Article 1, Section 20 of the State Constitution reads, “All persons charged with crime shall be bailable by sufficient sureties, except for capital offenses when the proof is evident, or the presumption great.”

Are bail bonds a thing of the past? More and more defendants are being held without bail.

In other words, Judges may not hold a person without bail except for defendants facing the death penalty. There is currently a pending law (SJR 8218) that would amend the State Constitution so offenses that may result in a mandatory life sentence upon conviction are also not bailable. To amend the Constitution, the matter would have to be placed on the ballot for the voters to approve in 2010. This law did not come as a complete surprise, however amendments to our constitutional rights should not be done hastily.   Defense attorneys are seeing the bail clause of the State Constitution come under attack in other ways.  Last month Snohomish County Superior Court Judge Eric Lucas affirmed the decision of a District Court that held a DUI suspect without bail pending trial because he had allegedly violated the conditions of his release.   See article.  In Spokane, I have seen judges hold defendants with bail in the amount of 20 thousand dollars before, or even higher.  But holding a suspect without bail for a DUI?  This was not even an instance of a felony DUI; the DUI at issue was just a misdemeanor. The purpose of bail is simply to assure the presence of the defendant in court and to protect community safety, not to punish the defendant.  The public defender’s office commented that this was the first case they had ever seen where a person charged with a misdemeanor is ordered held without bail pretrial.  What is next – a no bail hold for shoplifting?  Thank you to Jonathan Dichter, a Lynnwood DUI lawyer, for bringing this article to my attention through his Snohomish County DUI Blog.