DOJ Asks 11th Cir. to Strike Down Cash Bail System

The Obama administration is asking a federal appeals court to declare that it’s unconstitutional to keep people locked up for minor crimes just because they’re too poor to afford bail.

A bail scheme that doesn’t take into account an individual’s ability to pay violates the equal protection and due process requirements of the Fourteenth Amendment because it punishes people for their poverty, according to an amicus brief filed Aug. 18 by the Justice Department in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.

The intervention signals a growing movement to reform a system that critics say keeps poor people ...