Court Opinion

ID: 9464651
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 23:39:06.677237+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:38:44.631700
License: Public Domain

CHARLES CLARK, Circuit Judge, with whom TJOFLAT, Circuit Judge,
joins, specially concurring:
I concur with the en banc majority that this case is moot insofar as it involves any controversies which this class raised concerning the former Florida bail rules. Those controversies have been superseded by the new rules. I further agree that the case is not moot insofar as it concerns a constitutional challenge to the facial validity of the new rules, and I agree with what I understand to be the majority’s conclusion: that those new rules are constitutional on their face. I respectfully disagree, however, with the majority’s reasons for concluding that the new rules are facially valid.
The en banc majority’s opinion states that it disavows the panel’s view that the Constitution mandates a hierarchy of devices to ensure appearance at trial, but then utilizes the same approach in analyzing the constitutionality of state bail statutes as was taken- by the panel’s opinion. I voted for en banc reconsideration because I thought that the panel opinion approach had the inevitable effect of rendering monetary bail unconstitutional, and because I considered that analysis misfocused and wrong. I cannot read the Constitution to either prohibit monetary bail or require a hierarchy of assurances of appearance. The Constitution’s only explicit limitation on the imposition of bail is the eighth amendment’s command that it may not be excessive. This constitutional imperative does not prevent a state from continuing to maintain a system for pretrial release of all persons based on monetary bail alone. That a state may also permit persons incarcerated pending trial to obtain their freedom through other means should not create a constitutional requirement that a priority order be developed among the means permitted.
In the view of the en banc majority, the Florida bail rules are constitutional because they require the “meaningful consideration of other possible alternatives.” The majority writes that the “incarceration of those who cannot [meet the requirements of a master bond schedule], without meaningful consideration of other possible alternatives, infringes on both due process and equal protection requirements.” “The ultimate inquiry,” in the words of the majority, “in each instance is what is necessary to reasonably assure defendant’s presence at trial.” The majority’s opinion explicitly states that that inquiry would be eased by hierarchies of release devices or by mechanical consideration of alternatives in an established order of preference. Implicit in those statements is a constitutional disapproval of monetary bail for indigents. Indeed, the majority’s opinion states that it would be an excessive restraint for the state to imprison an indigent if his appearance at trial could be reasonably assured by other means. Such a belief, however attenuated in ex*1069pression, necessarily leads to the conclusion that monetary bail for indigents is unconstitutional.
When a court requires monetary bail it is not primarily concerned with the financial status of the person in custody. Instead, its main concern is to ensure the accused’s appearance at trial. The theory of monetary bail is that it will impel the accused to return for trial by making failure to appear cause the automatic forfeiture of property. A person who posts bail from personal resources faces the loss of his own property if he does not appear. An indigent, by definition, has no personal resources. Imposing monetary bail on an indigent necessarily contemplates that he has friends or relatives willing to offer their property as an assurance that he will appear. It not only commands their sincere belief that the defendant will appear at trial as directed, but also commits them to a personal propriety interest in such behavior. Therefore, it is illogical to gauge the constitutionality of monetary bail by notions of due process or equal protection based on the defendant’s indigency. Since an indigent can never post monetary bail in any amount, due process or equal protection considerations based on the ability of the indigent to fund the bail, would destroy the entire concept of monetary bail. Excessiveness, the only constitutionally articulated guide, should be the measure used. If it is, state systems structured on monetary bail can continue. The amount of such bail can be tailored to the trustworthiness of the defendant, his ties to the community, the seriousness of the offense, and other fáctors which have a direct bearing on assuring his appearance for trial.
Speaking in a monetary bail case, the Supreme Court said, “Bail, of course, is basic to our system of law.” Schilb v. Kue-bel, 404 U.S. 357, 365, 92 S.Ct. 479, 484, 30 L.Ed.2d 502 (1971). The Court has never suggested that monetary bail is in any way constitutionally suspect. I am not unaware that challenges to the use of monetary bail have been made. But in the absence of even the slightest contrary intimation from the Supreme Court, I am unwilling to be the judge who holds those challenges find support in the Constitution.