A state constitutional amendment approved by Texas voters last year gives judges the authority to deny bail to more criminal defendants while they await trials.
Harris County prosecutors have already started to use the new tool — which is backed by law enforcement leaders — but some criminal justice experts say it could exacerbate jail overcrowding and carry far-reaching consequences for people who are legally presumed innocent while their cases are pending.
Following a landmark hearing on Dec. 17 in Harris County, District Court Judge Michele Oncken granted prosecutors’ request to deny bail for Angel Adonis Saldivar-James, a man accused in the shooting death of a 36-year-old Houston food truck owner. In court documents, lawyers cite a public safety threat and the man’s likelihood of appearing in court if bail were to be granted.
Several other defendants in Harris County facing high-level felony charges have also had their bond denied under Proposition 3, according to a review of district clerk records.
The judge’s ruling in the case involving Saldivar-James marked one of the first requests to deny bail under the state’s new bail legislation — which targeted bail practices in Harris County and was championed by the state’s top Republicans.
Senate Bill 9, signed into law on Sept. 1, prohibits magistrate judges from granting bail under certain circumstances.
Proposition 3, which was passed by state lawmakers as Senate Joint Resolution 5 and then approved by voters across Texas in November, amends the state constitution by giving judges more authority to deny bail for defendants accused of certain felonies until they go to trial. It requires that prosecutors present clear and convincing evidence in their pleas for no bail against people accused of violent and other high-level crimes, such as murder, aggravated assault and indecency with a child.
Supporters of the legislation said it aims to reduce repeat offending and crack down on lenient bail settings, particularly in Harris County. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, flanked by crime victims and their families, signed the bail reform legislation in a visit to Houston over the summer, when he called on Texans to approve the constitutional amendment and said existing bail practices were a “revolving door” for criminals.
Opponents, including civil rights advocates and Democratic lawmakers, say the measure presents sweeping implications for defendants’ rights to due process.
Though the new legislation specifically targets felony defendants, Harris County was viewed as a national trendsetter in reforming misdemeanor bail practices following a 2016 class action lawsuit that argued Houston-area defendants were penalized for being unable to afford cash bail. The federal case found violations of the defendants’ constitutional rights, and Harris County entered into a consent decree which since 2019 has given most misdemeanor defendants the opportunity to be released from jail before trial without first paying cash bail.
Crackdown on repeat offenders
Renee Dominguez / KUT News
A GOP-backed effort to crack down on cash bail was led by Houston-based state Sen. Joan Huffman in 2021, and then again in 2023. It wasn’t until 2025 that the bail changes met the two-thirds threshold in the Texas Legislature that’s required to refer a constitutional amendment to voters for final approval.
Republicans framed the legislation as common-sense reform that would curb instances of defendants being charged with additional felonies and misdemeanors while out of jail on bond. Houston Mayor John Whitmire — a former chair of the state’s Senate Criminal Justice Committee — echoed similar assertions last year when he inflated the number of murder and capital murder defendants who were out on bond in Harris County.
In a statement to Houston Public Media, Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare, a Democrat, backed the reformed bail practices.
“Harris County has spoken,” he said. “With the passage of Proposition 3, judges will now have greater discretion to deny bond for certain violent crimes, while maintaining key safeguards that protect the rights of the accused. Prop 3 equips our prosecutors with more tools to keep dangerous offenders off our streets. But, there is more work to be done to keep Texans safe.”
Since taking office last January, Teare has touted a 14% reduction in the population of the Harris County Jail, crediting the drop to faster case disposals and pretrial diversion programs aimed at steering low-level offenders away from incarceration. He didn’t say in his statement whether he thought the new bail practices could damage the county’s efforts to reduce the jail population.
Teare’s office didn’t respond to additional questions about whether county prosecutors will use the tool more frequently to request that defendants are held in jail and denied bail.
In a February letter in support of Senate Joint Resolution 5, Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez, a Democrat whose office operates and oversees the jail, said he believes judges must have clear and convincing evidence that denying a person bail is the only viable option for ensuring they don’t harm anyone while awaiting their day in court. He said the decision of whether a person belongs in jail should be based on public safety and not the amount of money a person can pay.
“For some people, there is no amount of money that can justify allowing that person to walk freely among our society,” Gonzalez wrote. “I believe SJR 5 makes our community safer by giving judges more discretion to deny bail to defendants charged with the most serious violent crimes who pose a clear threat of continued violence.”
The population of the Harris County Jail could grow by more than 1,900 inmates by the end of 2026 if defendants accused of certain crimes outlined in the new bail legislation are denied bail, according to a recent presentation to Harris County Commissioners Court. It’s unlikely, though, officials said, that prosecutors will feel empowered to request that most defendants be denied bail.
RELATED: The Harris County Jail population has declined this year. Will the trend continue?
While Proposition 3 sets a standard that prosecutors must present sufficient evidence that a person poses a danger if they are to be released, it figures to create longer jail stays for those accused of violent offenses and add upward pressure on jail capacity, according to the presentation. About 2,400 defendants with a criminal charge specified under the proposition were released on bond throughout 2025.
In the Harris County Jail, the average length of stay — a measurement that directly affects the jail’s population and its standing with a state-appointed oversight committee — is 165 days. For defendants charged with crimes outlined in the new bail legislation, that number is 280 days.
Despite quicker case dispositions and efforts to stagger the average length of stay, 19 people — nearly twice as many as the year before — have died in the jail’s custody this year, many of whom suffered medical emergencies inside the facility, according to the Harris County Sheriff’s Office.
‘Time will tell’
Miltonette Craig, an assistant criminal justice professor at Sam Houston State University, said longer jail stays create worse outcomes for defendants who are presumed innocent before their trial, and could pressure some to hastily accept plea agreements.
“You can’t really be your own zealous advocate when you are locked up,” she said. “You are in jail. Now you can’t work, and that money could be used to retain an attorney who could help you fight your case better. If you can’t work then all of the other things in your life really fall apart.”
While the state’s new constitutional changes create a wider scope of charges under which a defendant could be denied bail, Senate Bill 9 creates a mechanism for prosecutors to also appeal a judge’s bail setting. That means a defendant whose bail was considered insufficient and appealed by the state could languish in jail pending the outcome of a hearing, when their bail could potentially be outright denied by a judge. If a defendant is already out on bail at the time of the appeal, they are permitted to remain at large.
Since the passing of new bail legislation last year, several felony defendants in Harris County have had their bail denied pending the outcome of a hearing.
“I definitely think there’s going to be issues with jail capacity because it’s already difficult to house everyone, and when you approximate limits on how many people can actually be in a jail facility, then now the county has to start paying other cities or counties to house people in jail,” Craig said. “Then that contributes to spending more money.”
Outsourcing Harris County Jail inmates to other detention facilities has been a point of contention for years, coming at a cost of about $48 million to Harris County in 2025.
While county leaders recently ended one of the outsourcing contracts — bringing about 300 inmates back to Harris County and shaving millions of dollars off costs — nearly 1,000 people in the jail’s custody remain outsourced under other lucrative contracts with private, out-of-state detention facilities.
A spokesperson for the Harris County Sheriff’s Office told Houston Public Media that its focus is ensuring that people who pose a demonstrable, ongoing threat to public safety remain in jail until their cases are adjudicated.
RELATED: State jail commission commends Harris County for outsourcing, staffing improvements
Ashley Blackburn, a criminal justice professor at the University of Houston-Downtown, said time will ultimately tell whether the new bail rules prolong court case delays and exacerbate the county’s jail population. She said they also raise questions about how judges will determine if prosecutors’ arguments for no bail meet the high evidentiary standard for denying someone’s right to be released.
“I think you could see cases where court backlogs are then impacting longer stays,” she said. “If it is taking longer because they are having more of these hearings, then it’s going to take longer for cases to get on the docket, to then have these individuals who are there pretrial get into court to have their cases determined.”
Before the state’s new legislation was passed, only some defendants, including those charged with capital murder and some accused of violating the conditions of their bond, could be denied bail.
In a similar process, prosecutors must show strong evidence of a defendant’s likely guilt in a capital case. But in some high-profile cases, Harris County judges have opted to set exceptionally high bail amounts to prevent a defendant’s release or when prosecutors declined to move forward with a proof-evident hearing to deny a defendant’s potential pretrial release.
Dremone Francis, one of the men accused in the ambush shooting death of 28-year-old Harris County Sheriff’s Office deputy Fernando Esqueda in 2024, posted a combined $1 million bail in February after prosecutors failed to follow through with a proof-evident hearing that may have prevented Francis’ release. Though the judge asserted in docket sheets that the decision came from prosecutors’ failure to move forward with the hearing, while noting that state law required bail to be set, it ignited criticisms among law enforcement organizations and elected officials who used the instance to advocate for stricter bail measures.
Other defendants, like those accused of killing 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray in Houston last year — igniting a national debate about immigration policies and drawing the attention of U.S. President Donald Trump — have been subject to prosecutors’ requests to deny bail. Despite that request, Harris County District Court Judge Josh Hill said at the time that state law prevented him from outright denying bail to Franklin Peña and Johan Jose Martinez-Rangel. They are each being held in the Harris County Jail on a $10 million bond.
Another proposed legislative measure, deemed Jocelyn’s Law, sought a constitutional amendment that would deny bail for undocumented immigrants charged with felonies. The measure fell flat following Democratic opposition.
Krish Gundu, co-founder of the nonprofit Texas Jail Project, told Houston Public Media that Proposition 3 gives magistrate judges a broader pass to set extremely high bonds while prosecutors “continue to shirk their responsibility and rarely, if ever, present clear and convincing evidence to a judge that a defendant must be held without bond.”
“With high bonds remaining effective detention orders, Prop 3 will only increase the leverage prosecutors have over defendants who cannot afford their bail and incentivize coercive plea deals,” Gundu said. “Worse yet, the likely increase in bond amounts set by magistrates will create a tremendous amount of revenue for the bail bond industry while still doing nothing to prevent the release of any defendant who can afford to pay.”
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