In Killeen, Texas, a justice of the peace set a $4 billion bond for a murder suspect. The exorbitant bail amount was set to protest against the high bonds of the criminal justice system that detain suspects until the day of their trial.
While addressing the Temple Daily News, Claudia Brown, Bell County Justice of the Peace, explained the move stating that she set the high bond for Antonio Marquis Willis despite being aware that it was unconstitutional.
Brown also said that she "set it as high" as she could in order to demonstrate the fact that "it's ridiculous how we are railroading people without them even having their constitutional rights to a fair trial to determine if they are guilty or innocent." Brown told the Temple Daily News.
While speaking to the FME News Service, she said, "People are going into prison like it is adult day care." According to Fox News, on Friday a state district judge reduced Willis' bond to $151,000. Willis' lawyer declared that his client states his innocence.
While talking to the Associated Press, Brown said she had initially intended to set the bond at only $100,000 for Willis. What caused her to change her mind was when law enforcement officials argued for a $1 million bond.
She said that she "changed the 1 to a 4" as well as "added a whole bunch of zeroes." Brown said that she felt obliged to get her point across "at some point in time" by alerting the system that she "committed to changing" it.
The executive director of the Texas Justice Court Training Center, Thea Whalen, was spoken to regarding the case by the Associated Press. She responded by stating that "We would not ever advocate in our sessions to use due process rights as an opportunity to make a statement, but that's a personal decision that each judge could make."
