THE FATE of a key criminal-justice reform bill this week shows that money talks as loud as ever in Annapolis. By guaranteeing that indigent persons who are arrested have legal representation at their bail hearings, the bill would have reduced costly and unnecessarily long pretrial jail stays and helped to unclog the courts.
The bail bond lobby, however, saw this bill as a threat to its lucrative businesses. The decisive vote against the bill was cast by Sen. Clarence M. Mitchell IV, a Baltimore Democrat -- and a licensed bail bondsman.
Mr. Mitchell was president of a family bail bond agency on Druid Hill Avenue until its charter was revoked by the state for failure to file a property tax return. The firm's resident agent: Ira C. Cooke, the lobbyist who engineered the reform bill's defeat Tuesday in the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee by a 6-5 vote.
This outrage underscores how -- despite efforts to reduce paid, special-interest lobbyists' influence over legislators -- their incestuous relationships continue to affect public policy. No wonder many Marylanders take a cynical view of their General Assembly.
Bail bondsmen didn't even bother to testify at a recent public hearing, signaling the level of their contempt for the more open aspects of the legislative process.
In Tuesday's vote, Mr. Mitchell was not the only lawmaker guided by professional self-interest.
The committee's chairman, Sen. Walter M. Baker, a Cecil County lawyer, said he voted against the bill because expanded representation of indigents by the state Public Defender's Office would dry up business to attorneys in private practice.
"There's always a group of lawyers who make a living by hanging out around lockups. This would put these poor guys out of business," he said.
Although important, the bill was only one part of an effort under way to reform Baltimore City's malfunctioning criminal-justice system. The Sun detailed that crisis in a recent editorial, "Getting away with murder," saying problems in the courts, State's Attorney's Office and Baltimore Police Department have contributed to the city's horrifying number of homicides.
Last year, homicides in the city exceeded 300 for the ninth time, despite the downward trend in many large cities.
Court backlogs had grown so severe that charges against homicide and armed robbery suspects were dropped because their cases had been postponed too long in violation of Maryland's speedy-trial laws.
In the past few weeks, the various criminal-justice bureaucracies have taken tentative steps toward reform. The Criminal Justice Coordinating Council, represented by the various law enforcement agencies, is to meet today in an emergency session today.
Bail bond businesses do not fall within the scope of the council. That does not mean that the loosely regulated and highly profitable industry should not be scrutinized.
The late Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas wrote "the commercial bail bondsman has long been an anathema to the criminal defendant seeking to exercise his right to pretrial release." After abuses, several states have curtailed the excesses of bail bond businesses.
Illinois is an example. Until 1964, it had a system similar to Maryland's. Commercial bail bondsmen collected 10 percent of the amount of the bond and kept it even after a defendant appeared at a hearing.
After the system was reformed, defendants could deposit bail bonds with court clerks. After the defendant appeared in court, those bonds were returned, minus a small handling cost.
This wiped out virtually the entire commercial bail-bond sector.
By their shenanigans in Annapolis, bail bondsmen are inviting similar corrective action in Maryland.