The case could help resolve the messy climate around bail in California four years after voters by referendum overturned a law that would have eliminated the cash bail system.
By most metrics, Gerald Kowalczyk was a uniquely bad candidate to leave jail before his trial. He had a criminal record of more than 60 convictions, a history of failing to adhere to his release conditions and a pretrial algorithm's assessment that he presented the highest risk score possible.A San Mateo County Superior Court judge set his bail at $75,000, an amount Kowalczyk, homeless and unemployed, could not pay.
Disagreement over bail's purposeBall, the law professor, argues that Kowalczyk's bail didn't do what bail is supposed to do: It didn't make the public any safer, because Kowalczyk didn't present a threat to the public. "This guy was trying to buy a hamburger," Ball said. "There's no horror movie that's ever been made about the guy who bought a hamburger with somebody else's credit card.
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