{"id":1945,"date":"2019-04-06T05:19:27","date_gmt":"2019-04-06T09:19:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.delsignoredefense.com\/blog\/?p=1945"},"modified":"2019-04-06T17:21:56","modified_gmt":"2019-04-06T21:21:56","slug":"united-states-supreme-court-declines-to-address-constitutional-challenge-to-unreasonable-bail-in-recent-georgia-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.delsignoredefense.com\/blog\/united-states-supreme-court-declines-to-address-constitutional-challenge-to-unreasonable-bail-in-recent-georgia-case\/","title":{"rendered":"United States Supreme Court declines to address Constitutional challenge to unreasonable bail in recent Georgia case"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"s4\">\u200b<span class=\"s2\">How long must one be deprived of his freedom before the deprivation is considered \u201cabsolute?\u201d \u00a0For what time period must a person be away from her job, her family, or her home before the loss of liberty is no longer considered a \u201cmere diminishment of a benefit?\u201d \u00a0And what is the appropriate amount of time an indigent arrestee must wait to receive the same benefit <\/span><span class=\"s2\">as <\/span><span class=\"s2\">someone more affluent? \u00a0<\/span><span class=\"s2\">On April 1, 2019, the Supreme Court of the United States denied a petition for a writ of certiorari filed in the case of <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.scotusblog.com\/case-files\/cases\/walker-v-city-of-calhoun-georgia\/\"><span class=\"s3\">Maurice Walker v. City of Calhoun, Georgia<\/span><\/a><span class=\"s2\">, a case which would have allowed it to consider these very questions. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"s4\">\u200b<span class=\"s2\">In late 2015, <\/span><span class=\"s2\">Maurice Walker was arrested and charged with being a pedestrian under the influence of <\/span><span class=\"s2\">alcohol<\/span><span class=\"s2\">. \u00a0At the time of the arrest, Mr. Walker had a mental illness which prevented him from working, and he received $530 per month in disability. \u00a0<\/span><span class=\"s2\">Although the offense with which he was charged carried no jail time, the city of Calhoun, Georgia had a policy of requiring a cash bail for misdemeanor and traffic offenses. \u00a0Not uncoincidentally, the cash bail amount equaled the amount of the fine an arrestee would pay if found guilty of the offense plus certain fees. \u00a0The bail in Mr. Walker\u2019s case totaled $160. \u00a0<\/span><span class=\"s2\">Mr. Walker had the bad luck of being arrested <\/span><span class=\"s2\">during a <\/span><span class=\"s2\">week leading up to a holiday Monday in a small town with only one<\/span><span class=\"s2\"> Municipal Court j<\/span><span class=\"s2\">udge<\/span><span class=\"s2\">. Because Mr. Walker could not afford the bail, he was set to remain in jail for thirteen days awaiting a hearing which only occurred on non-holiday Mondays. \u00a0Instead, Mr. Walker filed suit and was released after six days in jail on an appearance bond, and the City quickly modified their policy to allow for release of indigents after a maximum of forty-eight hours of incarceration.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"s4\">\u200b<span class=\"s2\">The district court granted a preliminary injunction in favor of Mr. Walker, which the 11<\/span><span class=\"s5\">th<\/span><span class=\"s2\">Ci<\/span><span class=\"s2\">rcuit vacated finding that the lower court had erred in applying heightened scrutiny to Mr. Walker\u2019s argument<\/span><span class=\"s2\">. \u00a0This formed <\/span><span class=\"s2\">the basis for the petition for certiorari. \u00a0In his petition, Mr. Walker argued that under the Equal Protection and Due Process clauses of the<\/span><span class=\"s2\"> Fourteenth Amendment to the<\/span><span class=\"s2\"> U.S. Constitution, one could not be subjected to imprisonment solely because <\/span><span class=\"s2\">one was indigent. \u00a0One of the judges on the divided 11<\/span><span class=\"s5\">th<\/span><span class=\"s2\"> Circuit panel had agreed with Mr. Walker; Judge Martin argued that heightened scrutiny should apply because Mr. Walker, and those like him, suffered an absolute deprivation of liberty.<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"read_more_link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.delsignoredefense.com\/blog\/united-states-supreme-court-declines-to-address-constitutional-challenge-to-unreasonable-bail-in-recent-georgia-case\/\"  title=\"Continue Reading United States Supreme Court declines to address Constitutional challenge to unreasonable bail in recent Georgia case\" class=\"more-link\">Continue Reading \u203a<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u200bHow long must one be deprived of his freedom before the deprivation is considered \u201cabsolute?\u201d \u00a0For what time period must a person be away from her job, her family, or her home before the loss of liberty is no longer considered a \u201cmere diminishment of a benefit?\u201d \u00a0And what is the appropriate amount of time [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-united-states-supreme-court"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>United States Supreme Court declines to address Constitutional challenge to unreasonable bail in recent Georgia case &#8212; Massachusetts Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog &#8212; April 6, 2019<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"\u200bHow long must one be deprived of his freedom before the deprivation is considered \u201cabsolute?\u201d \u00a0For what time period must a person be away from her job, &#8212; April 6, 2019\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.delsignoredefense.com\/blog\/united-states-supreme-court-declines-to-address-constitutional-challenge-to-unreasonable-bail-in-recent-georgia-case\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"United States Supreme Court declines to address Constitutional challenge to unreasonable bail in recent Georgia case &#8212; Massachusetts Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog &#8212; April 6, 2019\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"\u200bHow long must one be deprived of his freedom before the deprivation is considered \u201cabsolute?\u201d \u00a0For what time period must a person be away from her job, &#8212; April 6, 2019\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Michael DelSignore\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"United States Supreme Court declines to address Constitutional challenge to unreasonable bail in recent Georgia case &#8212; Massachusetts Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog &#8212; April 6, 2019","description":"\u200bHow long must one be deprived of his freedom before the deprivation is considered \u201cabsolute?\u201d \u00a0For what time period must a person be away from her job, &#8212; April 6, 2019","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.delsignoredefense.com\/blog\/united-states-supreme-court-declines-to-address-constitutional-challenge-to-unreasonable-bail-in-recent-georgia-case\/","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_title":"United States Supreme Court declines to address Constitutional challenge to unreasonable bail in recent Georgia case &#8212; Massachusetts Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog &#8212; April 6, 2019","twitter_description":"\u200bHow long must one be deprived of his freedom before the deprivation is considered \u201cabsolute?\u201d \u00a0For what time period must a person be away from her job, &#8212; April 6, 2019","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Michael DelSignore","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.delsignoredefense.com\/blog\/united-states-supreme-court-declines-to-address-constitutional-challenge-to-unreasonable-bail-in-recent-georgia-case\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.delsignoredefense.com\/blog\/united-states-supreme-court-declines-to-address-constitutional-challenge-to-unreasonable-bail-in-recent-georgia-case\/"},"author":{"name":"Michael DelSignore","@id":"https:\/\/www.delsignoredefense.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/f0bc58f94b3abb11fcd52cf8961c0a6e"},"headline":"United States Supreme Court declines to address Constitutional challenge to unreasonable bail in recent Georgia case","datePublished":"2019-04-06T09:19:27+00:00","dateModified":"2019-04-06T21:21:56+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.delsignoredefense.com\/blog\/united-states-supreme-court-declines-to-address-constitutional-challenge-to-unreasonable-bail-in-recent-georgia-case\/"},"wordCount":871,"articleSection":["United States Supreme Court"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.delsignoredefense.com\/blog\/united-states-supreme-court-declines-to-address-constitutional-challenge-to-unreasonable-bail-in-recent-georgia-case\/","url":"https:\/\/www.delsignoredefense.com\/blog\/united-states-supreme-court-declines-to-address-constitutional-challenge-to-unreasonable-bail-in-recent-georgia-case\/","name":"United States Supreme Court declines to address Constitutional challenge to unreasonable bail in recent Georgia case &#8212; 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