End of Project Report:

ABA Restoring the Presumption of Innocence, Enterprise Grant

Shima Baradaran, Esq.
July 2015
The Restoring the Presumption of Innocence project sought to secure the legitimacy of the
pretrial detention system in an on-going attempt to ensure that the pretrial presumption of
innocence remains true to its constitutional roots. The efforts made by the project, including the
challenges encountered and the successes experienced, are outlined below.
Website Work/Research
As part of the pre-trial reform project, it was important to provide educational research materials
discussing the need for and benefit of pre-trial reform. One particular goal of the project was to
provide relevant materials addressing fiscal and racial impact of pretrial release determinations
online for all interested parties to support the reform efforts and educate people about the
benefits of reform.
The project provided research regarding the use of pre-trial risk assessments in bail and diversion
program determinations. This research outlines general the role risk assessments play in pre-trial
reform, as well as detailed the efforts of some states in using and improving these assessments as
tools in pre-trial bail determination and diversion programs. This particular information looked at
Ohios and Virginias assessment processes as well as a federal assessment, showing there are
different effective ways to use risk-assessments in pre-trial determinations.
In addition to looking at risk assessments in pre-trial reform, the information posted to the
website also included more generally the pre-trial reform efforts of the following states:
Kentucky, Colorado, New York, West Virginia, Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, Wisconsin,
Virginia, Washington D.C., Maryland, Louisiana, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Connecticut,
and Washington. Accompanying each state is a limited description of their pre-trial efforts. Some
detail new programs, some old, and others being reformed.
Following this, more information was released specifically on jurisdictions seeing results while
undergoing pre-trial reform listing Virginia, Kentucky, Colorado, California, Connecticut,
Delaware, Washington D.C., Maryland, New York, Texas, West Virginia, and Wisconsin as these
jurisdictions. With this, the information describes the reform efforts, including the steps taken
under reform as well as the successes they see as a result.
All of this information being provided online allows key stakeholders and community members
to understand the benefits associated with pre-trial reform as well as offering suggestions for
how other jurisdictions are moving forward by identifying successful reform efforts for others to
emulate.

Toolkit for Defense Attorneys

One of the deliverables of this grant was a toolkit for holistic defense representation by defense
attorneys. Christine Greene was the contractor who designed this toolkit based on the results of
a survey she administered to defense attorneys. This toolkit is intended to provide a baseline
reference point and resource guide for pretrial public defenders who aim to provide the most
comprehensive, holistic representation possible. It includes sample questionnaires for
practitioners to use in discussions with clients and a checklist that will aid practitioners in
identifying and addressing a range of their clients' legal and non-legal needs. It also reviews
successful models of holistic public defender programs and includes methods that can be used to
monitor, track and assess office usage of the tools included. Utilization of this toolkit will
facilitate uniformity across disciplines to ensure that each public defender is equipped to
comprehensibly identify and address the broad range of issues that their clients face.
Site Achievement Summaries
As well as the materials provided on the website summarizing research and providing an
educational basis for the project, four pre-trial reform projects were funded in order to divert
people out of the criminal justice system pre-trial and restore the presumption of innocence. Each
of these four sites programs, including their challenges and successes, are detailed below. We
chose four sites to work carefully with and fund their pretrial project. These sites include New
Orleans, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and New York.
New Orleans
The task force in New Orleans focused specifically on racial bias and the influence it had in the
criminal justice system, as African Americans accounted for most of those charged with
misdemeanors and felonies in the area. In collaboration with the racial justice initiative, the task
force made pretrial reform with the overall goal of diverting offenders out of the criminal justice
system a priority. Specifically, they created a diversion program for non-violent offenders
committing property crimes.
The diversion program has two tracks, track one and two. Track one of this diversion program is
designed as a shorter version of track two. As part of this program, participants undergo an initial
assessment done by counselors, complete regular drug testing, report regularly to the office,
complete community service, and graduate from a high school/GED program or maintain
employment. 71% of track one participants were able to join following their first arrest
(compared to 35% in track two), allowing them to divert out of the criminal justice system pretrial more quickly and successfully.
After this success, the task force created a similar diversion program, the Crossroads Diversion
Program, for those charged with prostitution and similar offenses. This program was more
specifically designed to reduce the number of prosecutions for prostitution and divert at risk sex
workers to counseling and treatment. As part of this program, participants have many similar
requirements as those in the track one program: intake and assessment, drug testing, reporting,
and in addition, weekly counseling. Upon successful completion of the program, participants

could be completely diverted out of the criminal justice system and have their cases dropped
instead of undergoing a trial and sentencing before being able to get help for their issues. So far
with the Crossroads program, 36 of the participants (or 53%) have been able to successfully
graduate. Further, 47% of graduates have continued voluntarily with the program after court
order ended, showing the positive impact the program has on its participants.
Minnesota
To improve pretrial release, the Minnesota site in St. Louis County implemented three programs
to improve their pretrial release process overall. These three programs included a six-pronged
approach to generally reducing racial disparity throughout the pretrial process, an Intensive PreTrial Release Program for those awaiting trial, and a Community Sanctions Program for those in
violation of their probation. Each of these was deemed successful in their initial implementation,
in reducing racial disparity and in reducing the amount of beds in jail taken up by those detained
pretrial, saving significant jail costs and providing services to defendants that would have
otherwise been unavailable while incarcerated.
1. Six pronged approach to reducing racial inequity in pre-trial release programs
The first two prongs of this approach are implemented to better ensure the success of the
program. The first provides implicit bias training for county judges and probation officers.
Because most bias is implicit, this training serves as a stepping-stone into the other prongs by
providing awareness to judges and probation officers. The second prong implements a policy to
reduce the number of required supervised release reports to include only felonies and gross
misdemeanors. This directs the program to the area in which it can have the most effect by
focusing on providing Intense PreTrial Release (IPTR) for more felonies, ultimately saving more
than 1500 jail days and over $150,000 in jail costs.
The third, fourth, and fifth prongs provide practical tools to improve the selection process for
pretrial release. The third prong provides a new risk assessment tool for probation officers
writing supervised release studies and the fourth prong implements a training program for the
tool. Because judges are deferential to the recommendations made by probation officers, if a
probation officer fails to recommend supervised pre-trial release for an individual, the judge may
not even consider it. This new risk-assessment tool is a standardized form that takes every
defendant through the same assessment in order to reduce racial bias. By implementing training
in the fourth prong, those tools will be used more efficiently and effectively to reduce racial bias
and provide more opportunities for supervised pre-trial release. The fifth prong is another
practical tool provided to judges to facilitate more equitable pre-trial release decisions. This tool,
a checklist, moves through all of the factors to be considered (according to Minnesota Criminal
Procedure Rules) when a judge grants or denies pre-trial release. Judges using this checklist have
expressed their approval of it and reported its helpfulness in making pre-trial decisions.
The sixth prong addresses case management after a defendant is accepted into supervised pretrial release. Case Management is provided through the Next Steps Program, which offers
information and referral services appropriate to the individuals specific needs and goals to help
them achieve success while released pretrial.

2. Intensive Pre-Trial Release Program

The program goal for the Intensive Pre-Trial Release Programs is to provide intensive
community supervision instead of incarceration. While this program has many long-lasting
benefits, this site saw specific benefits throughout its trial period of nine months. First, this
program offered more defendants, who have not been convicted of a crime, the ability to be
released pre-trial. The program was available to 141 participants, and in nine months 92 of them
have completed the program with 55% successfully completing the program, 41% failing to
complete and sent back to jail, and 3% choosing to leave the program after posting bond. 49
participants still remain in the program and their results have not been factored into the above
numbers. When approving or denying potential participants, 20 were rejected because the victim
or county attorney opposed their release, the crime was a presumptive commit to prison, or the
individual had a warrant out of another jurisdiction.
Closely related to the first improvement, this program also reduced the use of jail beds on pretrial defendants. Throughout the nine-month span of the program, the jail saw an overall 6%
decrease in jail beds being used for pretrial defendants, and the average monthly from July to the
following March decrease by 59%. These 141 open beds in the jail saved over $900,000 in jail
costs even after accounting for the costs associated with the Intensive Pre-trial Release Program.
Even those defendants who do not successfully complete the program save some costs to the jail
by starting the program. Costs saved through the pre-trial release program also included all
medical costs of the participants--since they were not incarcerated, they were responsible for
their own medical costs instead of having the prison pay for such costs.
As part of saving incarceration costs, for those defendants who successfully completed their
intensive pre-trial release program, less than 10% of them were sentenced to non-credited jail
time. Instead, a third of them were sentenced to no additional jail time, and the others were split
between sentence to serve/community service and incarceration in NERCC, jail, or an equivalent
program. Most of those sentenced to incarceration, had their jail time stayed and were put on
probation or a community service equivalent, further opening jail beds and reducing jail costs. As
such, NERCC and other community service programs are better utilized as alternatives to
incarceration. As mentioned, these alternative programs offer opportunities not available while
incarcerated. As part of the program, NERCC can also be used as a sanction for violations
instead of immediate incarceration or termination from the program, allowing them to better
maintain their community and treatment programs and not having to remove their monitoring
devices.
The intensive pre-trial release program also provided opportunities to defendants that would be
otherwise unavailable to them while incarcerated. Many defendants entering into the program
had chemical dependency and mental health issues. Allowing them to participate in the program
provided the opportunity to not only get the appropriate services needed to rehabilitate their
issues that may not be available to them while incarcerated, but it also provides them access to
such services earlier than while waiting to be sentenced. Many of these offenders had access to
chemical dependency assessments and mental health evaluations--helping them get into
treatment as well as providing this information to the judge for help during sentencing. In
addition, this program afforded people the opportunity to either begin or maintain employment
and continue their education while awaiting sentencing.
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The pre-trial release program is made possible through intensive supervision by parole officers to
maintain public safety. Officers have several supervision options available to them like electronic
monitoring, drug testing, house arrest, home visits, and phone check-ins. Through these
programs, may of the offenders are able to be successful in the program and officers are able to
maintain public safety. When there were issues of non-compliance, judges issued warrants, and
within a week, officers had arrested the violator and returned them to jail.
3. Community Sanctions Program
The Community Sanctions Program was designed to utilize alternative community sanctions for
probation violations instead of incarceration. In doing so, the program aimed to reduce the
number of people in custody, expedite the process and reduce court paperwork, and reduce
recidivism and implement evidence-based practices.
During the nine months thus far, the program has had 83 participants. During this time, the
monthly average of sentenced offenders dropped by 25%. In addition, the monthly average of
those housed-out decreased by 59%. With the average violation sanction sending an offender
to jail for 60 days, this program saved the jail costs of almost 5,000 days in jail. Ultimately,
including the cost of the Community Sanctions Program, this saved over $500,000 in jail costs
during the first nine months of the program.
In order to reduce court paperwork and in turn, expedite the process, when offenders violated
their probation, the Community Sanctions Program probation officer conducted an offender
sanctioning conference discussing the proposed sanction and rationale for the sanction. After
this, the report would go to the judge for consideration and action, which were always approved.
Because the process does not require a warrant or a hearing before a judge, dealing with
probation violations proved to be a quicker and more efficient process.
Because the program has only been implemented for nine months, it is still early to determine the
effects of the program on recidivism rates. However, when entering the program, most of the
offenders were assessed to have a medium to high risk of reoffending. In order to reduce this
risk, the Community Sanctions Program offered opportunities for offenders to participate in
substance abuse counseling and treatment, mental health counseling, and cognitive-behavior
skills programming designed to enact long term change in high-risk offenders to reduce
recidivism. All of this was conducted while the offender remained in the community.
Pennsylvania
In an attempt to address the overrepresentation of minority offenders in the criminal justice
system, the Pennsylvania task force implemented several programs including the Youth Aid
Panel, Aggression replacement Training, Youth-Law Enforcement Forums, and
Education/Training. These programs were specifically aimed to stop the entry of juveniles into
the system in the pretrial stages.
1. Youth Aid Panel

The Youth Aid Panel (YAP) is a restorative justice program providing a second chance to
nonviolent juvenile offenders. The program encourages youth to take responsibility for their
actions, attempting pre-trial to return them to the community and prevent future offenses instead
of punishing with incarceration. Over 700 juveniles every year have the opportunity to
participate in the program, and most of them do not have future involvement in the juvenile
justice system again. Though this program has been running since 2000, recent motivation to
reform has encouraged the task force to implement new policies to divert more juveniles to the
program. With these new changes, 30 participants were chosen to implement them: 15 placed
with a case manager, and 15 placed with a control group of 15 without a case manager.
The first policy change regarded access and eligibility to the program for youth offenders. In the
beginning, YAP eligibility restricted access to the program to first-time offenders. New policy
changes open the door for participation in the program by juveniles with up to two prior
summary convictions, one prior delinquency on a misdemeanor, or a pending truancy,
ungovernable, or other dependency matter.
The second policy change regards case management for the participants in the system. Prior to
the reform, the YAP did not offer case management for juveniles working through the program.
Juveniles with certain risk or dependency factors had a harder time maintaining their
participation in the program because they would not follow through with the requirements. A
case management service will determine those juveniles who have risk and dependency factors
and assign a case manager to them to help them follow through with requirements to ensure
successful completion of the program.
The third policy change was to implement a discretionary referral program. Prior to this change,
law enforcement officers had the sole discretion of who to refer to the program, and there was no
tool or objective guideline to help them. To combat this, law enforcement officers refer all
summary retail theft offenders meeting the eligibility requirements, which eliminates law
enforcement discretion altogether. The following objective criteria must also be met: offender
was 10-17 years old at the time, no pending delinquency petition, juvenile is not currently on
probation, juvenile may be referred for summary offense with a prior delinquency on a
misdemeanor, and juvenile may be referred with up to two prior summary offenses.
2. Aggression Replacement Training
Aggression Replacement Training is a proven tool used to help youth control and understand
their anger and prevent violent crime. As such, this program is designed for juvenile offenders
charged with simple assault and disorderly conduct. The program is designed to have 30 group
sessions, meeting for one hour three times a week. With the training, juveniles learn social skills
by replacing their anti-social behavior with positive social interaction. They learn to control their
anger to respond in provoking situation with non-aggressive behavior. Finally, you participants
learn moral reasoning by raising awareness and understanding of other peoples needs and rights.
Since July 2014, 21 youths have completed the program out of the 23 who participated. Through
pre- and post-testing, the program saw 26% improvement in dealing with feelings, a 13%
reduction in physical aggression, 30% increase with ability to deal with stress, a 39%
improvement on social skills, and a 26% improvement with alternatives to aggression.

3. Youth-Law Enforcement Forums

Youth-Law Enforcement Forums are another way the task force is attempting to reform
adolescent involvement with criminal justice system prior to trial and/or conviction. Here, youth
have an opportunity to be heard by law enforcement, so they can better their practices to still
enforce the law but also ensure youth feel comfortable and safe in their environment. As a result
of the forums, both police and youth have indicated they better understand each other now, and
more importantly would respond differently to situations involving each other moving forward.
4. Education/Training
In addition to these programs, this site made an effort to increase education and training
surrounding their reform efforts. These education and training efforts were, in part, done through
collaboration with other agencies including the North Carolina task force, and departments in
New York City. The PA task force also held a summit to educate on juvenile justice issues, as
well as educating the local community on the reform.
New York
Minorities are overrepresented in the juvenile criminal justice system and the New York site in
Brooklyn focused on pretrial rights of youth offenders. The program the Brooklyn Task Force
developed focused on 16 and 17-year-olds charged with misdemeanors who were arraigned in
adult court. The program provided appropriate services to the juvenile offenders, and if they
were successful in working with and completing the program, the charges against them would be
dismissed. Thus far, there have been three iterations of the program, each with positive results.
In the first trial of the program, 25 juveniles charged with theft of services or marijuana
possession were found eligible, and 22 of them successfully completed the program, with 4
getting rearrested at least once in the year following their participation in the program, yielding a
16% rearrest rate. In the comparison group, 10 of the 28 were rearrested within one year of their
arraignment, creating a 36% rearrest rate. Because of the success of the initial implementation of
the program, the task force expanded their program to include offenders charged with any nonviolent Desk Appearance Ticket (DAT). This time, 32 youth were screened and 29 were found
eligible, all of which successfully completed the program and had their cases dismissed. 5 of the
youth were rearrested at least once within the 11 months after their participation, showing a 16%
rearrest rate. In the comparison group, 12 of the participants were rearrested in the year after
their arraignment, yielding a 34% rearrest rate. In both the first and the second iteration of the
project, the rearrest rate for those participating in the program was around half of the rate for the
control comparison group. Because of the success in impacting recidivism in the juvenile
criminal justice system, the task force implemented a third iteration of the program to expand
even more.
The third iteration was open to all 16 and 17-year old offenders regardless of their charges. As
part of this, the task force decreased the time between arrest and appearance, created a youth
DAT separate from the one for adults, increased programs offered like a decision-making skills
seminar, arts-based restorative justice, education structuring, or individual counseling, and

instituted a screening process to get youth to the appropriate program. As part of this program,
206 youths were arraigned and 166 were referred to one of the four programs. Of the 166, 163 of
them have successfully completed the program and had their cases dismissed. Complete data is
not available for this set because some is still being collected.
As part of this final installment of the program, the task force designed and implemented a
training program for criminal judges on cultural competency and implicit bias, and more than
85% of the judges in the area attended. Judges gave feedback on the trainings, which indicated
they were well-received and effective enough to hold an additional training the next year.
Conclusion
The Restoring the Presumption of Innocence Project (RPI), as a small grant, paired with a
much larger ABA project working toward eliminating racial injustice in the criminal system, to
use RPIs funding effectively to bring substantive change in the pre-trial process in four
jurisdictions. The grant initially intended to choose three pilot sites to fund reforms in but we
were able to cut travel costs and other administrative costs and use more funding to support
actual pretrial projects. In addition to the positive change in the four jurisdictions RPI also
providing educational materials on the project and its effects to help produce further reform and
change throughout the pre-trial process. We also worked with several other sites throughout the
country including Utah, Nevada, and Florida to discuss potential future collaborations on pretrial
justice projects.
In New Orleans, RPI helped facilitate a quicker diversion track, which allowed many
offenders entry into the program on their first or second offense and allowed them new offenders
quicker diversion to avoid high recidivism rate from extended contact with the criminal justice
system. With their success in their traditional diversion program, the task force in New Orleans
was also able to transfer their success into a new specialize program designed to target a unique
problem area for their community: prostitution and sex-workers. The Crossroads Diversion
Program also experience success in diverting sex-workers out of the system and providing them
with necessary resources to avoid recidivism.
Using the grant, the Minnesota site funded an intensive pre-trial release program, which
provided more offenders the opportunity for release pending trail, conviction, and/or sentencing.
This offered defendants services and opportunities otherwise not available to them while
incarcerated like intensive drug and alcohol treatment and job counseling or the opportunity to
hold a job. In addition to the services offered the defendants, this program, including the costs
associated with running the program saved the jurisdiction over $900,000 by keeping the
defendants out of prison and in the community.
Pennsylvania focused their efforts on the importance of intervening in juvenile cases,
especially pre-trial, to divert them out of the criminal justice system early in their lives. The task
force, here, provided education and training on issues specific to juveniles in the justice system.
In addition they created a forum for youth in the community to communicate with law
enforcement and for each party to have their grievances heard. In doing, so law enforcement
were able to address many concerns specific to the community and determine the best practices
in moving forward with their interactions with the youth pre-trial in the system and on the
streets.
Finally, in New York we funded an expansion of a diversion program for youth to
broaden the reach of the current program to work with as many youth as possible, increasing the
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amount of defendants and widening the types of cases diverted out of the system, ultimately
lowering recidivism. In addition, in this jurisdiction we also funded education and training for
agencies involved to ensure success across the board.
In addition, we were able to create a toolkit to administer to defense attorneys nationally
to consider some of the most important pretrial justice issues in helping their clients. Many of
the defense attorneys we worked with had no understanding of holistic defense and we hope that
with our toolkit we can improve the quality of pretrial representation for defendants nationwide.
Each of these jurisdictions used grant money to effect positive change in their pretrial
process to improve the accessibility of resources for defendants before conviction and ensure that
their rights to the presumption of their innocence are respected. In addition to the positive change
in the four jurisdictions RPI also made educational materials on the project accessible to the
public which will further enhance reform of the pretrial process.