The Bail Post

Lucy Adame-Clark was born in San Antonio, Texas. She attended Sidney Lanier High School and attended Southern Careers Institute in San Antonio for paralegal studies. Prior to becoming county clerk, Adame-Clark worked in the Bexar County Sheriff's office from 1997 to 2018. There she worked as a booking ID clerk from 1997 to 2008, a latent print examiner/AFIS in the criminal investigation division from 2008 to 2012, and a criminal processing clerk from 2013 until her election in 2018.

According to Bexar County records, Adame-Clark was the first Latina and the first woman elected to the county clerk position. She is a member of the International Association for Identification and the Bexar County Bail Bond Board. She also serves as the Bexar County Treasurer and Chairman of the Records Management Committee. Outside of her professional career, Adame-Clark previously volunteered as the booster club president for the Southside Independent School District AFJROTC program and Democratic Precinct Chair for her area.

Our guest also agreed to provide a link for searching their system for certain warrants.  The link is as follows:  

                    https://fugitivesearch.bexar.org/

Join us on this episode of The Bail Post as we have a conversation with the Bexar County Clerk Lucy Adame-Clark.

Following the death of George Floyd, the Illinois Legislative Black Caucus proposed an extensive legislative package that included criminal justice reforms alongside reforms in education, health care and human services, and economic policy.  The bill was referred to as The Safety, Accountability, Fairness and Equity-Today Act, commonly known as the SAFE-T Act.

The bill made a number of reforms to the criminal justice system, affecting policing, pretrial detention and bail, sentencing, and corrections.  The Act's section on pretrial detention, which took effect in full on September 18, 2023, is also known as the Pretrial Fairness Act.

On this episode on The Bail Post we discuss Illinois and the Safe-T Act.

David Zimmer is a Policy Fellow at Center of the American Experiment, where he writes about criminal justice and public safety.

Mr. Zimmer served 33 years in local law enforcement with the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office, retiring as a Captain. During his law enforcement career, Mr. Zimmer served as a deputy and a supervisor in areas including the Jail, Courts, Patrol/Water Patrol, Investigations, and Tactical Command. Mr. Zimmer was recognized as a collaborative law enforcement leader who earned the respect of stakeholders throughout the criminal justice system. He advocates for public policy that will ensure a consequential criminal justice system for all Minnesotans.

In 2021, Minnesota began tracking the race of individuals accused of crimes.  This data allowed Mr. Zimmer to produce a report called "Dispelling the Myth of Unwarranted Racial Disparities in Minnesota's Criminal Justice System."  The conclusions of the report raise questions about whether proponents for reforms that gut accountability are doing the opposite of their intent by causing more harm to the very communities that the proponents claim to be seeking to help.

To view the report  CLICK HERE.

On Episode No. 45 on The Bail Post, we discuss a debate that we recently participated in against a representative of Civil Rights Corps.  This is the organization that has filed bail reform and criminal justice reform litigation across the United States.  This organization filed all of the cases in Texas that made their way to the United States Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit.  These cases include:  ODonnell v. Harris County, Daves v. Dallas County, Russell v. Harris County and Booth v. Galveston County.

We discuss our preparation for the debate and our expectations.  We also talk about the heated and we mean very heated debate that took place and the toxic language that Civil Rights Corps uses.  We also talk about our take away from the debate and whether there can be any common ground found when Civil Rights Corps cannot agree on such things as simple facts such as whether the reforms in ODonnell are a failure.  They cannot even agree that there is disagreement about these reforms. 

If you would like to watch or listen to the debate itself, it can be found HERE.

On this Episode of the Bail Post we are at the PBT Annual Meeting and we are recording "live" to tape where we have a panel discussion regarding the Inside Scoop about Bail Bond Boards.  Our guests are Ethel Segura and Michelle Turner.  Ethel Segura is the Bail Bond Administrator for the Bexar County Bail Bond Board.  Michelle Turner is the 1st Assistant County Attorney for Fort Bend County and is the attorney for the Fort Bend County Bail Bond Board.

On this unique and different episode we discuss common mistakes that bondsmen make and several new statutes that may impact the actions of bail bond boards moving forward.

This is an audio only episode.

A County Judge can be the judge of a constitutional county court, a judge of a county court at law or the judge presiding over a county's commissioners court.  On this episode of The Bail Post our guest is the The Honorable Judge Tim O'Hare.  He is the Tarrant County Judge over the commissioners court.    After graduating from The University of Texas at Austin in 1991 with a BBA in Finance, he went on to earn his law degree from SMU School of Law in 1995. 

Tim spent the last twenty-five years building a successful legal practice and real estate investment company.  During this time, Judge O’Hare earned the title of “Texas Super Lawyer” nine consecutive years.

Judge O'Hare took office in January 2023 and just finished his first budget cycle for Tarrant County where the commissioners court cut the county's budget saving the taxpayers millions of dollars.  

How does a first term county judge navigate local politics and get various office holders to agree to cut their budgets?  Also, Judge O'Hare touches on the importance of public safety for the county's budget.  

On this episode of The Bail Post, we discuss two different counties approaches to federal bail litigation.  In both counties, the federal courts entered preliminary injunctions to fundamentally change local bail procedures.  In Schultz v. Alabama, the county appealed, refused to settle and fought the litigation every step of the way.  The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the preliminary injunction and returned control of bail back to the county.  In contrast, in O'Donnell v. Harris County, the county appealed and won only to have the trial court enter a new preliminary injunction.  It was appealed as well and the 5th Circuit stayed the 2nd preliminary injunction stating that there was a substantial likelihood that the judges would win again.  However, the case did not go forward because there was an election and new judges were elected who promised to resolve the litigation.  A settlement was entered that tied the hands of the judges going forward.  

On this episode, we hear the tale of two counties:  one that stood up to the plaintiffs' attorneys and won and another county that gave up and is still suffering the consequences to this day.

The Guest is Matt Gentry who is the Sheriff of Cullman County, Alabama.  Sheriff Gentry was born and raised in Cullman County.  He attended school there.  After a stint in the Marines he returned home and went to work for the sheriff's department where he worked his way up to be the elected sheriff.  

Anne Marie Schubert is a career prosecutor.  Schubert earned a bachelor's degree from Saint Mary’s College of California in 1986 and a J.D. from the University of San Francisco in 1989. Her career experience includes being the Sacramento County District Attorney, Supervising Deputy District Attorney of the Sacramento District Attorney's Office, and Deputy District Attorney of Contra Costa and Solano Counties. Schubert has been a board member of the National District Attorneys Association and has been affiliated with Fight Crime: Invest in Kids and Stand Up for Victims.

On this episode of The Bail Post we discuss whether California have reached a breaking point with rising crime and criminal justice reform. 

If you would like to learn more about the letter issued by the Oakland NAACP CLICK HERE.

In Texas, the new rules for magistration went into effect on April 1, 2022 that required the review of a Public Safety Report setting out the defendant's criminal history before bail is set.  On Episode Number 40 of The Bail Post we discuss the lessons that have been learned after magistrating under the new rules for the last year.  Our guest is The Honorable Tamara Tinney who is a magistrate judge from Burnett County.  We discuss issues regarding certification of magistrations, bond modifications and other issues using the OCA System.  Other issues discussed involve the illusive solution regarding mental health patients in the criminal justice system and the impact on drug abuse.

On this Episode of The Bail Post we get a report of the Texas Legislative Session looking at Criminal Justice Issues including SB 1318, SJR 44, HB 227 and others.  We also touch on whether bail will be part of any upcoming Special Sessions and the elephant in the room regarding the Impeachment trial planned for September. Our guest is the PBT Legislative Committee Chair- Scott Walstad.