Nashville Cmty. Bail Fund v. Gentry

446 F.Supp.3d 282

The NASHVILLE COMMUNITY BAIL FUND, Plaintiff,

v.Hon. Howard GENTRY, Criminal Court Clerk, in his official capacity, Defendant.

Case No. 3:20-cv-00103

United States District Court, M.D. Tennessee, Nashville Division.

Filed March 17, 2020

Andrea Woods, Brandon J. Buskey, ACLU, New York, NY, Angela Lee Bergman, Bass, Berry & Sims, C. Dawn Deaner, Choosing Justice Initiative, Thomas H. Castelli, ACLU, Nashville, TN, Charles Gerstein, Civil Rights Corps, Washington, DC, for Plaintiff.

Howard Gentry, Nashville, TN, pro se.

Allison L. Bussell, John W. Ayers, Metropolitan Legal Department, Nashville, TN, for Defendant.

MEMORANDUM

ALETA A. TRAUGER, United States District Judge

The Nashville Community Bail Fund ("NCBF") has filed a Motion for Preliminary Injunction (Docket No. 3), to which Howard Gentry, in his official capacity as Criminal Court Clerk for the Twentieth Judicial District, has filed a Response (Docket No. 15), and NCBF has filed a Reply (Docket No. 16). Gentry has filed a Motion to Dismiss (Docket No. 17), to which NCBF has filed a Response (Docket No. 19), and Gentry has filed a Reply (Docket No. 20). For the reasons set out herein, NCBF's motion will be granted in part and denied in part and Gentry's motion will be denied.

I. BACKGROUND

A. Structure of Pretrial Release and Bail in Tennessee

1. State and Federal Requirements. The State of Tennessee, like the federal government and the governments of its sister states, routinely jails individuals who have been charged with, but not convicted of, crimes, pursuant to a common practice known as "pretrial detention." As the state's Supreme Court has observed, the constitutional permissibility of pretrial detention, as a general matter, is widely accepted, and the practice itself dates back to before this nation's founding, having been a feature of the pre-constitutional English courts from which early U.S. courts borrowed many of their organizing principles. State v. Burgins , 464 S.W.3d 298, 303 (Tenn. 2015). Also dating back to these pre-constitutional courts and surviving into the American experience, however, is the admonition that the government's right to pretrial detention is not absolute. Id. For example, under the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, the government can deny a defendant pretrial release based on his failure to pay a bail—that is, a surety tied to his future return to court—but only if the bail amount is not "excessive"—"excessive" meaning, in this context, "[b]ail set at a figure higher than an amount reasonably calculated to" provide "adequate assurance that he will stand trial and submit to sentence if found guilty." Stack v. Boyle , 342 U.S. 1, 5, 72 S.Ct. 1, 96 L.Ed. 3 (1951). The U.S. Constitution also forbids a court from continuing pretrial detention unless certain adequate procedures are observed. See Schall v. Martin , 467 U.S. 253, 263, 104 S.Ct. 2403, 81 L.Ed.2d 207 (1984).

Although the U.S. Constitution imposes certain procedural requirements and substantive limitations on the pretrial detention process, it does not guarantee that a defendant be given a path to obtaining pretrial release in the first place. When a person is charged with a Tennessee state crime, however, the U.S. Constitution is not the only constitution that matters. The Tennessee Constitution, unlike its federal counterpart, requires that "all prisoners shall be bailable by sufficient sureties, unless for capital offences, when the proof is evident, or the presumption great." Tenn. Const. art. 1, § 15. "This constitutional provision grants a defendant the right to pretrial release on bail pending adjudication of criminal charges." Burgins , 464 S.W.3d at 304 (citing Swain v. State , 527 S.W.2d 119, 120 (Tenn. 1975) ). Although this right may be forfeited by a defendant's conduct, every non-capital defendant that enters the Tennessee criminal justice system at least begins with a right to establish some conditions pursuant to which he can obtain his freedom until he is, if ever, convicted.¹ See id. at 306.

Because the federal Constitution only permits the amount of bail necessary to ensure the defendant's future appearance in court, Tennessee courts are required to undertake a process to determine how much, if any, bail is actually justified by the defendant's particular circumstances. First, the court must consider, based on a number of statutorily dictated factors, whether to release a bailable defendant on the defendant's own recognizance or an unsecured bond. Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-11-115(b) ; Graham v. Gen. Sessions Court , 157 S.W.3d 790, 793 (Tenn. Ct. App. 2004). If the statutory factors do not support release on the defendant's own recognizance or on an unsecured bond, the court is then to consider imposing conditions of release, including non-monetary conditions that would help ensure the defendant's appearance to stand trial. The court must "impose the least onerous conditions reasonably likely to assure the defendant's appearance in court." Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-11-116(a).

The conditions that may be imposed include:

(1) [r]eleas[ing] the defendant into the care of some qualified person or organization responsible for supervising the defendant and assisting the defendant in appearing in court ...;

(2) [i]mpos[ing] reasonable restrictions on the activities, movements, associations and residences of the defendant; and/or

(3) [i]mpos[ing] any other reasonable restriction designed to assure the defendant's appearance, including, but not limited to, the deposit of bail pursuant to § 40-11-117.

Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-11-116(b). Only if the court determines that "conditions on a release on recognizance" have not been shown to reasonably assure the defendant's appearance, may the court, "in lieu of the conditions of release set out in § 40-11-115 or § 40-11-116, require bail to be given." Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-11-117. See Graham , 157 S.W.3d at 793 ("If it is not shown that conditions on a release on recognizance will reasonably assure the defendant's appearance as required, the magistrate shall require that bail be given in lieu of conditions of release.").

If the court determines that it will set monetary bail, it must then determine the amount to be required, based on a number of statutory factors listed in Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-11-118. Tennessee has set some statutory upper limits for bail amounts; for example, bail cannot be set in excess of $50,000 "if the defendant is charged with a felony that involves a crime committed against a person," other than a form of homicide. Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-11-105. In addition to those limits, the court is required, as the U.S. Constitution mandates, to set a bail amount "as low as the court determines is necessary to reasonably assure the appearance of the defendant as required." Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-11-118(a). Throughout this process, the courts must follow the procedural safeguards imposed by the U.S. Constitution's guarantee, in the Fourteenth Amendment, that an individual cannot be deprived of his liberty without due process. See Burgins , 464 S.W.3d at 307.

Once monetary bail is set, the defendant can pay that monetary bail by either (1) paying the full amount himself, (2) hiring a surety, most typically in the form of a for-profit bail bondsman, or (3) using real property as collateral. See Tenn. Code Ann. §§ 40-11-118(a), 40-11-122. Once his bail is paid, he is released, with the expectation that he will attend all future required court dates, as well as comply with any other conditions of his release. "If the defendant whose release is secured ... does not comply with the conditions of the bail bond, the court having jurisdiction shall enter an order declaring the bail to be forfeited." Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-11-139(a) ; see also Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-11-201. However, "[i]f the conditions of the bail bond have been performed and the defendant has been discharged from all obligations in the cause, the clerk of the court shall return to the defendant, unless the court orders otherwise, the entire sum which had been deposited." Tenn. Code Ann. §§ 40-11-119.

2. Local Administrative and Judicial Responsibilities. As should be apparent, the state's system of pretrial detention, release, and surety reflects an overlay of both federal and state requirements. The list of governmental units involved, however, does not end there. "The judicial power of the state is vested in judges of the courts of general sessions, ..., circuit courts, [and] criminal courts," as well as other courts established by the state. Tenn. Code Ann. § 16-1-101. The state's trial courts are divided among "thirty-one (31) judicial districts" defined by statute. Tenn. Code Ann. § 16-2-506. The state courts located in Metropolitan Nashville and Davidson County ("Metro Nashville" or "Metro"), for example, make up the Twentieth Judicial District. Tenn. Code Ann. § 16-2-506(a)(20)(A)(1).² The judges of each individual judicial district are authorized to promulgate their own Local Rules, as long as those rules are "consistent with the statutory law, the rules of the supreme court and the rules of criminal and civil procedure." Tenn. Code Ann. § 16-2-511. Among those Rules may be rules governing the process of reviewing pretrial detention decisions, as is the case in the Twentieth Judicial District, which has a fairly lengthy and detailed set of Local Rules of Practice for Bail Bonds. (See Docket No. 4-2.)

General sessions courts add another layer of complexity, because they are not denominated as state courts at all; rather, they are established and maintained on a county-by-county basis. See Tenn. Code Ann. § 16-15-102. General sessions judges have their own authority to "adopt such rules as may be necessary to expedite the trial and disposal of cases." Tenn. Code Ann. § 16-15-406. The Local Rules of Practice for Bail Bonds for the Twentieth Judicial District also apply to Metro's General Sessions courts. (See Docket No. 4-2 at 1.)

Finally,...