Bail reform and pretrial release: Examining the implementation of In re Humphrey

Abstract

Research SummaryPretrial reform is driving criminal justice policy debates across the nation. The In re Humphrey decision required the San Francisco County criminal court to set bail levels based on defendant ability to pay rather than the county bail schedule. Under this new policy, the rate of pretrial detention fell by 11%. We find defendants released pretrial were less likely to be convicted (a decline of 3 percentage points) in the post‐Humphrey period. This decline in conviction rates was driven primarily by a reduction in the likelihood of plea bargaining. These case outcome results are robust to an alternative strategy using propensity score matching and a difference‐in‐difference estimator to estimate effects for those most likely to be affected by the policy change. There was no consistent, statistically significant change in subsequent arrests or convictions post‐Humphrey across the estimation strategies.Policy ImplicationsAlthough the Humphrey decision originally applied only to San Francisco, a state supreme court decision in March 2021 extended the ruling to courts throughout California. The results also have implications for other states engaged in bail reform. These findings suggest that requiring bail to be set at affordable levels increases pretrial releases overall, specifically releases to pretrial supervision programs, with improvements in case outcomes and no apparent increase in subsequent criminal justice system contact. Counties or states without robust pretrial service options may not experience the same change in releases or other outcomes. Further, jurisdictions that detain people booked on lower level offenses at higher rates than San Francisco may experience a greater response to a policy change like Humphrey.