Case: 18-20466 Document: 00514599856 Page: 1 Date Filed: 08/14/2018 IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit No. 18-20466 FILED August 14, 2018 Lyle W. Cayce Clerk MARANDA LYNN ODONNELL, Plaintiff−Appellee, versus PAULA GOODHART; BILL HARMON; NATALIE C. FLEMING; JOHN CLINTON; MARGARET HARRIS; LARRY STANDLEY; PAM DERBYSHIRE; JAY KARAHAN; JUDGE ANALIA WILKERSON; DAN SPJUT; JUDGE DIANE BULL; JUDGE ROBIN BROWN; DONALD SMYTH; JEAN HUGHES, Defendants−Appellants. * * * * * LOETHA SHANTA MCGRUDER; ROBERT RYAN FORD, Plaintiffs−Appellees, versus HARRIS COUNTY, TEXAS, ET AL., Defendant. PAULA GOODHART; BILL HARMON; NATALIE C. FLEMING; JOHN CLINTON; MARGARET HARRIS; LARRY STANDLEY; PAM DERBYSHIRE; JAY KARAHAN; JUDGE ANALIA WILKERSON; DAN SPJUT; JUDGE DIANE BULL; JUDGE ROBIN BROWN; DONALD SMYTH; JEAN HUGHES, Defendants−Appellants. Case: 18-20466 Document: 00514599856 Page: 2 Date Filed: 08/14/2018 No. 18-20466 Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas Before SMITH, GRAVES, and DUNCAN, Circuit Judges. JERRY E. SMITH, Circuit Judge: This is a motion for stay pending appeal. We grant the stay. I. Plaintiffs brought a class action against Harris County, Texas, and a number of its officials—including County Judges, 1 Hearing Officers, and the Sheriff (collectively, the “County”) 2—under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging the County’s system of setting bail for indigent misdemeanor arrestees violates Texas statutory and constitutional law and the Equal Protection and Due Pro- cess Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. 3 1The parties use the term “County Judges” to refer to the judges of the County Crim- inal Courts of Law of Harris County, so we do likewise. That term does not refer to the County Judge, who is the head of the County Commissioners’ Court. 2 Only fourteen of the sixteen County Judges join in the instant appeal. The Sheriff and two County Judges chose not to join. We use “Fourteen Judges” or “the Judges” when referring to the defendants. 3 For a full review of Texas’s bail system and the challenges to it, see ODonnell v. Harris Cty. (ODonnell I), 892 F.3d 147, 152–55 (5th Cir. 2018) (opinion on petition for re- hearing). For misdemeanors in 2016 when suit was filed, bail ranged from $500 to $5,000, depending on the crime and the arrestee’s criminal history. Under the 2017 schedule, how- ever, arrestees are classified based on their crime and risk score (determined using the Laura and John Arnold Foundation Public Safety Assessment). The 2017 schedule utilizes twenty categories. For seven of those, bail ranges from $500 to $2,000. If an arrestee in one of those seven cannot post bail, he is presumptively eligible for an unsecured bond once he appears before the magistrate. Alternatively, to facilitate earlier release, some of those arrestees can be brought before a Hearing Officer for a determination of probable cause. The Hearing Officer can then grant a personal bond and release the arrestee. The arrestees in the other 2 Case: 18-20466 Document: 00514599856 Page: 3 Date Filed: 08/14/2018 No. 18-20466 After a hearing, the district ...
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