Edric Wilson was accused in 2006 of killing Houston pastor Joel Osteen’s great-aunt and held in jail without bond for a trial that never came.
Twelve years into his time in jail, while he was at a psychiatric hospital, Wilson said he told workers there he didn’t have a bond. His bond was then set at $850,000 — a price neither he nor his family could afford.
After 18 years in jail, Harris County prosecutors dismissed the charge against Wilson in August after they found DNA evidence used in the case was insufficient.
“If my bond had been lower and at a reasonable level, which the law requires, I could have been out with my family, out working, out living my life,” Wilson told reporters outside the state capitol Tuesday. “In reality, I was stuck. I was living a life sentence as a guilty person. Not innocent until proven guilty, but guilty until proven innocent.”
Wilson’s comments came ahead of a more than 10-hour-long Texas House committee hearing Tuesday that highlighted the ongoing divide this session over who in the state should be allowed bail. Members weighed Republican-backed proposals from the Senate that would expand the denial of bail and a Democratic bill aimed at decreasing pretrial incarceration for lower-level charges.
That divide, however, wasn’t closed by the end of the hearing — all the bills were left pending in committee.
Republicans have led the charge on filing bail reform bills since Gov. Greg Abbott named the issue an emergency item earlier this year. Chief among them is Sen. Joan Huffman, R-Houston, who has said the goal is to afford less lenience for those accused of crimes, improve public safety and provide more transparency in the bail process.
Support for the bills has been bolstered by stories of victims allegedly killed by people out on bail or bond. The death of Houston 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray — who was allegedly killed by two Venezuelan men who crossed the border without inspection — inspired one of this year’s major bail measures that would deny bail to people without legal status accused of felonies.
Four of Huffman's bills passed the Senate last month with the support of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who put some of Huffman’s legislation on his list of priority items. Three of them, including “Jocelyn’s Law,” would expand the list of crimes for which a judge or magistrate can — or must — deny a person bail or bond.
House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence Chair John Smithee, R-Amarillo, filed companion bills to Huffman’s legislation, which the committee heard Tuesday. Senators and representatives may file companion bills on one measure to help it pass faster through both chambers.
“If we can pass this with a minimum intrusion on personal rights, and yet we can protect innocent human life, it's so important that we do that,” Smithee said about the House version of Jocelyn’s Law.
But critics of that bill and others worry that denying bail for more people will move the criminal legal system further away from the presumption of innocence for people in jail pretrial. That argument came up during testimony for HJR 15, a measure to expand pretrial detention that has repeatedly failed to pass over the years.
Civil rights groups like The Bail Project have also long criticized the cash bail system as disproportionately keeping low-income defendants in jail and putting a strain on county jails, which rely on taxpayer dollars to operate.
“Pretrial detention already costs Texas taxpayers over $1 billion every year,” said Emma Stammen with The Bail Project. “Rather than throwing away taxpayer money on unnecessary jail stays, we should identify people who can be safely released and invest in evidence-based programs to prevent crime in the first place.”
Harris County has been central to the bail debate in Texas because of those concerns. A federal court found in 2018 the county was unconstitutionally incarcerating people who couldn’t afford bail after being accused of low-level offenses, and the county was put under federal oversight.
Members of criminal justice groups like the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas and the Texas Organizing Project warn lawmakers against passing some of the major bail reform bills on the table to avoid perpetuating those same economic disparities.
“No one — and I mean no one — deserves to languish behind bars simply because they can’t afford to buy their freedom,” said Laquita Garcia, a formerly incarcerated person who works with the Texas Organizing Project. “That’s truly just not justice.”
HB 799: Personal bonds for low-level crimes
El Paso Democratic Rep. Joe Moody’s HB 799 appears to address some of those civil rights concerns. The bill would order a magistrate to release a defendant charged with a misdemeanor or state jail felony on personal bond — unless their release is prohibited by some other law or there are no non-monetary conditions of release sufficient enough to ensure both the defendant's reappearance in court and public safety.
An attorney and former prosecutor, Moody said he’s witnessed the system keep people locked up purely because they can’t afford bail and push defendants to take plea deals just to get out of jail sooner.
“The consequences of an accusation shouldn't be worse than the consequences of a conviction," Moody told his colleagues.
But some Republicans on the committee questioned whether the legislation was necessary. Rep. Mitch Little, R-Lewisville, said the bill seems to shift the system from allowing judges to let defendants out on personal bonds to requiring it — and that poses a public safety risk.
“I understand that not everybody is guilty of the offense they’re accused of,” Little said, “but I do have a concern that certain people are going to be more likely to engage in that conduct if it is easier for them to get out of jail for having engaged in it every time.”
Michelle Chapa of Houston shared Little’s concerns. Chapa said she’s been robbed 13 times over the course of two years while working at a cell phone store in Houston.
Chapa testified that she initially supported HB 799 but revoked her support after Moody explained it further. She called the bill overly broad and said judges shouldn’t be able to grant personal bonds after a person is charged with multiple offenses — even if there are accusations of low-level, nonviolent crimes.
“What limit is there going to be on (personal recognizance) bonds?” Chapa said. “I also am a minority and I’m also poor. So why don’t I matter? Why is the conversation about race and wealth only for the offenders and not the victims?”
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