In our Federal Criminal Justice Clinic's new report, Freedom Denied, we sought to understand the current federal pretrial detention crisis that results in the pretrial jailing of three out of every four federal arrestees.
This post addresses the first of our four findings and recommendations: "Judges must follow the correct legal standard at the Initial Appearance hearing and stop jailing people unlawfully."
The Bail Reform Act of 1984 (BRA) allows the prosecution to move for detention at the Initial Appearance in only a limited set of cases.
