Racial Justice Clinic students Alexander Thayer 3L, Cristal Harris 3L, and Shelley Saina 3L wrote and argued bail motions in partnership with the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office.
cited in a sweeping 2015 report by the W. Haywood Burns Institute, a national nonprofit working to reduce racial and ethnic disparities in the justice system. “If you go to the jail and see the holding tank, most are AfricanAmerican,” Meadows says. “When the Burns Institute report came out, we had evidence to support what we’d assumed was true.” What they’d assumed and was later proven was that there were significant racial disparities not only in arrest rates, but also in the bail system itself, specifically who is granted bail, who can afford to pay, and who gets released on their own recognizance. The bottom line is that if you are black, you’ll probably be held in custody pending adjudication. Meadows points to the Bail Reform Act of 1984, which she says transformed the bail system from one whose goal was to enure a defendant’s appearance in court to one with a public safety mandate. “Public safety is much more subjective and subject to racial bias,” she says. Meadows oversees the Racial Justice Clinic, a collaboration between the USF School of Law and the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office. The clinic seeks to address racial disparities in the bail system. A former public defender, Meadows explores historical perspectives on bail with her students and teaches them how to read police
reports and how to write and argue bail motions. The students then go into the jails and interview clients. They ask about their histories and the circumstances that brought them there. They ask about their families, their jobs, their churches, their schools. They try to get all of the details they can to build a strong argument for their bail motions. Sometimes, they also appear before judges to argue on behalf of their clients. “One of the students said, ’This woman standing beside me, I am the key to her getting out.’ They get very attached to their clients, and they get very fervent about it,” Meadows says. That’s because they know their clients — largely poor, minority, transient, and/or mentally ill — are perched precariously and desperately need someone in their corner. “These are people who don’t live picture perfect lives, people who were never given a chance, who’ve had the odds stacked against them from the beginning, who the system has failed, who are faced with the world handing them bad things over and over,” says Cristal Harris 3L, who enrolled in the clinic last semester. And for these defendants — often without a familial or financial safety net — being held in custody, whether for a week or for months, can be devastating. “If that’s the main provider of the family, that’s a loss of income. They might lose their housing. Their kids could go into foster care.
For these defendants — often without a familial or financial safety net — being held in custody, whether for a week or for months, can be devastating.
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USF SCHOOL OF LAW