Spinella said the statistics alone should be enough evidence to get the state to revise its bail bond system, but he’s not going to wait for the legislature to act. Instead, he’s taken his case to federal court where he recently asked U.S. District Judge Mark Kravitz to certify the case as a class action against Connecticut’s Judicial Branch.

No word yet on Kravitz’ decision.

Last week the state, through the Attorney General’s office, asked the court to dismiss Spinella’s motion to certify the class action, which would allow others to join the lawsuit if they were held by the state on artificially high bonds for long periods before charges were dropped.

“I consider this to be a very important case,” Spinella said, adding that he has been surprised that the case has remained below the radar for so long.

The legislature has for almost 20 years wrestled with changes to the bail bond system.

Rep. Michael Lawlor, D-East Haven, co-chair of the legislature’s Judiciary Committee, said Wednesday that the state shouldn’t have to rely on a federal judge to solve this problem.

As Lawlor sees it, there are two major problems with Connecticut’s bail bond system.

First, he said bail amounts have gotten way too high. Second, he said, “bail bondsmen are operating in a regulation free zone.”

Lawlor said the legislature attempted to address the first issue when it passed changes to the criminal justice system during a special session in January. He said a judge is allowed to set an artificially high bond when they factor in the “dangerousness of the offender.” He said that now a defense attorney can ask a judge to document on the record why a bond amount for an offender has been set at a certain amount.

He said the trend toward higher bond amounts has come as bail bondsmen have failed to force clients to pay 7 to 10 percent of the bond. He said judges are aware that many individuals are paying just 1 to 2 percent of the bond, which has driven up bail amounts.

Lawlor said an out-of-state company has come into the state and attempted to operate the bail bond industry like McDonald’s, where it seeks to make money by increasing the volume of clients it represents.

“This has led to undercutting in the industry,” he said.

The other problem, he said, is the bail bond industry is regulated by the state Insurance Department, which doesn’t typically deal with the criminal justice system and doesn’t usually do enforcement. That’s not to mention, Lawlor said, “who’s going to complain that they didn’t get charged enough?”

Lawlor said that if he’s lucky enough to be re-elected in November, he will introduce legislation to address the regulation of the bail bond industry. “If we reform the bail bond industry, then the process will get back down to where it should be,” he said.

However, Spinella, doesn’t quite agree with Lawlor about how to improve the system for indigent minorities like Roberto Hernandez, the main plaintiff in his federal lawsuit. Spinella said he’s found 55 instances where state courts have set bail amounts for minorities that were higher than those set for whites charged in similar crimes. And 140 instances where indigent people charged with substantial crimes were forced to spend months in jail because they were unable to post bond.

“We’re challenging the whole money bail system,” he said, adding that a few states have found unconstitutional the practice of setting a monetary value for bail.

Before now, he said, no one had addressed these issues. He said the idea behind the bail bond system is to assure appearance at trial. He said in lieu of money, the courts could implement a system where the accused would have to report to someone everyday until his court appearance. “If he missed a day then you get to lock him up,” he said.

Or the court could allow people to be released into the community with a tracking device like a GPS ankle bracelet in order to ensure they don’t leave the state before their trial, he said.

Spinella said at least two other states have implemented a non-monetary bail system.

As far as the bail bond industry goes, Spinella didn’t necessarily disagree with Lawlor that it needs regulation. Spinella was just a little more skeptical that the state legislature would be able to pass the needed reforms.

“There’s a huge political barrier to doing this,” Spinella said. “We have a system of bail bondsmen that’s continually found to be corrupt.”

Two classes

In Hernandez’ lawsuit, Spinella argues that the state “discriminated against accused based on their status as both an indigent member of society and has a racial minority.”

Lawlor, however, does not believe there is necessarily deliberate racism in the judicial system. However, some studies support Spinella’s contention that there are racial disparities at the stage where bail is set.

When the Judicial Branch commissioned its own study in 1992, it concluded that about 56 percent of the Hispanics, 50 percent of blacks, and 27 percent of whites were incarcerated for some amount of time before trial. The study said confidentiality rules made it impossible to examine what other factors — such as income, education or language — would explain why proportionately more minorities were in prison before going to trial.

In 2004, an analyst for the legislature’s Program Review Committee said that higher bail amounts had been affecting all defendants across racial lines. The analyst, Rene LaMark Muir, said she determined that the severity and type of criminal charge were the best predictor of the amount of bail set on a defendant.

“Race is not a significant factor,” she concluded.

Approximately 70 percent of the incarcerated population in the state is minority, however, the number of minorities is even higher for pre-trail detainees, Lawlor said.

Background on the case

The main plaintiff in the case, Roberto Hernandez, who is Hispanic and indigent, claims he was jailed for one year on a $100,000 bond and then the day before his trial started the state dropped the first degree robbery charges.

According to the lawsuit this is his story: Hernandez said his girlfriend witnessed the robbery at the McDonald’s on Washington Street in Hartford on Jan. 26, 2005. On Jan. 27 she told police that she could not identify the robber. On Jan. 28 she had an argument with Hernandez and he dumped her. She then told McDonald’s and the police that he was the robber, he said, and police arrested him and held him for a year, based solely on the testimony of the ex-girlfriend. He claims the Hartford Police lied about the evidence they claimed to have, while other evidence they gathered clearly showed he was not the robber.

David Jaffe is the other attorney working with Mr. Spinella on this case.