A national nonprofit that aids low-income people behind bars is reopening its Atlanta branch. The decision comes after a judge temporarily blocked part of a Georgia law that restricts organizations from helping people pay bail.
Last month, the Bail Project announced it was leaving Georgia because of a new Republican-backed law limiting people and organizations from posting more than three cash bonds in a year unless they meet extensive requirements to become bail bond companies. But a federal judge on July 12 granted a preliminary injunction on that. The judge called the three-bond limit “essentially arbitrary.”
Athens resident John Vodicka is one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit. He says the people they help typically have no other resources.
“A lot of the people we post bond for are dealing with mental health issues, they’re dealing with homelessness, they’re dealing with addiction,’ according to Vodicka. “You know, they are living on the margins, and to be in jail is not going to help any of those issues with those individuals. They are going to come out in the same condition they went in jail or they care going to deteriorate.”
Vodicka and Steve Williams operate a charitable bail fund through their church.
The Georgia Attorney General's Office is appealing.
