The creation of a pre-trial services division of the adult probation office was given approval by the Lycoming County commissioners when, acting as the Salary Board, they approved transitioning employees currently in the prison bail release program to the county’s courts.

Controller Krista Rogers, who is part of the board, opposed the transition and voted no.

“This will enable me, as the president judge, to utilize my authority under the Pennsylvania Rules of Criminal Procedure to use all of the members of the existing bail agency to establish a program with a goal toward improving pre-trial outcomes, to gather data from those cases, to determine if what we’re doing is improving those outcomes,” said county President Judge Nancy L. Butts at the commissioners’ meeting this week. “And what are those outcomes? Reducing recidivism and increasing pre-trial attendance in court,” Butts said.

“What this change does not do is dictate a certain type of bail or eliminate the use of monetary bail. This change does not lead to nor does it create a cashless bail system. Each judge is free to set the bail they think is appropriate by being provided with more information about the individuals appearing before them,” she said.

“In summary, making this change will allow the courts to implement processes to ensure that the judges making bail decisions, which are Common Pleas and MDJs (Magisterial District Justice), have as much relevant information as possible about the defendants before setting bail. And this change will allow the courts to ensure that defendants who are released on bail are appropriately supervised by the bail agency,” she added.

Since she became president judge in 2010, Butts has worked to balance her responsibilities of “making sure that the Judicial District is following the applicable laws and rules with finding ways to assure that the criminal justice system works efficiently and fairly,” she said.

One of the biggest pushbacks the commissioners heard about the proposed change, according to Commissioner Marc Sortman, is that people believe it would lead to increased cashless bail.

“So there really would be no difference of what bail falls under. If you, as the president judge, really wanted to push a cashless bail, you could have done that in your courtroom all along,” Sortman said.

Butts assured him that placing the program under the courts wouldn’t change that process.

“What it enables us to do by overseeing the quality and the tools that are used, (it) gives MDJs, who are the entry of the criminal justice system, the maximum amount of information probably so much more than they even have at three o’clock in the morning, when they have somebody brought before them for arraignment, for bail. That gives them that information to be able to make more effective bail decisions. And bail can be monetary. It can be monetary of a percentage; it can be a promise to appear, which doesn’t require any money and any of those types of bail could also have additional conditions imposed upon them,” Butts said.

“You can’t have contact with the victim; you have to go for a drug and alcohol evaluation or a mental health assessment … all of those things can be conditions of bail. What we will do by essentially scooping supervised bail under the cloak of the courts is to just give them the authority to continue to essentially do what they’re doing, but also bring evidence-based practices that other counties in the Commonwealth use in helping determine some of that information for the MDJs,” she said.

“The other primary thing is public safety. This increases more public safety because it will intensify the supervision of people on bail. It will enable us to see everybody that comes before the MDJ … so we can have an assessment on everybody, because probably a larger majority than people realize do not have to post any money on bail. They merely promise the MDJ, ‘Yes, I’ll show up,'” she said.

Many of them don’t appear before an MDJ until their preliminary hearing. They are not the people who are arrested on sight and brought before the MDJ, she said.

Sortman also asked to clarify that the program would be set up as a separate entity with a supervising judge. Butts noted that she is the supervising judge of adult probation.

The employees in the pre-trial program would not be used to fill in other areas, she said.

“That’s not their job. Their job is totally pre-trial services. Now, might there come a time where pursuant supervision gets arrested for a new offense and the MDJ wants a higher level of bail supervision, they’re going to have to talk, but we’re never going to have two people being supervised by both sides of the adult probation office. In that situation, my request would be to allow them to be supervised by the adult probation officer because they know more about the offender,” Butts said.

“The expectation is that they’re going to be trained in pre-trial processes and programming even more so than they already have been. And we look forward to working with everyone that’s in the supervised bail program right now. Listen to them, talk to them about what their ideas are and come up with a plan on how to capitalize on their strengths, but also understand the missions or the goals that we have, one of which is really important, which is data collection, which we really don’t have at all in the pre-trial process,” she said.

Commissioner Scott Metzger, who had worked in adult probation for several decades, expressed concerns about how the new program would handle pre-trial and post-trial and the unique aspects of both.

“Bail is pre-trial — a defendant has not given up any of his rights, whereas probation is post-trial, where they have limited rights. How do you combine those two,” he asked.

“Our proposal to the courts was, let’s make sure they were a separate entity under the umbrella. You’d have domestics; you’d have juvenile; you have adult probation right now under the courts…our concern is to make sure it doesn’t get intertwined with probation, because then you start to intertwine rights. And that’s my main concern, is to make sure they are separate,” Metzger said.

Butts assured him that they would remain separate, noting that she would be the one held accountable by her superiors if there was a blurring of the lines between the two.

“I have to be able to show that I am not co-mingling pre-trial and post-sentencing rules, that I’m not holding them to the same standards; that I’m fully aware of what they are and what my responsibilities are,” she said.

“But the benefit of doing it through the adult probation office, and I’ve explained this to several assistant district attorneys who really like this idea, is the fact that whatever services and programs that we develop through the adult probation office are also available to people in the pre-trial system,” Butts said.

The majority of defendants resolve their cases by guilty, by disposition and not by trial, she said. “From very early on, they know that they want to accept responsibility. So having the opportunity to share those resources-Geo (Reentry), West Branch (Drug and Alcohol Abuse Commission); just a number of other programs — with that pre-trial population enables them to show the district attorney’s office, who they’re hoping to get a favorable plea agreement from, that they’re willing to address the underlying problem that brought them into the criminal justice system, rather than just basically treading water until they have no choice but to either go to trial or enter the plea,” she said.

No employees would be furloughed when the transition occurs, Butts said.

“That’s why I try to use the imagery of just sweeping them up and bringing them over. You’ve got a structure already there. It’s going to remain. I can’t control whether or not people are going to want to continue to work with the courts as their supervisor, but the openings are there. We welcome all of them, and if this goes through, then we’re prepared to meet with them as quickly as we can to explain their work,” she said.

“This doesn’t diminish in any way what they’ve done up until this date. If you ask me, it affords them the opportunity to expand on what they can do by sharing with us their ideas and helping us to create this new idea of pre-trial services,” she added.