The American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Montana, and Terrell Marshall Law Group filed a lawsuit on behalf of Eugene Mitchell, his wife Shayleen Meuchell, and their six-year-old daughter against private entities — bail bondsmen, bounty hunters and insurance companies — who profit off our country’s exploitative, for-profit bail system.

In South Carolina’s municipal courts today, defendants are prosecuted, convicted, and jailed without ever having a lawyer appointed to their case or even being advised of their right to counsel. Hundreds of these defendants who were deprived of counsel—including Tina Bairefoot, Dae’Quandrea Nelson, and Nathan Fox—have been and are incarcerated in local jails and state prisons every year. Cities and towns can decide whether they have municipal courts—they are optional—but if they decide to have them they must follow the Constitution, which includes the right to counsel.

In Alabama’s criminal justice system, wealth can be synonymous with freedom, and lack of wealth can mean incarceration. That’s wealth-based justice, and it’s unconstitutional. Hundreds of defendants, including Bradley Hester, Ray Charles Schultz, and Randall Parris, are routinely jailed pretrial due to their inability to afford a predetermined bail bond required for release. This system disregards the ramifications of unconstitutional pretrial detention for individuals and families, which include presumption of innocence, economic and emotional hardship, and potential loss of one’s job. We along with partners intervened in a federal class action lawsuit which seeks to end this unlawful detention scheme, and calls on Cullman County to instead implement fair, efficient, alternative conditions of release that are not based on how much money someone has.