ODonnell v. Harris County’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 federal appellate · 1 state decisions

Most-quoted passages

The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 7 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “'show that (1) an official policy (2) promulgated by the municipal policymaker (3) was the moving force behind the violation of a constitutional right.'”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. Edwards v. Cofield · 341 F. Supp. 3d 688 - Daves v. Dall. Cnty.

2. “Despite these formal requirements, the district court found that, in practice, County procedures were dictated by an unwritten custom and practice that was marred by gross inefficiencies, did not achieve any individualized assessment in setting bail, and was incompetent to do so. The district court noted that the statutorily-mandated probable cause hearing (where bail is usually set) frequently does not occur within 24 hours of arrest. The hearings often last seconds, and rarely more than a few minutes. Arrestees are instructed not to speak, and are not offered any opportunity to submit evidence of relative ability to post bond at the scheduled amount. The [district] court found that the results of this flawed procedural framework demonstrate the lack of individualized assessments when officials set bail. County officials "impose the scheduled bail amounts on a secured basis about 90 percent of the time. When [they] do change the bail amount, it is often to conform the amount to what is in the bail schedule." The court further found that, when Pretrial Services recommends release on personal bond, Hearing Officers reject the suggestion 66% of the time. Because less than 10% of misdemeanor arrestees are assigned an unsecured personal bond, some amount of upfront payment is required for release in the vast majority of cases.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Schultz v. State

3. “[t]he [district] court rejected the argument that imposing secured bonds served the County's interest in ensuring the arrestee appeared at the future court date and committed no further crime. The court's review of reams of empirical data suggested the opposite: that "release on secured financial conditions does not assure better rates of appearance or of law-abiding conduct before trial compared to release on unsecured bonds or nonfinancial conditions of supervision." Instead, the County's true purpose was "to achieve pretrial detention of misdemeanor defendants who are too poor to pay, when those defendants would promptly be released if they could pay." In short, "secured money bail function[ed] as a pretrial detention order" against the indigent misdemeanor arrestees.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Schultz v. State