Advisory: WA Supreme Court Hearing on Proposed Amendments to Bail Rules Scheduled for November 10

Public defenders, community advocates, and leading national researchers will present arguments to the Court in favor of proposal to reduce widespread harm of unnecessary pretrial detention

OLYMPIA – On Tuesday, November 10^th, the Washington Supreme Court will hold a hearing on proposed amendments to Washington State Court Rules that regulate the use of monetary bail to secure an accused person’s appearance in their criminal case.

The King County Department of Public Defense (DPD), the Washington State Office of Public Defense, the Washington Defender Association, and the Snohomish County Office of Public Defense collectively proposed the amendments.

The proposed amendments would reduce the harm of unaffordable bail in four ways:

1. Give an accused person an opportunity to appear in court before imposing monetary bail.
2. Require evidence of a high likelihood of intentionally fleeing prosecution before imposing bail based on an accused person’s flight risk.
3. Create a strong presumption that accused people can secure their release by depositing 10% of the bail amount with the court, an option that already exists in Washington’s court rules but is not commonly offered.
4. Cap bail at $200 for most misdemeanors when bail is imposed based on the court’s concern that the person won’t appear, excluding offenses like DUI, domestic violence, or other misdemeanors that include an allegation of sexual motivation or involve the unlawful use of a firearm.

The proposed amendments do not restrict a judge’s authority to impose bail when prosecutors show an accused person is a likely danger to commit a violent offense.

The ACLU of Washington, the Center for Children and Youth Justice, the Bail Project, and King County Superior Court Judge David Keenan will join the proponents in advocating in favor of the proposals at the hearing. The Court has also allotted time for two individuals who have suffered harm due to the current court rules, Jordan Landry and Allen Knoll, to share their experiences with the justices.

For additional background information on the proposed amendments, contact Will Casey, Communications Manager for the King County Department of Public Defense at [email protected].

For any logistical questions about covering the hearing, contact Lorrie Thompson, Senior Communications Officer for the Administrative Office of the Courts at [email protected]

Background on the individuals presenting in favor of the proposed amendments:

Katie Hurley, Special Counsel for Criminal Policy & Practice, King County DPD. Katie leads King County DPD’s criminal policy reform work, drawing on her decades of experience as a public defender to advance systemic reforms that mitigate the harms of the criminal legal system on youth and adults.

David Montes, Staff Attorney, ACLU of Washington. David advances the ACLU of WA’s mission to ensure justice, freedom and equality are realities for all people in Washington state by bringing impact litigation in cases involving immigration and criminal legal system reform, including in the ongoing class action Cuevas v. Yakima County seeking to vindicate unrepresented defendants’ constitutional right to counsel.

Rachel Sottile, President & CEO, Center for Children and Youth Justice. Rachel serves as the President & CEO of the Center for Children & Youth Justice (CCYJ), leading communities, our state, and the nation in empowering children and youth, stabilizing families, and strengthening communities through meaningful and lasting justice reform.

Josh Mitman, Senior Policy Counsel, The Bail Project. The Bail Project is a national nonprofit that provides free bail assistance and pretrial support to thousands of low-income people every year, while advancing a policy mission to end cash bail and create a more fair, just, and humane pretrial system. In his role, Josh supports local stakeholders and pretrial reform efforts led by community advocates in states across the country.

Judge David Keenan, King County Superior Court. Judge David Keenan has served as a trial judge at the King County Superior Court since 2017. He served as Assistant Criminal Chief Judge in King County’s Seattle courthouse in 2024 and as Chief Judge of the Maleng Regional Justice Center in Kent in 2025. In both roles, he set bail for the majority of criminal cases in King County Superior Court.

Jordan Landry, Jail Oversight Advocate and individual harmed by WA’s current bail rules. Jordan Landry is a blind US military veteran who spent more than 3 years in pretrial detention due to unaffordable bail before being acquitted of the charges against him. Since his acquittal, Jordan has become an advocate for improving oversight of Washington’s jails and detention facilities.

Allen Knoll, Author, Film Producer, Youth Advocate, and individual harmed by WA’s current bail rules. Allen Knoll is a film producer, author, and youth advocate who has spent years working to raise awareness about the abuse youth face in boarding schools. Allen is a veteran of the U.S. Army.

Paul Heaton, Professor of Law and Academic Director of the Quattrone Center for the Fair Administration of Justice, University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School. Paul Heaton’s research aims to apply methodological insights from economics to inform issues in legal and criminal justice policy. His work on policing, courts, and drug offending has been widely cited by policymakers and the media. His research has been published in leading scholarly journals such as the Harvard Law Review, Yale Law Journal, Stanford Law Review, New England Journal of Medicine, Psychological Science, Journal of Law and Economics, Journal of Labor Economics, and American Journal of Public Health.

Lauryn Gouldin, Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Affairs and Crandall Melvin Professor of Law, Syracuse University College of Law. Lauryn Gouldin teaches constitutional criminal procedure, evidence, constitutional law, privacy law, criminal law, and criminal justice reform. Her scholarship focuses on the Fourth Amendment, pretrial detention and bail reform, and judicial decision-making. Her articles have appeared or are forthcoming in the University of Chicago Law Review, Emory Law Journal, Wake Forest Law Review, BYU Law Review, and the American Criminal Law Review, among others. In 2017, the Association of American Law Schools Criminal Justice Section recognized her article, “Defining Flight Risk,” as the first runner-up in the Section’s Junior Scholars Paper Competition.

Megan Stevenson, Henry L. and Grace Doherty Charitable Foundation Professor of Law and Professor of Economics, University of Virginia School of Law. Megan Stevenson is an economist and criminal justice scholar. She conducts empirical research in areas such as bail, algorithmic risk assessment, misdemeanors, sentencing and juvenile justice. She publishes widely in both law reviews and economic journals, including the Stanford Law Review, Quarterly Journal of Economics, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, and Review of Economics and Statistics. Her research on bail was cited extensively in a landmark federal civil rights decision, O’Donnell v. Harris County, and has received widespread media coverage. Her research has been profiled in The Washington Post, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Wired Magazine, The Atlantic, Science Magazine, Time magazine, Newsweek, the Houston Chronicle and many others.

Sandra Mayson, Professor of Law, University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School. Sandra Mayson teaches Criminal Law, Evidence, and seminars related to criminal-law theory and policy. Professor Mayson’s scholarship spans criminal law, constitutional law, and legal theory. She has published widely in the nation’s top law journals, including the Yale Law Journal, Harvard Law Review, Stanford Law Review, Law & Philosophy, and Criminal Law & Philosophy. Her co-authored article “Bail at the Founding” (Harvard Law Review, 2024) won the William Nelson Cromwell Foundation’s Legal History Article-of-the-Year Award in 2025.