ATLANTA (AP) — When she was behind bars in Georgia, Nia Thomas would use toothpaste to stick handwritten flyers to the wall and spread the word about community bail funds that could pay inmates’ bonds, no strings attached.
“I was posting the phone numbers in everybody’s rooms, everybody’s dorms, every jail I went to,” Thomas said.
But wide-scale initiatives like the one that paid $50,000 for her pretrial release on drug trafficking charges in May 2022 could be significantly restricted, if not criminalized, under a Georgia bill awaiting Republican Gov. Brian Kemp’s signature. Opponents have called the measure an unprecedented attack on bail funds, churches and other community organizations that post inmates’ bonds as they await trial.
Thomas, a mother of four who is currently awaiting sentencing after reaching a plea deal, said she frequently encountered fellow inmates who had been charged with misdemeanors or traffic violations but were languishing in jail for months because they were unable to gather a few hundred dollars to secure their freedom.
Her own bond was far larger, but her application for relief was accepted by the Georgia nonprofit Barred Business, which paid for her release as part of community bail funds’ annual “Mama’s Day Bail Out” initiative. Within days, Thomas, now 30, was reunited with her family in Atlanta as they held a celebratory crab boil.
Initiatives such as “Mama’s Day Bail Out” and the “Freedom Day Project” — which occur in June, around Juneteenth and Father’s Day — are a hallmark for some Black churches in Georgia including Atlanta’s historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. preached.
Senate Bill 63, which passed the GOP-dominated Legislature earlier this month, would expand the number of charges that require cash bail, while restricting who can post that bail.
Specifically, no person or organization could post more than three cash bonds…
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