(Photo courtesy Stacey Davenport)
Newly elected Chesterfield Commonwealth’s Attorney Stacey Davenport says she will take a different approach than her predecessor, Scott Miles, a Democrat who won a special election in 2018.
“[Miles] had the office very focused on policies he was issuing, like how to handle certain crimes,” says Davenport, a Republican who previously served as an assistant commonwealth’s attorney in Henrico County specializing in domestic violence cases. “I will not be issuing blanket policies.”
Among the changes Miles implemented was allowing defendants charged with nonviolent crimes to be released on conditions that don’t require a cash bond. Under Davenport, issuing a cash bond will again be an option for judges. This means that, in some cases, defendants will be required to pay a certain amount of money to be released from custody, something that activists say puts people of lesser means at a disadvantage.
A cash bond can also involve a third-party bail bondsman. If a defendant cannot afford release, a bondsman will post bail in exchange for a 10% cash fee.
“There is a category of cases in which a bondsman can be useful for community security,” Davenport says. Additional restraint measures offered by a bondsman include GPS tracking. Bondsmen also assume financial risk on behalf of their clients.
“I’m not saying it’s a wide group of charges that are well-suited to cash bail,” Davenport says, “but pre-trial supervision programs are underfunded right now. Before we do away with cash bond, we need to make sure the system is stronger.”
