Citizens' Right to Know Act of 2018
Floor Speech
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Mr. HIGGINS of Louisiana. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 2152, the Citizens Right to Know Act.
As a cosponsor of this bill, and a law enforcement for over a decade, I believe this bill is common sense and a needed piece of legislation.
May I share respectfully with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle who may be in doubt of this bill, if you are in support of pretrial diversion programs, then you should support this bill.
The existence of pretrial diversion courts is manifested in our Nation due to a righteous need for proper adjudication at all levels of the economic strata and all portions of our culture and society.
But the pretrial diversion program comes after arrest. Arrest is made by the police officer investigating the incident. Innocence is presumed until adjudicated guilty or otherwise, and within 48 hours of arrest, probable cause has to be presented in the form of an affidavit to a magistrate court, and that judge will determine if that American has been righteously incarcerated, his freedom taken from him, our most precious right as Americans.
We stand in the body which gave birth to the concept of a man and a woman's right to be free, and I support that.
The diversion programs across America, however, through their rather brief history within our judicial system, have failed to provide sufficient data to the jurisdictional authorities that gave birth to them, and that data has not been shared at the Federal level which supports them financially through the harvesting of treasure from the American people that we serve.
I respectfully submit to my colleague that I am a compassionate American man that believes in innocence until proven guilty, and I would like for diversion court programs to continue and grow across our country to better serve the needs of we the people, to recognize the fact that all of us, in some way, are failed and fallen, and we should, of course, with compassion, move forward through the judicial system.
The pretrial diversion programs that exist across our country depend upon a cornerstone of confidence among the jurisdictional authorities that they operate within and the Federal Government that funds them, that they are operating within parameters that are accepted across the country as abiding by laws local, State, and Federal.
To not share data that is readily available by these courts with the Federal Government that funds them is an angle that could be used to defeat these courts that we support. So the compilation of data righteously collected and disseminated is something that we should support if we further support these very court systems.
So this legislation before us today would give Federal and State law enforcement agencies vital data on criminal offenders, repeat or otherwise, who are placed within the diversion court systems. This information is crucial to both promoting public safety and giving policymakers better insight into the effectiveness of pretrial programs, which I support.
I would like to thank Congressman Poe for his leadership on this issue, and I urge my colleagues very respectfully, on both sides of the aisle, to support this legislation.
Ms. JACKSON LEE.
Let me indicate and reemphasize points that I made and, as well, points that Mr. Johnson made.
This will have a disparate impact, and what strikes me of great concern is that this amendment was, in essence, a closed rule.
I submitted an amendment that would basically gather data--which, I think, is what the proponent of this legislation wants--to ensure that pretrial release is working, to show that people who would be a threat to the community are not running without restraint, and to show the number of people who would appear for their appearance, if you will, in court who were beneficiaries of the pretrial release program. Those are all good elements, but it concerns me, again, that we don't have any clear parameters of whom this will hurt.
And also, small communities are dependent upon Federal grants. Their structure may not be the best, and so, if you are now asking them for reporting of individual names and past offenses, I beg the question of the value of that information.
What we really should have is aggregate numbers of who, under the pretrial program, is able to or is, in essence, not meeting the criteria and is breaking the agreement and commitment they have to either appear or to stay in a certain area. That is important information, and I think the DOJ could utilize that in an aggregate form.
Why are we giving names that will remain in the DOJ database for someone who may ultimately go back to work, as this mother may go back to her family and her life would hopefully--even though she experienced a tragedy in the jail and lost her job, let's hope that she has a future.
But if she were caught in this bill, would her name now be in the database? I have not researched her case. It seems that this might have been her first offense, but it certainly was a minor offense with a small amount of marijuana. As the facts evidence, it was the jurisdictional, the geographic area that she was in that caused the greatest trouble.
So the other side of it is that money bail is another issue that we should have looked at. We should have put both bills on the floor of the House because there is a movement across the Nation to begin to address, again, disparate treatment of money bail--not on the issue of race, but on the issue of economics.
So the person working in the fast-food place is in jail and, most likely, loses their job. We know that people who work in fast-food are mothers, fathers, grandmothers, and grandfathers taking care of families, and being in jail does not help them take care of their family. You can be assured--unlike maybe other positions where you can say I was on vacation or that you didn't even stay in jail because you had the money to get out of jail--you cannot say you are on vacation for a couple of days or that you were nothing because you are right out back at work. You are fired.
A very evident case is the gentleman who was wealthy in Texas--a very renowned case--found in a hotel room in Galveston. He had decapitated his roommate's head and disposed of it--is my recollection. I stand to be corrected if my recollection is not correct--in the Galveston Bay, and because he could post a $100,000-plus bond, Mr. Speaker, he was released. Put that on any poor person, and we would be aghast at even how this person got bond set. But he did. Ultimately, he was acquitted in that case. I still shake in my boots.
So the issue is there is more to this than giving names and putting it in a database in the DOJ for persons who may never commit another offense in life. Money bail contributes, again, to the unnecessary detention of many low-risk pretrial defendants, inappropriate release of high-risk defendants who have financial means--as I just indicated, a person who decapitated a person's head--unwarranted financial burdens on low-income communities, and the gamble of placing public safety in the hands of a bail bonding industry that will always profit before the public good, a real point to the unfairness of the money bail.
Yet you would deny funds to small towns that are doing pretrial release, or even big counties and cities that are trying to do their best, but they need these Federal funds. Find another way for us to be able to assess what is going on.
Wealth-based detention has disastrous consequences: overcrowding of local jails, lost jobs, lost housing, poor sanitation and medical care, broken families, and it drains local budgets.
In many cases, an arrestee may be held longer in jail while awaiting trial than any sentence she or he would likely receive if convicted. Right now, in my own county and other big counties around the Nation that have not corrected that, they are doing that right now: causing innocent people to plead guilty to offenses that they did not commit in order to shorten the lengthy pretrial detention. Individuals who are detained are not able to assist their attorneys in the investigation of charges against them, resulting in many wrongful convictions and longer sentences.
So I only offer this thought so that we can have a viable discussion on the money bail issue and the disparate treatment that this legislation--though, not intended--would bring about when you ask communities to give the names and prior convictions of persons who may have had one or two marijuana or DUI--which all of us abhor-- convictions. But the privacy issues are a concern, and the lack of debate on the impact of money bail and its unfairness are not being discussed, and the lack of a rule that allows amendments, I think, concerns me.
Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record a letter from the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the American Civil Liberties Union, NAACP, Human Rights Watch, and Color of Change, who expressed their opposition to this legislation. May 8, 2018. Vote ``No'' on the ``Citizens' Right to Know Act of 2017'' (H.R. 2152)
Dear Representative: On behalf of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the NAACP, Human Rights Watch, and Color of Change, we urge you to vote ``No'' on H.R. 2152, the ``Citizens' Right to Know Act of 2017,'' as the House considers this bill. This legislation raises serious privacy concerns for the civil and human rights community given the personally identifiable data that is to be collected and publicly reported by the federal government. The bill also undermines efforts to eliminate or reduce jurisdictions' reliance on money bail systems. We urge the members to instead consider H.R. 1437, the ``No Money Bail Act of 2017,'' and other bipartisan efforts to encourage the elimination of money bail systems. The Citizens' Right to Know Act Raises Privacy Concerns
The Citizens' Right to Know Act requires jurisdictions receiving funds from the Department of Justice (DOJ) to report to the Attorney General the names, arrest records, and appearance failures for those participating in DOJ funded pretrial services programs. The legislation allows the Attorney General to make public the names, arrest records, and failure appearances that jurisdictions report. Except for a clause that subjects the data ``to any applicable confidentiality requirements,'' the bill does not provide any explicit privacy protections for those whose personally identifiable information has been collected by the federal government and is subject to public release. The bill requires that the Attorney General penalize noncompliant jurisdictions by denying them 100 percent of the DOJ grant program funds that are used to support pretrial services programs.
While we appreciate the need for the federal government to collect and report data, personal privacy interests must be balanced with public interests. When personally identifiable information is being collected and publicly reported, we believe that such information should be obtained and disseminated only with individuals' informed consent. We also believe that the potential to harm individual reputations should be considered when arrest records are publicly shared. We are troubled that the Citizens' Right to Know Act would collect and publicly report personally identifiable information of individuals participating in pretrial services programs--individuals who have not been convicted of a crime given their pretrial status. The Citizens' Right to Know Act Undermines Bail Reform Efforts
The Citizens' Right to Know Act is inconsistent with efforts to reform money bail systems, like the No Money Bail Act, which many of our organizations support. By collecting and reporting only certain data about pretrial services programs and those participating in them, the Citizens' Right to Know Act will depict a one-sided picture of pretrial services programs and participants. For example, the legislation's focus on when an individual has failed to appear promises a negative narrative around the pretrial stage. If this bill were serious about measuring the true impact of pretrial services programs, it would collect a more robust data set and not that which is of interest only to the bail bonds industry.
We support bail reform that corrects the injustice of basing a defendant's release on how much money the person has. Instead of considering the Citizens' Right to Know Act, Congress should take up the No Money Bail Act of 2017. This legislation would incentive jurisdictions to reform their money bail systems using federal resources. The No Money Bail Act would build safer communities, stronger families, and a fairer criminal justice system by ensuring that people who are innocent in the eyes of the law are not deprived of their freedom because they cannot afford money bail.
For the above described reasons, we urge members of the House to vote ``No'' on the Citizens' Right to Know Act. Instead, we encourage the House of Representatives to give serious consideration to bail reform bills through legislative and oversight hearings on the issue. Sincerely, The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, American Civil Liberties Union, NAACP, Human Rights Watch, Color of Change.
Ms. JACKSON LEE.
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