California’s highest court recently delivered a major victory for the cause of justice when it ruled that “the common practice of conditioning freedom solely on whether an arrestee can afford bail is unconstitutional.” Under the state Supreme Court’s ruling, judges must now consider a person’s ability to pay when setting bail and can only hold someone in jail before trial in limited circumstances.

Fundamentally, the court echoed what criminal justice reformers — including us — have been saying for years: The right to be out of custody while awaiting trial in California should never be measured by the size of one’s pocketbook.

The court’s core argument was simple: California’s money bail system is not just illegal and unfair, it is harmful. “The disadvantages to remaining incarcerated pending resolution of criminal charges are immense and profound,” the court wrote, citing studies finding that “pretrial detention heightens the risk of losing a job, a home, and custody of a child.”

The court also highlighted data showing that “time in jail awaiting trial may be associated with a higher likelihood of reoffending,” and that “pretrial detention … forces the state to bear the cost of housing and feeding arrestees who could properly be released.”

The California Supreme Court’s verdict is clear. The moral argument won: Our money bail system is unjust, ineffective and unconstitutional. Nevertheless, more work remains.

If the Humphrey decision is our state’s declaration of principles on pretrial justice, our proposed legislation, Senate Bill 262, provides the blueprint for implementation. The bill, which recently won approval from the California Senate Public Safety Committee, works within the state’s existing bail system framework to ensure affordability and fairness, without sacrificing public safety.

SB 262 establishes clear boundaries regarding the costs that judges can impose before trial.  We know these boundaries work. And with the Humphrey decision, we know the content of SB 262 will pass constitutional muster.

The legislation provides a road map for how courts put the Humphrey decision into practical effect. The legislation would eliminate bail for misdemeanors and low-level felonies. When bail is required, the legislation would require that money paid is refunded when the charges are dropped, a case has been dismissed or if the person has not missed any required court appearances.

And, like the Humphrey decision, SB 262 also states that it is the Legislature’s intent to ensure that a person is not kept behind bars pending trial simply because of their inability to afford bail.

SB 262 is based in part on the success of a temporary policy enacted by state courts last spring, which presumptively set bail for several low-level, nonviolent crimes at zero, and was ultimately so effective that 31 counties kept it in some form.

The bill also places reasonable restrictions on the fees that bail agents can charge, protecting consumers against continued predatory behavior by the bail industry. As the Supreme Court noted, California’s median bail amount is more than five times higher than the national median, forcing the large majority of people arrested (97%) to use a bail agent to secure their release.

Our current money bail system is also costly for California taxpayers. For example, just six California counties spent $37.5 million over a two-year period jailing people who were never charged or had their charges dismissed.

Why would we accept an ineffective system that allows big corporations to profiteer off the poor while California taxpayers are out millions, and none the safer?

We do not, and neither did our state’s Supreme Court. In Humphrey, the court bent the arc of history toward justice, and SB 262 will bend it further.

California Senate Majority Leader Robert Hertzberg, D-Van Nuys, and Sen. Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, are joint authors of SB 262.