Harris criminal courthouse called "Grand Central Station for Houston's misery"

Patti Hart at the Houston Chronicle has a column today describing the central dilemma behind a real source of innocents convicted of petty offenses as well as overcrowded jails. It opens:

I've come to think of the Harris County Criminal Justice Center as Grand Central Station for Houston's misery, an opinion that was only hardened when I recently spent a few mornings observing our courts handle jail inmates charged with misdemeanors.

Every day about mid-morning in Harris County's 15 Criminal Courts-at-law, a door swings open and six to 10 men wearing orange jail jumpsuits, usually shackled together in a long train, are directed by a sheriff's deputy to march in front of the judge's bench. (Women are handled separately, and often appear alone.)

Responding to a (frequently bored-sounding) judge who appears to be reading from a script, they all plead guilty. The question-"How do you plead?" - is a rhetorical one, of course. The judge, the prosecutors, the court-appointed lawyers, in fact, everyone in the courthouse knows that these criminal defendants have been offered a Hobson's choice. That is, no choice at all: Take a guilty plea, or sit in jail until you can have a trial and plead not guilty. When that time rolls around, you'll have spent more time in the slammer than if you pled guilty.

She points to a report published last year from Houston Ministers Against Crime which:

concluded that expediency seems to dominate equity. Instead of taking into account a defendant's economic circumstances, as required by the state "Harris County rarely deviates from its predetermined bail schedules." Jailing people who have not yet been convicted of even a petty crime is unjust - and costly to taxpayers, the report said. "The rigidity of these rules contributes to high pre-trial detention rates in Harris County and exacerbates the County's budget woes."

See the full report (pdf).

See also related Grits posts:

• Harris jail noncompliance caused by use of pretrial detention to coerce plea deals
• Bail bondsmen not hurting for business in Harris County
• Bail bond industry seeks to retain monopoly
• Reduce Harris County Jail costs through smarter policies
• Increased Harris County Jail costs, inmate numbers third highest in nation over last decade
• Reduce pretrial detention to stave off overcrowding
• Elected Officials Guide to Jail Population Management
• Judges have tools to reduce Harris jail overcrowding if they'll use them
• Counties that rejected new jails must now get serious about diversion
• Pretrial detention, unnecessary incarceration driving Texas jail overcrowding
• Bail blunders boost bulging Harris jail population
• Extra bail conditions: When tough on crime means tough on taxpayers
• Should county government subsidize bail bond companies?
• Lack of counsel, information are bail barriers