CLEVELAND, Ohio - The two candidates for Lyndhurst Municipal Court judge say they are willing to use the Arnold Foundation "public safety assessment" method to help make bail decisions.
Incumbent Mary Kaye Bozza and challenger Dominic Coletta made their comments Thursday during an endorsement interview with the editorial board of The Plain Dealer and Cleveland.com.
The nonprofit Arnold Foundation provides data-based method of determining the likelihood a criminal suspect will skip court or commit a crime or violent act if released from jail pending trial.
The relatively new assessment is viewed by advocates for court reform as a way to make bail decisions more fairly so that suspects who can't afford bail don't remain in jail.
A cleveland.com examination of the 2016 bond schedules of all 13 of the municipal courts in Cuyahoga County showed a wide disparity in the amount of money suspects must post to secure their release.
Bozza said judges are already required to conduct the kind of scrutiny when setting bail that the Arnold Foundation method provides, but she added that she would "absolutely" use the tool when it's made available to her court.
Coletta also praised the tool, but added that he thinks municipal courts across the county would have to embrace it so they could share the cost of the pre-trial personnel necessary to make it work.
"You have to be creative in how can you impose this countywide where it can be affordable," he said.
Two of three candidates for Cleveland Heights Municipal Court judge said during a similar endorsement interview earlier this week that they would want to use the Arnold Foundation method, while a third said he would consider it.
The Cleveland Municipal Court recently started using the Arnold Foundation tool and later this year expects to determine what additional pre-trial services might give judges an alternative to jailing suspects awaiting trial.
Such services might include electronic monitoring or court-date notification that could be ordered by the judge in conjunction with a suspect's release to provide greater assurance that suspects will return to court and stay out of trouble.
In terms of cost, it's much less expensive to have someone on supervision than in jail, said Nadeen Hayden, a candidate for Cleveland Heights Municipal Court judge, during her endorsement interview.
Before making its "public safety assessment" tool available to a court system, Arnold Foundation representatives have met with local officials to gauge interest and learn more about the court system's capabilities. If the decision was made to implement the risk-assessment method, the Arnold Foundation provided training and resources.
Eventually, the Arnold Foundation plans to make its public safety assessment method avaialbe online, along with related training materials and resources, so that more court systems can use it, said foundation spokeswoman Leila Walsh.
About 40 court jurisdictions, including three states, have either adopted the Arnold Foundation method or are planning to use it.