California Supreme Court Ruling Dramatically Reduces Who Can Be Jailed in Santa Clara County

The number of people being held in Santa Clara County jails pretrial, meaning they have not been convicted of a crime, may be reducing significantly from here on out. At the end of April, the California Supreme Court issued a ruling in the case of In re Kowalczk where they unanimously held that jailing a person simply because they can’t pay the bail amount is illegal. They went on to affirm that consistent with the California constitution, the courts cannot pretrial detain anyone charged with a misdemeanor or non-violent offense. On top of that limitation, even those who are “charge eligible” still would not be detained unless the court finds strong evidence of guilt after a robust hearing and that the person is deemed a danger without any less restrictive alternatives that would mitigate the court’s concerns.

(Art by Adrian Avila)

Jail Population is Primarily People Held Pretrial

This means an urgent and profound change in who is, and is not, in the county jails in California. In Santa Clara County, the liberatory potential is historic. To unpack the decarceral possibility of Kowalzcyk, one only has to look at the daily jail population numbers through the new standard of who can be detained, and who must be released. For example, according to the Santa Clara County “daily population” dashboard, on May 1st there were 2,741 people held in jail that day. Of that count, only 220 people were there serving a sentence. That means roughly 90% of the jail are of people are being held pretrial, meaning they are legally innocent. A portion of that number are being held “no bail allowed” due to the severity of their charges and the judges concerns of dangerousness, and others are there on “holds” -- meaning there are probation violations, or warrants from other counties, that prohibits their release. The total of the No Bail Allowed and people on holds still amounts to only a segment of who is detained in the jail. That means there is still a significant number of people who are in the jail simply because they could not afford the bail amount. According to the Kowalczyk decision, they are entitled to argue for their release. Furthermore, the scope of who can be legally jailed to begin with will be dramatically shrunk moving forward.

Jail Stays Are Violent, Exploitative, and Devastating to Life Outside

For the detained, and their families, this ruling is a light of hope in the darkest of circumstances - being incarcerated while fighting a case. People in Santa Clara County jails are subjected to deprivation and violence on a consistent basis. For example, the Sheriff’s 2025 Use of Force report showed over 600 in custody use of force incidents. Black people held in jail represented 13.5% of the daily population, but were 25.5% of all use of force incidents. And the annual report from the Santa Clara County Office of Law Enforcement Monitoring recently exposed that a male correctional worker brought drugs into the Elmwood Correctional Facility in Milpitas in exchange for sexual favors.

And while incarcerated, peoples’ lives on the outside are vulnerable to collapsing. People lose their jobs, their housing, and stability while detained pretrial. Being jailed is so irrevocably harmful, people often take the first plea deals they are offered, regardless of the merits of the case against them, simply to get out of the cell. That is why the percentage of people who take their case to trial has consistently remained under 10% of all cases filed.

From a more systemic perspective, the Kowalczyk decision also addresses seemingly inextricable problems with jailing itself in Santa Clara County. The county is under a federal consent decree as a result of litigation from 2019 when detainees sued the county over poor conditions and American Disabilities Act violations. The issues have persisted, to the point where just last year one of federal monitors asked the judge to hold the county in contempt for failing to ensure proper medical care inside. The firm, the Prison Law Office, stated that the only way for the jail to be in compliance was to reduce the staff to detained ratio, and in fact named limiting the number of people held on bail as an accessible solution. Now, just months later, the California Supreme Court has issued a mandate that ostensibly does just that - reduce who can be held in jail.

Jail Reduction Also Means Freeing Up Needed Resources for Real County Needs

From a county wide policy perspective, the Kowalczyk decision, and its’ seismic decarceral promise, represents a rare, and desperately needed, cost-saver in a time of drastic budget cuts and an unprecedented deficit.

The costs of jailing someone (the Vera Institute estimated over 100K a year for someone held in Santa Clara County jails) now can be identified as cost-savings as people will be out rather than detained. Funds earmarked for incarceration now are outdated, as new jail populations projections need to be factored, allowing for new funds to be reallocated to other county needs such as housing, health, and social services.

Sometimes a California Supreme Court ruling regarding daily court procedures can occur without much reaction except for attorneys and judges. And even then, some local courts will operate as if the ruling never came down. But what the potential of what Kowalczyk can mean to Santa Clara County radiates well beyond just arraignment courtrooms. Because Santa Clara County jailing has operated primarily as a financial litmus test - can you afford freedom? - this new standard can radically change who is in jail, as well as the county’s outsized spending on incarceration.