In response to the COVID pandemic, the California Judicial Council passed an Emergency $0 Bail order, which eliminated bail for certain charges. This decision has been instrumental in reducing the jail population and slowing the spread of COVID. In the last few months, LA County numbers have gone down from 17,000 to 12,000. We must keep this going – maintaining a $0 bail policy is necessary to continue to reduce our prison and jail populations.

However, the current extended LA County $0 Bail order also excludes certain misdemeanors & low-level felonies, including several that apply specifically to protesting. We need to show the Court that these exceptions are unacceptable, and that we are paying attention.

Today we are calling on Judges on the LA Superior Court to commit to eliminating the exceptions to the current rule that target protestors, and to permanently retaining the $0 bail order. Our demands are:

• retain $0 bail permanently

• revise the Los Angeles County Emergency $0 Bail order to remove from the list of exceptions those charges that relate directly to protest activity, including Penal Code sections 409, 409.5 and 416

• for all designated $0 bail misdemeanors and low-level felonies, we urge the adoption of policies that move away from arrests and booking on these charges; instead there should be a policy of “cite and release” for these offenses