Bail reform laws have enforced a stronger fear among domestic abuse survivors.
Marvin Rojas Maldonado was arrested at a hospital he brought his girlfriend to for treatment after he injured her with a knife only to be free within hours.
The judge apparently felt he did not have the power to set bail and released him.
Upon release he committed worse crimes and now faces two counts of attempted murder among other charges.
The man stabbed the woman and her 17-year-old son despite them having an order of protection on him.
Due to reforms enacted in 2010, the judge was unable to use discretion and enforce monetary bail. Advocates for the reform claim that bail punishes innocent until proven guilty individuals who cannot afford to pay bail.
In domestic violence situations the perpetrator is allowed to be held for 24-48 hours to calm down, but bail reform kept judges from enforcing monetary bail to half their domestic violence perpetrators from January of 2020 to August 8th of this year.
Families are the ones who end up suffering when the offenders are released and go on to reoffend, which happens in 57% of cases where they did not need to post bail.
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