Not only has Riley’s reckless actions led to several local and state politicians calling for the removal of Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner, it seems hundreds of others seeking bonds for alleged crimes are being needlessly punished.
That’s the charge leveled by the Freedom Community Center (FCC) during a protest rally Monday in front of the Carnahan Courts Building downtown. The FCC describes itself as “a new, Black-led organization in North St. Louis, founded to dismantle systems of oppression that inflict harm and trauma on Black communities in St. Louis City, particularly the police and the criminal punishment system.”
According to a new report issued by the organization’s CourtWatch Program, since January, “the jail population has grown by 31% due to the increase in No Bond Allowed bail determinations.” Since March, CourtWatch wrote that it has “observed more hearings where people were denied bond (153 hearings) than total hearings observed in January and 104 more hearings than last March.
The report, “CourtWatch STL bears witness to the harms of the criminal legal system,” also levels charges of racism: “Disproportionately, the people targeted by this system are Black and poor. Over 85% of the accused people were Black despite Black people making up only 45% of St. Louis City's population. The criminal legal system continues to target Black and poor people at alarming rates,” the report states.
“This failure will once again fall on the backs of Black people and tear apart our communities” Mike Milton, Executive Director of FCC, said in a press statement.
The numbers were high even before this year. The report details how from June 2021to June 2022, the Circuit Attorney’s Office (CAO) recommended that people be held without bond 88% of the time. In total, the report noted that during that time, 1,315 people were cycled through bail hearings resulting in their lives and futures being “dramatically altered by a hearing that lasted an average of 10 minutes.”
The public outrage due to the Edmondson tragedy has swelled, Sarah Nixon, pretrial organizer with FCC, told the crowd. Judges have denied bonds at staggering rates as police are arresting more people and prosecutors are filing more bond revocations, she added.
The crowd of about 50, mostly wore t-shirts proclaiming: “Peace & Power” and “Black Lives Matter” hoisted colorful cardboard placards that read: “No Justice, No Peace.” “Humans don’t belong in cages” and “Let Our People Go!”
“As we recognize the profound physical and emotional trauma that Janae Edmondson has suffered…we remain steadfast in our commitment to consider our collective responsibility to foster an environment of safety, civility and wellness for all residents of Missouri,” Nixon said.
Jake Lyonfield, a volunteer with the FCC’s CourtWatch program, called out 22nd Judicial Circuit Court judges and the circuit attorney’s office who “so often make the cruel and unnecessary decision to keep our neighbors in pretrial detention.”
Defendants who are largely indigent and Black are subjected to the arbitrary whims of judges and prosecutors, Lyonfield said, “who destroy lives by unnecessarily jailing hundreds of people a year before they can even face trial. And let’s be clear; these people are legally innocent.”
Pretrial detention, Lyonfield continued, is lengthy and cruel. “Accused persons can be held for weeks, months or even years at a time. People are separated from their families, stripped of income from lost jobs and are denied medical treatment.”
The Freedom Community Center’s report challenges “public safety,” the dominant reason judges and prosecutors cite for bail hearing recommendations and decisions.
“There is little evidence, however, that pretrial detention and incarceration produces public safety,” the report declared, adding: “In fact, there is growing evidence that incarceration makes violence even more likely in our communities. Incarceration makes our communities less safe.”
The 22nd Judicial Circuit has turned its back on the people it “supposedly represents,” the report matter-of-factly states. It lists people “incarcerated at the City Justice Center (CJC), their families and loved ones, civil rights advocates, defense attorneys, community members and even survivors of violence” who’ve been let down by the judges and prosecutors.
Describing “jail” as a sometimes “death sentence,” the report notes how, since April 2022, six people-Robert Lee Miller, Augustus Collier, Donald Henry, Courtney McNeal, Nelly Boo (street name) and one unidentified person have all died last year while detained at the justice center. These cases, according to the FCC report, “remain shrouded in unnecessary mystery.”
In a press statement released after the rally, the agency issued a list of demands that included; dramatically increasing the use of “personal and sponsored recognizance” bonds, that the circuit attorney’s office “increase recommendations for personal and sponsored recognizance” bonds, speedy trials and more streamlined processes “so people don’t wait in jail before trial for an average of 300+ days.”
A man who identified himself as “Terrell” shared his experience with the crowd.
“In November ’22, I found myself on the wrong end of the stick,” Terrell explained. “I got incarcerated in the city’s justice center. I thought, ‘OK, I’m a man, let me deal with it and get it over with but I found out that’s what’s not really going on here.”
Describing his prolonged detention at the city’s justice center as a cold, “animalistic situation,” Terrell sought empathy from onlookers.
“Don’t wait until it happens to you or your son to understand what’s going on here. Quoting my big Brother Dr. King; ‘Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.’”