California sets zero bail for many offenses amid coronavirus pandemic

People arrested for many minor crimes in California will no longer have to put down money to bail out of jail, part of a series of actions designed to move low-risk criminals out of jail cells and reduce the remaining inmates’ risk of contracting the new coronavirus.

The emergency rule, adopted Monday by the state Judicial Council, will reduce bail to $0 starting next week for most misdemeanor crimes and certain low-level felonies.

“This change will reduce the number of individuals who are currently awaiting trial in county jails,” Justice Marsha G. Slough said during the meeting.

The order will make no changes in bail for people accused of violent felony crimes, sex crimes, domestic violence or violations of court-issued restraining orders, among other crimes, Slough said.

The council, which sets rules for California’s court system, is comprised of more than two dozen lawyers, judges and state policymakers. It passed the temporary bail schedule in a unanimous vote during a virtual, emergency council meeting Monday afternoon.

The temporary bail schedule is intended to establish a uniform bail schedule across the state’s 58 county courthouses, including Sonoma County’s Superior Court, amid the growing coronavirus pandemic, the council said.

It will go into effect at 5 p.m. April 13 and applies to people arrested for new crimes and those awaiting trial. It will expire three months after California lifts state of emergency orders related to the coronavirus, though Gov. Gavin Newsom has provided no date for when that might happen.

Monday’s Judicial Council meeting came on the heels of a separate, locally-driven change to the bail schedule at the Sonoma County Superior Court on Friday, which immediately zeroed-out bail for people in custody on most misdemeanor crimes and some felony offenses.

Under that order, bail for people brought to the Sonoma County Jail on suspicion of misdemeanors was set at $0, except for suspects charged with crimes listed in a penal code requiring defendants to appear in court before their bail is changed.

The same was true for felonies allowing up to a four-year sentence in state prison, unless the crime was an enhancement. The bail schedule for all other felony offenses was unchanged, a text of the Sonoma County emergency order showed.

The statewide bail adjustments approved Monday will void the local order, Sonoma County Presiding Judge Bradford DeMeo said in an email Monday.

The bail adjustments, one of 11 emergency rule changes approved by the Judicial Council on Monday, are the latest in a flurry of local and statewide changes to California’s judicial system amid the coronavirus pandemic. The changes are aimed at striking a balance between protecting the judges, attorneys, clerks and security personnel who work in courtrooms and safeguarding the rights of the accused.

The Judicial Council on Monday also approved rules that will allow defendants to waive their right to physically appear in court at any stage of the judicial process. Instead, they can appear remotely by telephone, through video, or through their lawyer.

The rule will not apply to those accused of murder with special circumstances, such as killings of witnesses involved in court proceedings or murders committed to escape arrest.

The Sonoma County Superior Court late last month began using video in certain, limited cases, including arraignments of in-custody defendants accused of both felony and misdemeanor crimes.

“We are at this point truly with no guidance in either history, law or precedent,” Chief Justice Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye, who chairs the Judicial Council, said Monday. “To say that there is no playbook is a gross understatement of the situation.”