Kenta Settles’ Lengthy Jail Stay Shows How Ohio Bail Reform has Failed

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

6-24-2020

Publication Title

Cleveland Plain Dealer / cleveland.com

Keywords

bond, bail, detention

Abstract

This article discusses the case of Kenta Settles, who was attacked by Garfield Heights, Ohio police officers and then held for five months in pretrial detention before being released when the police body camera footage was finally disclosed.

The magistrate set a $250,000 bond, an amount clearly chosen to ensure Settles would be detained. Witmer-Rich criticizes the practice of detaining defendants by using money bonds without the due process that would be required for an actual detention order.

Ohio law does allow judges to order defendants detained pretrial, but only after following a detailed set of procedures to protect individuals from unnecessary detention. Witmer-Rich explains that Ohio judges routinely bypass those procedures and instead set high money bail, which is exactly what happened to Settles. Had the judge followed the procedures required for an actual detention order, there is a good chance that the body camera footage would have been disclosed immediately, rather than after five months of unnecessary detention.

Witmer-Rich also criticizes a recent decision by the Ohio Rules Commission (of which he is a member) to permit Ohio judges to continue this practice of detaining defendants with money bail and concludes, "Ohio judges must stop using money bail to detain defendants without following the procedures required to justify pretrial detention. The Ohio Legislature and the Ohio Supreme Court must end this practice."

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