While the risk assessment wouldn't necessarily set guys like Dorton free, it could ensure them a fair shot based on facts. MacDonald says that 21 other counties, from Illinois to Oregon, have contacted him for tips on implementing pretrial risk assessments. Over the past decade or so, Marin, Napa, Sonoma, Yolo, and Santa Clara counties have installed similar systems. San Francisco has not.
The U.S. Supreme Court order for California to fix its overcrowded prisons has sent a rush of inmates to county jails over the past year, spurring local and state attempts to reduce pretrial incarceration rates. State Senate Bill 210 would have mandated that every county establish a pretrial risk assessment body, in an effort to encourage more OR releases. The California Bail Bonds Association (CBAA), one of several industry lobbyist groups that have together donated more than $400,000 to state campaigns since 2000, sent legislators a letter explaining that the organization "strongly opposes" the bill. Law enforcement officials in southern and central California also rejected the policy. By September, CBAA's website noted that S.B. 210 "died on Assembly Floor, thanks to CBAA's opposition efforts."
Michael Short
Angel Garcia, unable to pay the $450,000 bail, sat in jail for six months before he was acquitted at trial. His family lost their apartment and his kids became ill.
Related Content
More About
San Francisco, which boasts one of the lowest incarceration rates in the state, has been able to follow the realignment plan without pain. Still, every local law enforcement official has supported pretrial detention reform. They all signed the 2011 realignment "Implementation Plan," which recommended to the Board of Supervisors that the sheriff administer electronic monitoring for certain pretrial inmates. The policy has not been implemented.
"We're still working through that process," says Gascón.
"I don't feel like my life's back to normal," says Dorton, a month removed from his acquittal. He sits in the living room of a friend's house, where he and his brother now stay. Dorton's thinking about leaving town.
"I gotta start from square one. And I'm angry now."
He'd been a few months away from paying off his used BMW. But after the cops took it to look for clues, he couldn't afford the impound fees — around $2,000 a month — and didn't have the income to make the car payments anyway. Dorton still has his motorcycle and his mattress, though, among the few possessions his brother and girlfriend were able to salvage — most everything else ended up on the curb after the landlord kicked him out. The credit card late fees have piled up and the missed car payments have shattered his credit rating.
"It sucks that they could take 10 months of my life and just say, 'Okay, bye, you're free,'" he says. "A lot of the things I lost when I was in jail, I worked my whole life to get. I worked my way up from the bottom and it's crazy that what this one person says can tear that all down."
He checks his watch. He got his security job back and has to start soon. He stands up, zips his jacket, and grabs his helmet. A minute later he is on the bike, revving the engine. He zooms off, accelerating down the empty road, with the speed of a man trying to catch up to something.
