Court Opinion

ID: 9464652
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 23:39:06.67927+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:38:44.632522
License: Public Domain

COLEMAN, Circuit Judge,
specially concurring.
I have concurred in the majority opinion because (1) it repudiates the notion that as to indigents the Constitution requires a presumption against the imposition of monetary bail and (2) because it concludes that the new Florida Rules are facially constitutional.
I am impressed however, with Judge Clark’s comments, which prompts some observations of my own.
I continue to believe that criminal laws apply alike to all individuals, regardless of wealth or the lack of it. Most citizens who are less well off than others conscientiously obey the law as a matter of course. A great disservice is done poorer people by inferring that the dollar sign relegates them to a special kind of second class citizenship which renders them incapable or unwilling to obey the rules of normal conduct. They are encouraged to wallow in that supposedly inferior status before the law by being singled out for special treatment when it comes to responsibility for compliance with the law. Some of the most highly respected citizens are those who do not have money but who have great personal worth.
If they desire it, indigents are entitled to counsel at public expense. They now receive it- as a matter of mere routine. This guarantee of counsel addresses the very problem we now have under consideration. No person may be arrested or jailed except upon probable cause. If there is no probable cause, the Great Writ provides an immediate remedy. Counsel has only to invoke it. Those who arrest or imprison without probable cause are liable to civil penalties or criminal punishment, or both.
Of course, people may not be denied reasonable bail in bailable cases, but they are not entitled to bail on their own terms. The constitutional limitation is that excessive bail shall not be required.
*1070Our jurisdiction over state administration of local criminal law and procedure is limited to enforcing the commands of the Constitution of the United States. We have no authority to advance beyond that limit.
If the committing officer or magistrate mistakenly prescribes excessive bail an immediate remedy is available. If reasonable bail is set and the defendant cannot make it the Constitution does not command that he shall be released. If these principles are not to be applied to all citizens alike then every defendant should be released on his own recognizance — an untenable approach, as sad experience has often, with little success, tried to teach us.