On October 5, 2026, the Honorable Judge Lee Rosenthal issued an memorandum opinion in the ODonnell case. The court was ruling on a motion to dismiss the consent decree that was filed by 4 of the 16 misdemeanor judges.

By way of history, the judges had been arguing for sometime that the consent decree did not comply with SB 6 and more recently did not comply with SB 9 passed by the Texas Legislature in the most recent Texas Legislative Session. Additionally, since the consent decree/settlement agreement was entered, all of the substantive rulings made by the trial court in ODonnell had been reversed by the 5th Circuit. Further, in the Daves II en banc opinion issued by the 5th Circuit, the court of appeals specifically stated that both Daves and ODonnell should never have been adjudicated in federal court.

The trial court issued her opinion because the 5th Circuit issued a writ of mandamus ordering Judge Rosenthal to rule on the motion to dismiss based upon Younger Abstention "expeditiously" well before the upcoming election in November. Also, the court of appeals ordered Judge Rosenthal to follow the Daves II opinion. During the hearing on September 22, 2026, Judge Rosenthal stated multiple times that the court of appeals had ordered her to abstain.

Nevertheless, on October 5, 2026, the trial court denied the motion to dismiss and did not follow the Daves II opinion. The four judges have already filed a notice of appeal. Join us on this episode of The Bail Post as we discuss the history of this case and address the court's ruling.

If you would like to see the trial court's memorandum opinion you can see it at:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1r-B2gHhNpJxMDHdVE-2FLPDq15jbz2xd/view?usp=sharing

In SB 6 and SB 9, the Texas Legislature made major changes to article 17.03 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure. On this episode of the Bail Post we begin a new series placing a spotlight on changes to the Criminal Justice System of Texas that are set out in SB 9, SB 6 and several other statutes passed by the Texas Legislature.

We will be highlightiing changes to Article 17.03 regarding the use of personal bonds in Texas. In SB 6 the changes to article 17.03 was one of three major reforms set out in the bill. In SB 9, artilce 17.03 was tweaked by adding an additional charge on which a defendant is not entitle to a persona bond (felon in possession of a weapon) and one charge was moved from group 3 to to group 2 (terroristic threat).

PBT has a one page summary of the charges and their restrictions set out in article 17.03. The document can be downloaded using the following LINK.

Additionally, if you would like additional information regarding the YOLO County Study referenced in this episode, you can find the study using the following LINK. If you would like to watch/listen to a podcast regarding the YOLO County Study, you can find this information with the following LINK.

On this episode of The Bail Post we look at the proposed Constitutional Amendment No. 1 for the State of Tennessee that will be on the ballot in November and its proposal to expand preventative detention. Our guests are Shelly Alexander and Eric Granof.

How do you navigate the space in the bail reform debate when law enforcement and activists seem to be arguing contrary positions. One example is the debate over defunding the police. A study that was highlighted on Episode No. 71 of our podcast demonstrated that defunding the police increases crime immediately not only in the area that the police are removed from but the surrounding area as well. Also, taking the police out of the community resulted in litigation that resulted in judgments against the city totaling over $32 million dollars.

Nevertheless, activists continue to argue that defunding the police will actually make communities safer.

How do we navigate between these two positions. When activists have flooded google with pseudo studies that defy common sense how do we debunk them and find the real science?

This is the subject of this episode of The Bail Post.

Dr. Benjamin Hansen is the W.E. Minor Professor of Economics at the University of Oregon. He is also the head of the Economics Department. He Graduated from Birmingham Young University in 2004 with a B.A. in Economics. He received his M.A. in Economics in 2005 and his PhD in Economics in 2009 from UC Santa Barbara.

Dr. Hansen co-authored an article that is the subject of this episode of The Bail Post. The citation for the article is: Chalfin, Hansen, Weisburst and Williams, "Police Force Size and Civilian Race," American Economic Review: Insights 4 (2); 139-58 (2022).

The article addressed defunding the police and its impact on crime. One of the conclusions of the study was that decreasing the size of the police force will increase murder rates and that will disproportionately negatively impact certain minority groups. This means that decreasing the size of police will result in more murders and the number will increase even more for certain minority groups.

While Dr. Hansen agrees that this is one of the conclusions of the report, he also highlights other strategies that were not addressed in the report as possible alternatives to attempt to decrease crime by moving police funds to other strategies. Dr. Hansen admits there would be a time lag for some of these strategies and others might not be an actual replacement for police, but could augment them in certain areas to allow quicker response times.

Join us for this episode of The Bail Post.

On August 22, 2025, Iryna Zarutska was killed at the East/West Boulevard station on the Lynx Blue Line, in Charlotte, North Carolina. Zarutska, a 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee who had fled her country because of the Russian invasion, was stabbed from behind three times while seated on the train. She did everything right. She and her family immigrated to the United States legally. They had a sponsor. She was attending college and was working at a pizza shop. At the time of the stabbing she was traveling home after work.

The entire event was captured on video. Initially, the video was not seen by the public. Then everything changed when the mayor of Charlotte thanked the press for not distributing the video. Then the video was everywhere.

In response to this terrible event, the North Carolina legislature passed Iryna's Law. It was signed by the Democrat Governor.

Join us on this episode of The Bail Post as we discuss the events leading up to this tragedy and the statute that was passed in Iryna Zarutsha' honor.

Our guest is the President of the North Carolina Bail Agent's Association, Julie Henderson.

As we begin Season 5 of the Bail Post, we are talking about the importance of engaging in public relations in the Criminal Justice System. One of the things that we have learned over the years is that the activists will never admit that they are wrong or that they are doing more harm than good. Also, they have learned how to inundate google with pseudo studies that are really nothing more than dressed up press releases from these same groups that many times actually contradict what the actual science says should be the proper course of action. Therefore, if we are not telling the positive stories of the bail industry and the Criminal Justice System, then these stories will not be told. If we are not highlighting what the actual science says then many times no one will.

Our guests on today's episode of The Bail Post is our PR Team- Cara Downs and Elliott Chang who are Media Vista PR. If you would like more information about Cara and Elliott contact them directly at:

Elliott@mediavistapr.com

Cara@mediavistpr.com

In 2020, there were protests in Seattle, Washington following the death of George Floyd. For a period of 24 days, an area that became known as the Capitol Hill Occupation Protest (CHOP) was treated as an autonomous zone where the police did not respond to calls. As a result, the CHOP zone became an example of what happens when police stop policing. Dr. Eric Piza and Dr. Nathan T. Connealy largely used data from the City of Seattle Open Data portal, analyzing data from more than one year prior to CHOP with two microsynth models to understand average and seasonal crime trends. Dr. Piza and Dr. Connealy looked at the impact of crime in three areas: (1) the CHOP zone; (2) the two block radius around the CHOP zone; and (3) the precinct at large.

The results showed a significant increase in crime within the CHOP zone, the encompassing two-block area, and the overall East precinct service area during the occupation period. The study suggests that calls to abolish the police compromise public safety.

Although advocates argue the abolishing police would have a positive impact on crime, the science not only does not support this conclusion, it actually supports the opposite conclusion that when police stop policing crime increases dramatically.