With a federal lawsuit over criminal bond-setting practices pending against several high-ranking law enforcement and judicial officers in Cullman County, most of the defendants are declining comment, preferring to let the case play out through their attorneys.

But at least one defendant — Cullman County Sheriff Matt Gentry — has shown a willingness to talk publicly about the class-action suit, filed by local attorney Tommy Drake on behalf of a handful of defendants involved in local drug trafficking cases.

Filed June 7 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama, the suit accuses officers of Alabama’s 32nd judicial circuit — composed solely of Cullman County’s court system — of setting fixed bond amounts that favor wealthier criminal suspects, while punishing poorer ones.

“When it comes to the specifics, of course I can’t talk about those,” said Gentry. “But it’s important to realize that, in the way that we set bond for people who have been arrested on drug trafficking, sexual abuse, or anything else, we are operating within the law as it has been written by the Alabama Legislature.”

The lawsuit accuses the defendants of violating, or being complicit in the violation of, the 8th Amendment (which forbids excessive bail and excessive fines for those accused of a crime) and the 14th Amendment (which forbids states from using the law to “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process”) to the U.S. Constitution.

The suit names Gentry as a defendant, along with Cullman County Circuit Judges Martha Williams and Greg Nicholas, District Judges Kim Chaney and Rusty Turner, Circuit Clerk Lisa McSwain, Clerk Magistrates Amy Black and Joan White, Alabama Administrative Office of Courts officer Randy Helms, and County Commissioners Kenneth Walker, Garry Marchman and Kerry Watson.

The complaint accuses the defendants of permitting the ongoing operation of a bonding “scheme” for criminal defendants — particularly accused drug traffickers, who face a standard property bond of $1 million if arrested in Cullman County. 

Under the state’s rules of criminal procedure, bond on a charge of felony drug trafficking or manufacturing can be set anywhere from $5,000 all the way up to $1.5 million.

According to the lawsuit, Cullman County’s use of a “one-size-fits-all” bond schedule, which set bond on trafficking charges at $1 million, unfairly keeps poorer defendants in jail awaiting a court date, while allowing wealthier defendants to “purchase their freedom.”

From the complaint:

“In Cullman County, arrestees face two possible outcomes depending on their wealth status. Wealthy arrestees purchase their freedom by paying an arbitrary amount set by a magistrate relying upon a bail schedule and a policy adopted by the office of the Clerk. Poor arrestees simply remain stuck behind bars because they cannot afford to pay the Clerk/Magistrates [sic] pre-determined sum of one million dollars ($1,000,000.00), set in every drug trafficking case. If a person is charged with more than one offense, the fixed amount for each offense is added together to determine the total amount of bail required for release. Those arrestees who are too poor to afford to pay excessive bail remain in jail because of their poverty. In Defendant’s wealth based [sic] detention scheme, the sole criteria [sic] determining whether a pretrial arrestee walks free or sits in jail is the amount of money he or she has.”

Gentry takes issue with the thinking that underpins that argument, emphasizing that, in setting $1 million property bonds for drug trafficking arrestees, Cullman County is well within the $5,000-$1.5 million trafficking bond range established by the Alabama Rules of Criminal Procedure.

“You can only set bond within the range that the Legislature has set forth, and that is what we do,” he said.

“The law is already set up to benefit the criminal; it’s not set up to benefit the victims in our community. My thought, as sheriff, is this: it’s our job to keep criminals off the street, and we will do everything in our power, that’s within the law, to do that. We’re operating within the law, and it’s been that way for many years.”

In Cullman County, booking deputies at the Cullman County Detention Center follow a predetermined bond list, complete with criminal charges and their corresponding, locally-set bond amounts, to set the appearance bonds for most probable-cause arrestees.

Each amount varies according to the criminal charge in question. But, unless a criminal allegation deals with an extreme act or involves some other unusual complexity, two suspects accused of the same crime typically must pay the same amount of money (in the case of a cash bond), or pledge the same amount of property value (in the case of a property bond), to bond out.

Not all Alabama judicial circuits follow Cullman County’s approach of adhering to a standardized bond schedule.

Magistrates at the Morgan County Circuit Clerk’s Office, for example, only set minimum legal bond amounts, and only for misdemeanor cases. It’s up to a judge to set bond on felony charges, or to exceed the minimum bond on misdemeanor charges.

Gentry noted that, in cases involving allegations of especially heinous acts, bond in Cullman County is typically set even higher than the “standard” amount set forth in the bond schedule.

“One of the things that we do — and it operates within the law — is, when someone is arrested for, let’s say, a sex offense or maybe higher-level drug trafficking, we will request from the court a cash bond, or a higher bond that fits within the scope of the state’s prescribed bond range,” he said.

“That holds people accountable to coming back for their appearance at court — which is the whole purpose of having a bond.”

Benjamin Bullard can be reached by phone at 256-734-2131 ext. 145.

The complaint accuses the defendants of permitting the ongoing operation of a bonding “scheme” for criminal defendants — particularly accused drug traffickers, who face a standard property bond of $1 million if arrested in Cullman County.