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MFF only had one employee in May 2020 and experienced massive growth as the donations poured in. That rapid expansion came with growing pains. But, in the time since Floyd was killed, the MFF has learned lessons, changed leadership and added staff and new practices, said co-executive director Elizer Darris.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nWith the new operation established, MFF leadership said the organization is ready to push bail reform \u2014 not just in a hot flash of spending all of its resources on bail and burning out as an organization while little has changed when it comes to bail policy \u2014 but for the long haul. For example, MFF has added a team dedicated to undoing current bail policies.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nBut also, in the time since May 2020, the Twin Cities has seen an uptick in violent crimes such as carjackings and homicide.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\nZaynab Mohamed<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\u201cCrime is something we can\u2019t overlook and have to work on as a community,\u201d said Zaynab Mohamed, who works on bail reform in Minnesota for the Wayfinder Foundation, a national organization. \u201cBut the reason why I work on things like fundamentally changing the criminal justice system including bail reform is that having bail for people who have potentially committed a crime until they show up to court doesn\u2019t deter crime from happening.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nShe also said the notion that setting bail will ensure that someone will appear for their court date has not been proven.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nAccording to Darris, the MFF\u2019s organizational changes have nothing to do with their approach to bail reform but were a result of new procedures designed to keep the organization afloat and provide resources for MFF\u2019s efforts to lobby for changes to the bail system.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nAnd the crime wave \u2014 and the fear it produces among residents of the Twin Cities metro \u2014 has not and will not cause the MFF to waver from its goals.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cThis nation is oftentimes reactive,\u201d said Darris. \u201cIt ebbs and it flows. We are in a cycle right now of reactive justice. Reactive justice perverts justice. We have to resist the urge to utilize a reactive, mob-like approach to saying, \u2018Burn the accused\u2019 and disregard the tenets that are supposed to be founding (of) the nation. Some of those are \u2018innocent until proven guilty,\u2019 the presumption of innocence, the notion that you are going to have access to counsel if accused and that you are going to have a fair, public and open trial.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nA mission of MFF\u2019s is to end pretrial detention, said Darris.<\/span><\/p>\n\n
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\u201cNo one wins when someone is held pretrial without a conviction, criminalized and penalized as though they have a conviction,\u201d said the co-director.<\/span><\/p>\nIn Minnesota, when someone is charged with a crime, a judge decides if the accused should be held on bail, and at what price. The bail amount is totally up the the judge\u2019s discretion and no guidelines aid the process. If someone is unable to pay bail, they are detained until their trial begins, which again, can take weeks or months.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cWhat job is going to hold on to a person\u2019s position for two weeks, three weeks, two months?\u201d said Darris. \u201cWhat apartment is going to hold on to a person\u2019s unit just because they are detained? They are not going to do that. People suffer these harms from even low-level offenses.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\nElizer Darris<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Darris called cash bail \u201cpredatory\u201d because it leaves people who cannot afford it vulnerable to losing their work, their home \u2013 and thus more open to agreeing to a plea deal in order to get out of jail and back to their job.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cThey are like, \u2018OK, I have five years probation, I\u2019m a felon now, but I can go home, I can pay my bills, I\u2019m not going to lose my family,\u2019\u201d Darris said. He also said there is research showing people who cannot afford bail and await their trial in lockup have a higher rate of being convicted than those who post bail.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cWe\u2019re not saying we don\u2019t want a fair and equitable trial, we\u2019re saying we don\u2019t want fingers on the scale,\u201d said Darris.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nMFF is a community fund, said Darris, which means the organization will only consider paying bail for people from the Twin Cities metro area. Currently, they are paying bail for people in Hennepin, Ramsey, Dakota, Anoka and Washington counties.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nThe MFF will not deny a request to pay bail for someone solely because of the severity of the charge. But there are a few exceptions as to who the fund will refuse to assist, such as people who have been accused of terrorism or members of white supremacist groups.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nOne big shift in MFF\u2019s policy is a cap on the amount of bail the organization will pay for a single case. This change was made so that the fund wouldn\u2019t run out of money, and money could be used for lobbying, not due to a shift in the organization\u2019s approach to bail reform, Darris said. Darris said MFF will not disclose its bail cap because it doesn\u2019t want prosecutors intentionally requesting bail above that amount.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
![\"Zaynab](\"https:\/\/www.minnpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/ZaynabMohamed225.jpg?resize=225%2C290&strip=all\")
![\"Elizer](\"https:\/\/www.minnpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/ElizerDarris225.jpg?resize=225%2C290&strip=all\")