Three executive directors with the American Civil Liberties Union released a statement Monday moving the organization's stance on Senate Bill- 10 from neutral to opposed after recent amendments on the bill gave greater power to judges.
ACLU directors Abdi Soltani in Northern California, Hector Villagra in Southern California and Norma Chávez Peterson, representing San Diego and Imperial Counties said in the statement that the "state legislation falls short of its intended goals and would compromise the rights to fair court proceedings for criminal defendants."
“Unfortunately, this amended version of SB 10 is not the model for pretrial justice and racial equity that the ACLU of California envisioned, worked for, and remains determined to achieve,” the statement read.
According to the Los Angeles Times, "the latest version of Senate Bill 10 would virtually eliminate the payment of money as a condition for release from jail. Counties would have to establish their own pretrial services agencies, which would use “risk-assessment tools,” to evaluate people booked into jail to determine whether and under what conditions they should be released."
The recently released changes gave greater discretion to judges in a practice called "preventive detention" which allows them to decide which people are a danger to the community and should be held without the possibility of release.
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