On January 21, 2018, eight arrestees who could not afford to post bail filed this class action in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas. The plaintiffs sued Dallas County, the Dallas County Sheriff, the Dallas County Magistrate Judges, the Dallas County Criminal Court at Law Judges, and the Dallas County District Court Judges, under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, for violations of the Fourteenth Amendment. The plaintiffs, represented by the ACLU of Texas, the ACLU Criminal Law Reform Project, the Civil Rights Corps, and the Texas Fair Defense Project, sought declaratory and injunctive relief as well as attorneys’ fees and costs. This case was assigned to Judge David C. Godbey.

According to the plaintiffs, arrestees like the named plaintiffs languished in jail cells because they could not afford to pay the amount of money required for their release. They claimed that it was the policy and practice of Dallas County to require a generic, predetermined amount for bail without first considering the person’s ability to pay, and without making the substantive findings or providing the procedural due process safeguards that the Constitution required. The plaintiffs claimed that in operating a wealth-based detention system, the County had violated their equal protection and due process rights.

On the same day the complaint was filed, the plaintiff moved for class certification and a preliminary injunction. The plaintiffs asked that the court enjoin the County from enforcing its wealth-based pretrial detention system and order the County to provide procedural safeguards and substantive findings before detaining any presumptively innocent individuals. Later that month, the plaintiffs filed an amended complaint, adding Faith in Texas and the Texas Organizing Project as plaintiffs. During the weeks between the filing of the initial and amended complaints, Faith in Texas and the Texas Organizing Project had paid the bond of the individuals named in the original complaints.

On March 12, 2018, the County filed a motion to stay while awaiting guidance from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on the threshold issue of the which parties were proper defendants. On May 2, 2018, the district court denied this motion because the County did not present a “clear case of hardship or inequity” as required to justify a stay.

In April 2018, the each of the defendant entities filed separate motions to dismiss. The County argued that because the Fifth Circuit had recently confirmed that a sheriff could not incur liability by following judicial bail orders, Dallas County could not be liable for the actions of the District Judges or the County Criminal Court at Law Judges. The County claimed that this case was fundamentally about the judicial system of the State of Texas, over which Dallas County had absolutely no control.

The Dallas County Sheriff and the Dallas County Magistrate Judges, in their respective motions, argued that they were not proper parties to this action because neither of them controlled the relevant practices and policies. The Dallas County Criminal Court at Law Judges argued that the claims against them should be dismissed because the plaintiffs had not exhausted state law claims for redress and because the plaintiffs’ substantive due process claims were improperly brought under the Fourteenth Amendment as opposed to the Fourth and Eighth Amendments. The Dallas County District Court Judges argued that the claims against them should be dismissed because they lacked subject matter jurisdiction.

On September 20, 2018, Judge Godbey issued orders granting the plaintiffs’ motions for class certification and for a preliminary injunction. 341 F.Supp.3d 688. The class was certified as “all arrestees who are or will be detained in Dallas County custody because they are unable to pay a secured financial condition of release.” The preliminary injunction instructed the defendants to have every arrestee fill out an affidavit with information about how much the detainee could reasonably post in bail. The defendants were to use that information to determine bail amounts rather than the prescheduled amounts at issue.

In the same opinion, the court specified that Dallas County and the Magistrate Judges, as employees of Dallas County, were proper defendants for the purpose of the injunction based on O’Donnell v. Harris County. The court also held that the injunction bound the Criminal Court at Law Judges because they promulgated the official policy set by the county. The court found that the Dallas County Sheriff, however, was not a proper defendant and was not bound by the injunction because she did not in any way act as a policymaker with respect to setting bail, and merely followed the instructions of the magistrate judges.

While the court found that the plaintiffs were entitled to a preliminary injunction because they had shown a substantial likelihood of success on their equal protection and procedural due process claims, the court found that they had failed to show a substantial likelihood of success on their substantive due process claim. Specifically, under the recent Fifth Circuit precedent cited in the case, the plaintiffs had not shown that indigent plaintiffs who could not afford bail would automatically be released unless a compelling reason existed to detain them. The plaintiffs appealed this ruling, as well as the holding that the Sheriff was not bound by the preliminary injunction, to the Fifth Circuit.

The Fifth Circuit heard oral arguments on November 4, 2019. As of August 8, 2020, a ruling on the appeal is pending.

Jake Parker - 06/13/2018
Brian Remlinger - 02/16/2019


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