SF Court Orders Attorney General To Explain Why Indigent Man Can't Be Released From Jail

SAN FRANCISCO, CA — California's appeals court has ordered the state Attorney General to explain why a San Francisco man accused of stealing $5 and cologne should be held on $350,000 bond, the city's public defender said today. Kenneth Humphrey, 64, an indigent retired shipyard worker, has been in jail since he was arrested May 23, nearly four months ago, because he can't raise the $350,000 bail, the public defender said.

San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi and the nonprofit Civil Rights Corps challenged the high amount of the bail. They contended that setting the bond beyond Humphrey's means without considering his ability to pay or non-monetary alternatives violated Fourteenth Amendment guarantees of equal protection and due process.

The First Appellate District of the California Court of Appeal on Sept. 1 ordered State Attorney General Xavier Becerra to show cause why Humphrey should not be released, the public defender said. Prosecutors insisted on money bail in Humphrey's case despite his indigence, his acceptance letter to an addiction facility for seniors, his ties to the community and his law-abiding life for 14 years before the arrest, the public defender said.

"This case was outrageously overcharged from the beginning," Adachi said in a statement. "It is fundamentally unfair to lock people up solely because they are too poor to buy their freedom."

The public defender said the case could have far-reaching consequences. According to the public defender, if the appellate court rules in Humphrey's favor, it could abolish what Adachi described as the practice
of using high-money bail to detain poor people without giving them detention hearings.

By Bay City News

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