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By Maddy Keyes, The Frontier; Sierra Pfeifer, KOSU
👉 Click here to support The Frontier
👉 Click here to support KOSU

This story was produced in partnership with KOSU. Ethan Corey, research and projects editor at The Appeal, contributed to this report. 

here were 60 cases to be heard on a busy May morning in Judge Thomas Riesen’s courtroom. Detention officers at the nearby Oklahoma County jail roamed from floor to floor with a tablet or iPhone for brief virtual hearings as the judge read aloud each of the detainees’ charges and set bail.  

Riesen spoke to the detainees via video from his fifth-floor courtroom in downtown Oklahoma City, about half a mile from the county jail. Most of the hearings lasted roughly a minute. Some were as quick as 20 seconds.

Many detainees at the Oklahoma County jail are classified in county records as homeless and are being held on nonviolent charges like possession of drug paraphernalia, trespassing and public intoxication. They wait up to two days in jail to see a judge if they can’t afford to pay bail or a bondsman, and even longer if they were arrested over the weekend. 

A public defender normally sits in the courtroom, but detainees don’t get a chance to talk to the attorney about their case or ability to pay bail before the video hearings. The jail often doesn’t have enough staff or private meeting rooms to accommodate attorneys coming in on short notice to speak with defendants. 

“We don’t have a lot of those missing pieces,” said Brigitte Biffle, chief public defender for Oklahoma County. “We kind of are arguing with our hands tied behind our back.”  

A detention officer slid the tablet to a detainee through the food slot in a jail cell door during one May hearing The Frontier and KOSU observed. Another detainee pressed his ear against his cell door window to hear the judge. In a few cases, detainees relied on a detention officer to translate Riesen’s rulings into Spanish. 

The Eighth Amendment bans excessive bail. But judges can take factors, including public safety and whether a person is a flight risk, into account and can raise or lower bonds as they see fit.

When setting bail, Riesen, who handles initial hearings for defendants in custody, told reporters he only “sometimes” asks defendants questions about their financial ability to pay, but it’s not a standard practice. He instead relies heavily on the county’s predetermined bond schedule, which sets standardized bail amounts for most criminal charges.

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