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Judiciary committee weighs pretrial, bail revocation and seeks committee bill
Summary
Members of the Judiciary Committee discussed rises in certain property crimes, limits of current pretrial law including Act 138, and directed staff to draft a committee bill covering multiple public-safety provisions beginning with section 12 of a draft plan. No formal vote was recorded.
At a Judiciary Committee meeting, committee members and staff reviewed rising property-crime statistics, limits of current pretrial authority and options to address repeat offenders, and agreed to pursue drafting a committee bill that would bundle several public-safety changes starting with section 12 of a draft measure.
The discussion opened with a Department of Public Safety staff member, Tucker, describing the department s frequently fielding questions from local communities and media about persistent offenders. Tucker cited one case in which an individual had "230 law enforcement encounters, 60 ... arrests, more than a dozen arrests for violations of conditions released, and 35 active criminal warrant uses" over a single year, saying similar examples appear across the state and help explain recent community meetings about public safety.
Tucker told the committee that Act 138, passed last year, "made some headway," but left unresolved the question of how to proceed when people do not voluntarily comply with new pretrial-release or home-detention options. Tucker said the department had provided the committee a printout of persistent cases from July 1, 2024, to the present to illustrate the problem.
Members discussed drivers of public-safety harm beyond pretrial detention. The chair said reducing case backlog was "one of the most important steps in improving public safety," noting that some defendants remain on conditions for years while awaiting trial. A committee member added that faster case resolution and additional supervision could be alternatives to expanded pretrial detention.
Several members emphasized constitutional limitations on pretrial detention. Senator Mattis and Sandra Wilson said they want more information from the Judiciary and the council about feasibility within constitutional guardrails. Wilson said she was "hesitant to take additional action before we've even seen that what we did last year is working," referring to implementation of prior measures aimed at repeat offenders.
On next steps, the chair proposed drafting a committee bill to bundle several policy provisions and to start with "everything from section 12 moving forward," and asked staff to circulate the draft already being shared with the House. The committee did not record a formal vote; the transcript records consensus to pursue drafting and further review by committee members and stakeholders, including the Department of Corrections (DOC) on the pretrial supervision pilot.
Committee members also flagged implementation topics the bill should address, including the pretrial supervision pilot (with DOC identified as an implementing entity), warrants, and "PIPs" referenced in the draft. Members raised potential litigation risk if statutory language conflicts with constitutional limits and said they expect additional input from judges and the judiciary on what changes are legally feasible.
The meeting closed with direction to assemble the draft language, gather feedback from the judiciary and DOC, and reconvene for further committee consideration. No final legislative action or recorded roll-call vote occurred during the discussion.
