be returning these people back to Beverly Hills and back into the nice, fancy schmancy areas, they're going to be returning these people back into the impoverished communities where they just robbed, cheat and stole.

They don't understand that the victims still live there. There's going to be victim intimidation. There's going to be, you know, the victims are going to be afraid. I remember when Andrew Luster was on the run, when my husband was chasing them, the victims would call my husband and they'd say, dog, every time the bushes rustle outside my window, I shake in fear. I am so afraid that he is going to come back. There has been absolutely no consideration given whatsoever to the victims of these crimes. These legislators, and I will throw this in, Senator Hertzberg, who is one of the main authors of Senate Bill 10, who is now accused of sexual misconduct in California, who is, by the way, the only senator who has not stepped down. He still remains there today while all of these accusations of inappropriate behavior linger. This is a guy being accused of sexual misconduct who is out here advocating for the criminals.

And I just do not understand that when all of the statistics are coming in, by the way, statistics are coming in from Harris County in Texas, where this has already been implemented, and they are showing a 43% failure to appear rate, Nancy, on the people that have been let out of jail. This is not working. And I do not understand that when legislators from New Jersey and stats from Texas and victims, the mother of Christian Rogers has been out appealing to these people, telling them this isn't working. Why are our legislators turning a deaf ear to this? And it's something that Mark said earlier, because it's trendy.

Well, and what they're basing it on, what they're hanging their hat on, their peg, trying to justify this, is it is claimed by the proponents that it violates a defendant's constitutional right in setting bail because it differentiates between those that can afford it and those that cannot afford it. Our Constitution is not about money. Our Constitution is about protecting the rights. That's why we give people lawyers if they can't afford them. That's why the defendant, not the victim, has all the constitutional rights. That's why we give people lawyers if they can't afford them. That's why the defendant, not the victim, has all the constitutional rights. This is a way to protect victims.

This is a way for prosecutors, be it misdemeanor or felony, to have time. I mean, give me 72 hours for Pete's sake. Give me a couple of days to run the rap sheet, to run the federal rap sheet, to get the police report, to find out if it should be an enhanced crime. They may be picked up for public urination, but are they connected to a carjacking down the street? I mean, you have to have time to look into it before you say, sure, ROR, released on own recognizance. Oh, no. I don't want it on me to be the one that advocates ROR, release on your own recognizance, when I let somebody go that just molested a little girl or just did a heinous act. And that's what it's going to boil down to.

And you have to remember, some of these people in that 24-hour period that they're talking about releasing them, Nancy, they're still in the same condition that they were arrested in. That is reckless. If you, you know, let's take Otis, the town drunk. You think drunk or hot? Let's say Otis from the Andy Griffith show years ago, right? Otis used to come stumbling into Andy's office, and he'd put himself in jail because he knew that he was too drunk to be on the street.

And what these people are proposing is that we just let Otis right back out in the same condition that we brought him in that is reckless that's reckless to mark class bail bond is based on three main prongs and and they are the seriousness of the offense previous record, and probability of the perp attending trial. And listen, I've had a perp, a high-level felon, get away. I started the trial with him. He got out because he was coming on bond. I had to try the rest of the case without him.

Well, needless to say, there was a conviction. But that's what happened to me. And this was on a felony for Pete's sake. He walked right out of the courthouse one day at lunchtime during his trial. Last I saw him was him in his red leather jacket. I remember it like it was yesterday. It happens. This is not some made up fantasy of the bail bond industry. Well, you're right. Of course, it's not made-up fantasy. The made-up fantasy is the idea that somehow eliminating bond is going to create a safer society.

I don't know where the reasoning comes from. I don't understand. I think we're under international pressure, Nancy. You know, the United States has forever been considered one of the most, well, had a higher percentage of our citizens behind bars than any other. But unfortunately, our citizens are committing an awful lot of crimes, and they need to be held accountable for them.

And that's being eliminated. It's getting to the point where you can do whatever. If you want to be a criminal, if you want to be a criminal in the United States, move to California. You'll be welcomed with open arms by our legislature and by our governor. Bobby? You know, one thing that I think is really important is that as a bondsman, they say, oh, it's about money. We do a lot of work. Before we post that bond, we check that person out. We verify what kind of a background that he has, what kind of criminal background he has.

And so that's what's really important is that we have a job, and it's important to know that we don't want to release somebody that we know is going to. It's about protecting the victim. You know, we care about whether that victim is going to be, you know, just be released and go knock on her door and blow her head off. So, you know, we do a lot. And you know what, Bobby? We depend on our judges to make those decisions. Judges go to school.

They're highly educated. They're well-versed in what's going on. And these laws strip the judge of the discretion that they have had for 200 years, 300 years to make these decisions about on bail hearings. Bail hearings are not about whether you're innocent or guilty or you know you're innocent until proven guilty bail hearings have to do with are you going to be a threat to the community and are you going to return and taking away that discretion from the judges is wrong you know mark how many times have you and i been searching for a missing person How many times have we been investigating a case of felony? And then we find out

the guy who did it should have been behind bars. And I cannot tell you how much that burns me up. They should have been behind bars at the time the offense goes down. And this

is, I swear the devil is having a dinner party tonight because of this, a dinner party inviting all of his minions that make these things occur, these heinous crimes. I mean, how many of these cases have we covered? Because this bill, it's completely unrealistic, and it puts such a burden on the prosecution. You would have to arrest somebody and turn them out in less than 24 hours. The risk of a dangerous felon being set free. I don't want my fingerprints on that case. Every time I'd get a case, Mark, I would remember my fiance being gunned down. And I think if I let this guy go, it's on me. It's my fault. And now prosecutors won't have the time to turn it around, to do the research, to run the rap sheet, to get the police report,

to find out what the hay they're doing. And another thing that strikes me, Beth, Bobby, Mark, is when you've got Mark Klass against it, and you have the district attorneys against it, and you have the judges against it, what in the H-E-double-L is the California Assembly thinking? What are they thinking, Mark? Oh, I have no idea what they're thinking, Nancy. But to answer your question, we have gone through this scenario hundreds and

hundreds of times over the years. And what it comes down to is a small percentage of individuals are committing a large majority of the crimes. And these are the guys that are getting arrested. These are the guys that are facing these bond hearings. And to hold them not accountable is just, it flies in the face of not only reason, but it flies in the face of safe streets. It flies in the face of absolutely everything. Because there's going to be suffering, there's going to be victims, crime stats are going to spike, and we're going to find ourselves where we were back in the early 90s. And I think it's really important to think about who is making these decisions. There are literally, on the people that are being released, on pre-trial release, OR bonds,

there are people that are making these decisions that take an online course. They have no investigative background. They have nothing. They take an online course, and they make a decision that this person is going to be released and that person gets released and that I think it's really important to know that they there is nobody that is following up on why they made that decision and how they were able to make that decision other than they just say this is gonna just you ill. Four of the five men just arrested after an incredible, heinous daylight shooting. They shoot a man in the head while he's driving about 2 p.m. in Greenville. They're already out on bond. The judge let them out on bond at $7,500. Why?

They say they would like for the suspects to have had higher bonds, but the lower bonds were likely attributed because the investigators didn't have enough information about the shooting at the time the bond was set in 72 hours they had the information but it was too late they're out on bond for gunning a man down dead shooting him in the head 2 p.m brazen daylight but law enforcement and the judge was not given enough time under the bonding schedule to investigate. And they're out on, quote, house arrest. House arrest. A daylight shooting of a man in the head, 2 p.m. in Greenville.

They're all out on bond. Help me out, Beth. Four of the five men arrested in a horrific daylight shooting are out on bond. Absolutely. I got one right here. A convicted murderer fights cops, spits blood on them during a traffic stop, and they're free to go under New Mexico bail reform. This bail reform this bail reform if

you go to u.s bail reform on facebook you can see story after story after story you will see people a guy who killed a police officer in colorado maybe what one week ago bob last week last week free to go under under bail reform bail reform is going to cause the most massive pandemonium and chaos across this country. People have no idea how dangerous our society is going to become. And they can sit and say this as,

oh, it's just the bondsman's, it's just the bondsman's. Look, we're on the front line. We deal with these people on a day-to-day basis. We know who the frequent flyers are. We know who's a danger to the community. We know who to let out and who. We know who's a danger to the community. We

know who to let out and who not to let out. We do this for a living. We do have stake in the game. We put up our own homes. We put up our own collateral. We have insurance companies that back us. If we make a mistake, Nancy, it's on us to go out there, find that person and bring them back and serve them back to the jails. There is no one looking for these people. There is no one going to be picking them up. They're just wandering around out there with us. No accountability. Can I tell you that the reforms are also being considered in Texas and New Mexico, Alabama, New Jersey. They just took them out in Delaware. New York City. Como has lost his mind. New York City.

Can you imagine, Nancy? No, I cannot. If you're not from New York, don't go there because it is going to be an absolute dangerous situation for anyone to visit. You know, many years ago, I took an oath to protect other people, to do whatever I had to do within the bounds of ethics to protect other people and crime victims. And I know to my core that this so-called bail reform is going to put innocent people at risk. I have no doubt about it. The state of Kentucky, which had always been the gold standard for bail reform, mandated a risk assessment tool. Everything went sideways. It made a mockery out of the justice system.

As a matter of fact, one offender arrested 34 times and released on an unsecured bond. And this is what I was telling you about there being no, no parameters. Like if you're already out on bond, you shouldn't get another one. If you've been convicted in the last three years, you shouldn't get another one. This is a revolving door over and over and over. And the proponents of bail reform, ACLU, NAACP, you know, equal justice under law, all of these people, Nancy, they don't want you to look at how many times they've been arrested. They don't want you to see how dangerous these people are. They think it's a bias and they think that that shouldn't matter. We, the people in this country, better stand up and we better tell our legislators that we do not want this,

and we want strong law and order, because if we don't, we are going into a time that's going to be so dangerous. We're going to be the woman pulled into the hotel room and beaten and assaulted. You, your sister, your mother, your neighbor. I mean, it defies comprehension what they're doing. So Mark, tell me what I can do about it. What can we do about it? And it's not just California. No, it's not. It's going to this will probably be sweeping the country. And all we can do, Nancy, is make our voices known. Let our legislators, let our elected officials know exactly how we feel about their efforts to make our streets less safe by eliminating criminal culpability and criminal

accountability. And you do that through letters. You do that through maybe even a petition campaign online. Those are very popular now. You do it through emails. You do it through phone calls. You make sure that your voice is heard. That's all that we can do as citizens at this point is make sure that our voices are heard. people like you who are very large public figures to help us get the word out. People in the communities are reading just like you did originally. Oh, that seems reasonable, being in public. That is why they are sweeping this country with these lies, because no one is challenging it, because it seems reasonable that you don't want someone languishing in jail for $50 or because they drank a beer or whatever.

But that is not the case. And what they don't understand is that they may have 50 of those cases. They might have 50 shopliftings. The big box retailers are really fed up with this. You know they've raised the minimum. You can steal up to $1,000 from these stores and get a summons. We cannot keep doing that. Well, I remember Beth prosecuting, and I do bail bond hearings, okay,

and I would read the police report. I would personally go run all the rap sheets or force my investigator to help me do them all because there would be so many people, and there would be a crush of people wanting bond. Well, I'd look at the rap sheet and be public urination rap, she'd be public urination, public urination, public urination, public urination, all of a sudden peeping Tom. And I would suddenly, I would be ignoring.

I'd be like, this is nothing. And I would peeping Tom, because you know that's then I'd turn the page. Assault, sex assault, peeping Tom, molestation, blah, blah, blah. I mean, you don't know until you look in depth and i i i'm very very opposed to this bobby yeah i totally agree with mark and uh we all talk about getting

a hold of our state senators our senators our congress. But I want to stress that I think it's extremely important for us to get a hold of our city council members, in our own towns, our county commissioners, the people that are in the cities, and they are the driving force. Put these people up front and in person and them, well, how are you supporting this? There's almost every police department in the United States right now that have disbanded their fugitive warrant division. So who's out there actually going after these police department cases, these sheriff's department cases. They're not our cases. We bond the people out in jail.

You know what, Bobby? When you stop at the red light, just look around, because those people on either side of you are out without a bond. They're out, walking free, Beth. Yes, they are. And Bobby's right. You know what? We need the National Sheriffiffs Association to speak up.

We need the National DA's Association. It isn't just about the bail agents. And that's why, you know, there are, like Mark Klaus. Mark Klaus has been very vocal about this. He has supported us. He has said, no more hug-a-thug. We want accountability. and we need the other organizations, the district attorneys, the Alliance of Judges. You have endless facts at your disposal

there, Nancy, that you can see there are huge organizations, CORE, the Congress of Racial Equality. If you can imagine, they are completely against this. Bond, the Brotherhood of a New Destiny is against this. Crime Victims United is against this. You know, this isn't about bail, but it becomes very handy for people to just blame it on the bail bondsman. Look, we don't go out and set these people's bonds. Judges do. We only abide by the law. And what people seem to forget is that bail bondsmen have for 200 years made it easier for people to get out of jail so that they are not held when they cannot afford it.

Bail bondsmen across this country take payments. They make payment arrangements. They drive them to court. They have been the mom-and-pop operations. This is what I know. They go find them and drag them in, or they lose, the bail bondsmen lose their money if they don't show up. Cops are already spread so thin, they don't have time.

They don't have time to catch the bad guys, much less go find the ones that got out on bond. Mark Klass, final thought. Well, listen, if a police officer arrests somebody and sees the guy walking out the door shortly after the arrest, then there's a problem there. We know, Nancy, that you create safe streets by holding criminals accountable for their actions. You make sure that they pay bail. You make sure that they are convicted. You make sure that they serve their time and serve very real time and crime goes down. You start reversing those trends, crime goes up. Crime's going up now and this is going to be just another cog in that wheel which is going to create unsafe streets all over America.

Well, you know what? It may sound like a bunch of theory and legal pulling and pulling and pushing and jockeying and that's what it sounds like until it happens to you. I know. Nancy Grace, Crime Story, signing off. Goodbye, friend. You're listening to an iHeart Podcast.