No Room at the Inn

Kimball Perry reports on an exchange that occured in court this morning when a municipal court judge set bond for a man charged with possessing between one and five grams of crack cocaine (a crime that carries up to eighteen months in prison). The judge set bond at $5,000, but the prosecutor apparently thought that was too low. I doubt that the bond was actually influenced by the rejection of the proposed sales tax increase (after all, even if the vote had gone the other way, there'd be no more bed space today than there was two weeks ago). The only thing that's surprising is that Judge Burlew entertained further discussion about the matter after he announced his decision on bond; usually, once a judge announces a bond amount, the defendant is pretty quickly escorted back to the holding cells adjacent to the courtroom and the next case is called. [posted by Donald.]