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reason that I filed a minority report on
language very similar to this, although
this language is even broader than that in
the other provision.
Under our present language which has
been in the constitution for the last three
Constitutions of the State of Maryland,
there has developed in Maryland under the
Act of 1965 a statute known as the Bail
Reform Act which says that a person may
be released on his own recognizance in
cases where necessary, and the constitu-
tional authority for enacting that statute
was simply: "Excessive bail shall not be
required."
Also, there is a full set of rules in the
Court of Appeals which fixes the various
provisions under which a person can be
released. They do not attempt to say to
any judicial officer because the release of
a person awaiting a criminal trial is a
matter of judicial discretion and under this
simple provision excessive bail shall not
be required under our statute. And, under
our rules of the Court of Appeals we have
all the provisions necessary and, therefore,
I hope that we will not take too much
time with this amendment and we will vote
down this amendment.
THE PRESIDENT: Does any other
delegate desire to speak?
Delegate Bothe.
DELEGATE BOTHE: Mr. President, I
desire to rise briefly in support of the
amendment which we debated at some
length in the Committee of the Whole. I
will not repeat those arguments, but I
would like to point to one little news item
that I acquired since the debate here in
the Committee.
On December 22 of this year the Balti-
more Evening Sun reported that there were
one hundred and fifty-two prisoners under
eighteen years of age who would spend
Christmas Day and did spend Christmas
Day in the Baltimore city jail of whom one
hundred and seventeen were youthful vio-
lators awaiting trial.
The article goes on to say that most of
the young prisoners awaiting trial had
been there one, two, or three months. One
sixteen year old had been there twenty-two
months and another eight months.
Now, Judge Child can refer to the rules
of the Court of Appeals; he can refer to
the section that has been in our Constitu-
tion which says excessive bail shall not be
required. He can point to all of those
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things, but I will point to those your.g
people who spent this last Christmas in
the Baltimore city jail, and they spent it
there for one reason only. That reason was
that they did not have the money to pay a
bail bondsman to bail them out. The evi-
dence is clear that if these young people
had been out, the odds of their failure to
appear at trial would have been no greater
than if they had the money.
We have had enough experimentation
now to have it clearly proven that money
bail is not the means to bring people to
trial. It is instead the means to incarcerate
them whether they are guilty or innocent
and while they are still presumed to be in-
nocent. This right is just as fundamental
and more important than even the right to
counsel because as a lawyer who has been
frequently assigned to defend indigent peo-
ple accused of crime, I can tell you that
more often than not, whether the de-
fendant is found guilty or innocent, the
judge says he has been in jail how ever
many months and, typically, it is three or
more, and he releases him at the time of
the trial.
We have many rights of the accused
spelled out in the new constitution which
are of much lesser importance. No man
should be incarcerated unless he has been
adjudged guilty of a crime and is serving
a sentence. I suggest that this constitu-
tional provision would end this nefarious
practice in our State.
THE PRESIDENT: Delegate Hender-
son.
DELEGATE HENDERSON: I rose to
discuss this provision when it was brought
up before, and I simply want to remind you
that this matter, in amplification of what
Judge Child has said, is presently under
consideration by the Legislative Council
and jointly with the Rules Committee of
the Court of Appeals. A sub-committee of
the Rules Committee, I understand, is
ready to report to the whole committee at
a meeting which has been called for Janu-
ary 5 so that this whole problem, which I
agree is a difficult one, is being dealt with
in the best possible fashion, jointly by the
legislature and the Rules Committee.
The problem is not quite as simple as it
seems on its face because it is necessary to
have some investigation of a person's back-
ground if he is charged with a serious
crime before he can be allowed to run at
large and somebody who is responsible
should know whether he is likely to ap-
pear. That requires some investigation and
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