Shelby County officials and national, regional and local advocacy groups and organizations gathered during a virtual press conference Thursday, Aug. 25, to discuss an agreement they reached regarding reforms on the bail system.

After negotiations with organizations, Shelby County government has created two major changes to the bail system: a new bail courtroom and universal text message court date reminders.

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“Shelby County has just created one of the fairest and most promising bail systems in the nation,” said Andrea Woods, Staff Attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union Criminal Law Reform Project. “It got there because officials, including the Shelby County attorney, the County Commission and local judges, responded proactively when our organizations threatened a lawsuit.

“Instead of spending millions of dollars and years in court, we have co-created something everyone can be proud of — a system that respects due process, promotes speedy release and ensures no one is incarcerated simply due to how much money is in their wallet.”

In December, the ACLU, ACLU Foundation of Tennessee, Just City, the Wharton Law Firm, Stand for Children Tennessee and the Official Black Lives Matter Memphis Chapter sent a demand letter to various Shelby County officials, including General Sessions Court judges, the Sheriff’s Office and the District Attorney’s Office.

The letter said the way Shelby County addressed bail-setting violated Tennessee law and the U.S. Constitution and asked officials to institute various criminal justice reforms. According to the groups who wrote the demand letter, research demonstrates that money bail does not improve public safety or court appearance rates.

Tennessee law requires that bail should be used as a last resort and should only be imposed if less restrictive conditions are deemed insufficient. The U.S. constitution requires courts to hold bail hearings within a reasonable time after arrest with counsel and with individual circumstances taken into account.

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“Under Shelby County’s prior pretrial system, a person could be held for weeks or longer without a bail hearing with counsel, and most people never had a bail hearing at all,” a press release reads.

“Ability to pay was not considered when bail was set, leaving those who could not afford to pay detained indefinitely, even if they were not a flight or safety risk, while those who faced the same charges but could afford to pay money bail were freed until trial,” a press release reads.

The new bail courtroom will be fully staffed to allow judicial commissioners to hear bail requests on a 24-hour basis, seven days a week. Prosecutors and defense counsel will be present at these hearings, and victims and other members of the public will be able to attend.

Defendants will receive bail hearings with counsel within three days of their arrest.

If, under severe circumstances, bail is set for the defendant, their financial situation will be used as a determination for the amount they should pay.

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The Shelby County Commission approved $3.45 million total in operating and capital spending for the bail room in a 13-0 vote Aug. 9.

Both outgoing District Attorney General Amy Weirich and District Attorney General-elect Steve Mulroy, who will take office Sept. 1, showed up at the commission meeting to voice their support for the funding.

During the virtual press conference Thursday, Mulroy said he will “roll up his sleeves” and ensure that the DA’s office will participate in the goals the bail order is trying to achieve.

“When I gave my victory speech on election night, I talked about how I wanted to create transformative reform in the criminal justice system to make Shelby County’s criminal justice system a model for the nation,” Mulroy said.

“That’s a pretty big goal. But today’s development actually will help me in reaching that goal because I do think that the approach to pretrial detention and bail that’s set out in the agreed-upon bail order really can be a model for the nation and will be a big step forward for criminal justice reform in Shelby County.”

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He said people held in jail are often waiting months or years for their day in court because they could not afford bail and that people should only be held on bail if they are considered a danger to society or if they are a flight risk.

“That’s just really basically practicing what the Constitution requires, and indeed, what the Tennessee bail statute requires,” he said.

He said data shows that bail reform will not increase crime committed by people waiting for their day in court, and it won’t result in them missing their court dates.

Marlinee Iverson, Shelby County Attorney, said although the parties in the agreement may not have always agreed on everything, she is grateful the county was given an opportunity to address concerns in lieu of immediate litigation.

“If anything, these past nine months of discussions have shown us all that it is possible to arrive at (a) consensus with very different groups of people,” Iverson said. “We’re talking about judges, commissioners, mayor, public defender, district attorneys. That’s a pretty disparate group of people to come together and arrive at the tremendous consensus that we have reached today.

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“It has brought me a great deal of satisfaction to arrive at a resolution that places the county in a better position to protect the constitutional rights of the people who live here, which really boils down to one thing: the right to simply have a hearing before you’re detained indefinitely on a criminal charge.”

Josh Spickler, executive director of Just City, said the impact the bail reform will have on people in the system is going to be very different because they will be connected to counsel much more quickly than they now do and because they will have a better opportunity to address their bail.

“It’s going to have a huge impact by, not just hopefully reducing the number of people we keep in pretrial detention, but speeding up the process so that folks don’t sit in our jail for weeks on end before they have a chance to really ask a judge or someone else to consider their bond or the reason that they’re in pretrial detention,” Spickler said.

The county has until Feb. 15 to implement these changes. So far, they said they have already instituted text message court date reminders.

Getting the bail room set up will take the largest effort because the county needs to build the hearing room, hire employees like public defenders, allocate Sheriff’s deputies and implement a data control and record-keeping program to track the progress of the program.

“I think six months is daunting, but I think we’re up to the task,” Iverson said. “So, Feb. 15, we should be open and fully functioning.”

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