Washington State Bail Reform
The False Narrative Behind Washington State’s Proposed Court Rules
A Five Article Expose By JL Fullerton
For many years, Washington State has had one of the most effective bail systems in the country. The product of a bipartisan task force, Washington’s pretrial release system strikes a good balance between liberty and accountability for all parties, including the accused and victims. That is why other states have considered Washington State as the gold standard.
That being said, why then is the state supreme court considering new court rules that would not only change Washington’s pretrial system, but do so in a way that would remove all accountability and put victims and the community in danger? Back in 2025 a group of defense attorneys submitted a proposal to the supreme court recommending 4 key changes to Washington’s criminal court rules (CrR/CrRLJ 3.2 and 2.2). These include the following:
- Changing “nonappearance” to “willful flight from prosecution” making it more difficult for prosecutors to hold defendants accountable
- Allowing one failure to appear before can try and prove that the FTA was the result of willful intent
- Capping bail for all misdemeanors at $200 removing all discretion from judges to make individualized determinations for each defendant
- Enacting a strong presumption that the court will allow defendants to post 10% bail directly to the court
As mentioned earlier these changes would not only fundamentally change the pretrial process, but they would also reduce accountability in the system substantially. Each of these proposed changes has been tried before and failed. In the eye-opening 5 article expose on Washington’s bail reform efforts, JL Fullerton, exposes the weaknesses of each of these policies and challenges the questionable data and research that are presented as supporting documentation in the proposal.
Below is a list of each article along with a link to the article on the Bail Reform Truth website. We invite you to read each article, comment on them and then share them on social media. The more people share, the more we can get our message out to the public.
PART 1:
Washington State Bail Reform Proposal Built on a Single Study of 1,970 People
PART 2:
Funds the Research Behind Washington’s Bail Reform Proposal? Follow the Money
PART 5:
Washington Bail Reform Proposal Has 84 Footnotes and Zero About Victims
