{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"KZYX News","title":"Supervisors approve conditions for pre-trial release pilot program","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":389,"description":"April 7, 2022 — The Board of Supervisors took on criminal justice, trash, and housing at this week’s meeting, though a hearing to consider a permit to convert a Willits-area motel to apartments was postponed until May third.\r\nThe board approved a pre-trial pilot program to monitor people who have been booked into jail, can’t afford bail, and are likely to show up to their next court date if they are released from jail. The monitoring would include a range of measures like cell phone reminders about court dates to in-person visits by a probation officer, ankle monitors, and drug testing, so that people who have not yet been tried could stay out of jail.\r\nThe probation department would receive the one-time state funds of about $406,000 to hire more personnel and buy more equipment, like ankle monitors and computers. The Board already approved three more full time employees for the probation department, and if those hires succeed, the county would have to rely partly on the general fund to pay for their ongoing employment.\r\nMendocino County does not currently have a pre-trial monitoring program, which means that often people who have been arrested wait for their court dates in jail. But last year, the Supreme Court of California decided that the state’s bail system was unconstitutional, because bail is set according to a county schedule according to the crime, rather than the defendant’s record or ability to pay. In 2017, Kenneth Humphrey was arrested in San Francisco for robbing an elderly man of a $5 bottle of cologne. He couldn’t pay his bail, so he spent a year in jail waiting for his court date. A public defender and a civil rights group appealed his case, and now courts are supposed to consider several factors when calculating a defendant’s bail. One is public safety, and another is the arrestee’s ability to pay.\r\nChief Probation Officer Izen Locatelli told the board that the county has had a couple of short-lived pre-trial programs. The most recent, which...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/xZpAumwbhFUpJUYcwaQ1-q6snzOyqAm13l7cW6AWPCM/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9mMzkz/NjAwNjc2OWMyZmFk/YWY2YTdmYjI5M2Mz/YWMxNy5qcGc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}