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60 Calif. L. Rev. 1339 (1972)
Pretrial Release under California Penal Code Section 853.6: An Examination of Citation Release

handle is hein.journals/calr60 and id is 1359 raw text is: Comments PRETRIAL RELEASE UNDER CALIFORNIA PENAL CODE SECTION 853.6: AN EXAMINATION OF CITATION RELEASEt California Penal Code section 853.6 establishes police-initiated pretrial release of misdemeanor arrestees by issuance of a citation. Citation release under this statute avoids the two major defects of tra- ditional pretrial release systems: the requirement of bail' and the de- lay caused by judicial review. Despite these advantages, very few jurisdictions have thus far made use of citation release. Oakland California, however, instituted a comprehensive citation release pro- gram in early 1970 that might serve as a model for other municipali- ties. This Comment analyzes both the theory and practice of such a program. Part I compares citation release to several other meth- ods of pretrial release. Part H presents a detailed case study of the development, implementation, and operation of citation release in Oakland. I THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF PRETRIAL RELEASE While pretrial incarceration ensures that the arrestee will appear at his trial, it works severe hardships upon both the state and the suspect. Incarceration requires an outlay of public funds,2 and since f The author wishes to acknowledge his gratitude to the officers and staff of the Oakland Police Department, especially C.R. Gain, Chief of Police, Linda Moody, Legal Advisor, and Kathy Gumpel and Bill Soo Hoo, student interns, without whose help this Comment could not have been completed. 1. Although initially the citation recipient need not post bond, the statute allows the judge to impose bail at a later time. CAL. PENAL CODE § 853.6(e) (West 1970). The experience of those cities having significant citation programs has been that judges rarely, if ever, impose bail on nondefaulting citation recipients. See notes 32 & 119 infra and accompanying texts. 2. The dollar amounts of these outlays will vary between communities, but they must include the costs of feeding, caring for, and supervising the prisoner. The most complete figures on the cost of detention come from New York City where, in 1962, a total of 1,775,778 jail-days costing over $10,000,000 ($6.25 per day) were spent in pretrial detention. D. FREED & J. WALD, BAIL IN THE UNITED STATEs: 1964, at 41 (1964) (a report to the National Conference on Bail and Criminal Justice, Washington, D.C.) [hereinafter cited as FREED & WALD]. 1339