COLUMBUS, Ohio — A majority of Ohioans voted in support of Issue 1, which requires courts to consider public safety, the seriousness of the offense, a person's criminal record, and a person's likelihood of returning to court when setting the amount of bail.
Issue 1 was sought after a Supreme Court of Ohio decision in DuBose v. McGuffey, issued in January 2022, ruled that bail is excessive when it exceeds the amount necessary to guarantee the appearance of the accused.
Issue 1 supporters claim that the amendment will keep dangerous criminals off the streets.
"I think for those matters, where there's been gunplay, serious injury to victims, youthful offenders, where there is a heavy dose of malice in the allegations, et cetera, that this will give the judges a tool to set an appropriate bail bond that secures public safety along with the appearance of the offender," said Janet Grubb, assistant prosecutor with the Franklin County Prosecutors Office.
Opponents like the ACLU argue that this is not the case.
"We think it's bad policy, we think that our state already has an over reliance on cash bail, that doesn't keep our public safe, has it in the past and won't in the future. We oppose it because we oppose wealth-based detention, which is a result of our reliance on cash bail, where, you know, two folks accused of the same crime with the same risk to their community can have very different outcomes, both pretrial and at the end of their case," said Patrick Higgins, policy counsel for the ACLU of Ohio. "We don't think wealth is the determining factor when it comes to things like morality, when it comes to a person's danger to their community."
The ACLU plans to focus on advancing House Bill 315 and Senate Bill 182, bipartisan companion bills, which it said could make meaningful improvements to Ohio’s broken pretrial system—truly making our communities safer while curbing wealth-based detention and freeing up millions of taxpayer dollars.
Issue 1 is effective immediately.