"In its statement of interest, the department aims to assist the court in evaluating the constitutionality of fixed-money bail practices. The statement asserts that, as courts have long recognized, any bail or bond scheme that mandates payment of pre-fixed amounts for different offenses in order to gain pre-trial release, without any regard for indigence, not only violates the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, but also constitutes poor public policy. Instead, courts should make an individualized assessment of each defendant to determine whether the defendant is a threat to public safety or a flight risk. Pretrial detention should be based on an objective evaluation of these factors, not on the defendant’s ability to pay."
