Rabbi freed suspect after bail ruling sparks backlash

Kowalczyk bail – A rabbi in Los Angeles says he was shoved and choked during an alleged hate crime in the Pico-Robertson area, with the suspect later arrested on May 19 and initially facing $125,000 bail. But a California Supreme Court decision known as Kowalczyk led a judge t

The moment the attacker left him behind, the rabbi said he understood what was happening.

It was late April in the heavily Orthodox Pico-Robertson section of Los Angeles. The young father said he was on his way home after religious study when he noticed a van driving slowly behind him. He spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. He told a reporter that the driver seemed to follow him down an alley off Pico Boulevard. and that shortly afterward the man leaped out of the van.

Surveillance video, the rabbi said, shows him being shoved into the alcove of a building and choked. “I was yelling for help at the top of my lungs,” he said. “In my mind I’m accepting this is how it’s going to end.” As the attacker climbed back into the van. the rabbi said the man shouted. “Free Palestine.”.

The suspect was arrested on May 19. Los Angeles County prosecutors asked that he be held on $125,000 bail in connection with a hate crime assault, pointing to prior violent felony convictions and saying he was a repeat offender. Instead, the judge set him free without bail.

The reason was a California Supreme Court ruling from April 30. known as the Kowalczyk decision after a Bay Area man who sued over being held on $75. 000 bail after being accused of using stolen credit cards to buy a $7 cheeseburger. It was the second time in five years that the state’s high court ordered major changes to bail policy. In 2021, the court ruled that Californians cannot be held in pretrial detention simply because they are too poor to pay. Critics of cash bail have said little changed after that, but legal experts say the latest ruling is different.

Under Kowalczyk, experts say, cash bail is functionally outlawed in most cases and strictly capped in others. Over the past month. so-called Kowalczyk motions flooded California courts. and judges have been compelled to release people they would previously have held on bail. At the same time. courts have struggled with the additional work of reviewing bail determinations for many defendants already in custody.

For some prosecutors, the ruling feels less like a correction and more like an open door.

“This is one of the most consequential and horrific rulings that I have seen since becoming the D.A. ” San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins said. Jenkins, a frequent critic of the decision, called the court’s move to curb bail “carte blanche” for California criminals. Reformers see it differently: they argue the shift is both legally necessary and socially prudent. pointing to decades of data showing pretrial detention causes harm without reducing crime or increasing appearances in court.

“There have been rigorous studies all around the country: Money bail does absolutely nothing to protect the public at all,” said Salil Dudani, a senior attorney for Civil Rights Corps, a legal advocacy organization.

Jenkins and other prosecutors argue that the people being released without bail include repeat offenders with long criminal histories. “We had 29 arraignments set for this afternoon — we’re only filing motions to keep two people in,” Jenkins said in an interview Wednesday morning.

The Kowalczyk controversy turns on the meaning of “affordability.” In the unanimous April 30 decision. California Supreme Court Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero wrote that unless there is a valid basis for detention. judges must set bail at a level the arrestee can reasonably afford. Kellen R. Funk. a legal historian at Columbia Law School. said the ruling amounts to “a real right to bail in hundreds of thousands of cases” and that it will make California “a [leader] in actually practicing what its bail law says.”.

California’s constitution allows bail to be denied outright for a large number of offenses, including rape, burglary and arson. But it also requires that nearly everyone else be released on their own recognizance or offered an opportunity to bond out. Reformers say the problem has been that. in practice. bail amounts have often been set by discretion rather than a structured way to measure what someone can actually pay.

“Setting bail is just picking a number,” Funk said. “In all of the history of money bail there has never been an attempt to rationalize the money amounts. The money amounts of the bonds are literally picked out of the air.”

California defendants can already challenge bail amounts at bail reduction hearings. but judges in the Supreme Court wrote that they wanted to correct inconsistencies and protect the rights of low-income defendants. Associate Justice Joshua P. Groban wrote in his concurrence that a system where a person’s right to liberty turns on financial resources compromises public safety and raises equal protection and due process concerns.

The court, however, did not define what counts as “reasonably attainable” bail. Jenkins said that vagueness is exactly what worries prosecutors — especially for people who can’t rely on steady income.

“For an unhoused person with no job it might be $1. For someone who’s employed as a MUNI driver it could be $1,000,” Jenkins said. “It’s all relative to what they represent to the court.”

The bail ruling landed during a period of churn in California criminal justice policy. A 2018 law that would have eliminated cash bail was reversed by a 2020 ballot measure. Four years later. an overwhelming majority of California voters approved Proposition 36. reversing a 2014 change that had commuted some nonviolent felonies to misdemeanors.

Jenkins took office in 2022 after San Francisco voters recalled her progressive predecessor. Chesa Boudin. amid anger over property crime and perceived lawlessness. Across the Bay Bridge in Alameda County, fellow reformist D.A. Pamela Price was recalled in 2024 and replaced by Ursula Jones Dickson, who quickly undid many of Price’s signature policies. In Los Angeles, voters ousted George Gascón in 2024 and chose Nathan Hochman, a tough-on-crime challenger.

Even as violent crime across California has dropped to historic lows, frustration over public disorder, fentanyl deaths and sprawling homeless encampments persists. That tension is now shaping contests in the upcoming June 2 primary, including the Los Angeles mayor and city attorney races.

The UCLA survey-based Los Angeles County Quality of Life Index shows perception of public safety losing ground even as property crime decreased modestly over the same period. Reformists blame politicians for the gap.

“There is relentless misinformation both about the prevalence of those kinds of offenses and about the cure,” Dudani said.

Jenkins said the blame also points to the judiciary. “No one knows what goes on in these courthouses,” she said. “No one knows that judges in their ivory towers who don’t live in the communities affected by crime are even issuing these rulings.”

For the Pico-Robertson rabbi, the policy debate lands close to home. The defendant in his case has pleaded not guilty and is now awaiting trial.

“It’s a struggle,” the rabbi said. “A lot of people are worried. Nobody wants to take any chances.”

Los Angeles hate crime rabbi Pico-Robertson bail California Supreme Court Kowalczyk decision cash bail prosecutors Brooke Jenkins Salil Dudani UCLA Quality of Life Index June 2 primary