Court won’t lower Mehserle’s bail
originally published:
31st July 2009
The state Supreme Court has refused to lower the $3 million bail for Johannes Mehserle, the former BART policeman charged with fatally shooting an unarmed passenger in the back at Oakland’s Fruitvale Station on New Year’s Day.
Mehserle, 27, has been free since posting bond on Feb. 6, 24 days after his arrest. But his lawyer argued that the $3 million bail set by an Alameda County judge was an excessive response to public anger over the shooting of Oscar Grant III.
Mehserle “poses not the slightest risk of harm to anyone,” attorney Michael Rains said in papers filed with the court. “If he committed any crime at all, he did so once, in a context that, by definition, will not repeat” because he resigned from the police force.
Superior Court Judge Morris Jacobson’s decision to set bail at $3 million was “a blatantly unconstitutional attempt to moderate the community’s outrage by attempting to keep (Mehserle) in jail,” Rains wrote. He urged the court to review the decision and “ensure that, in the context of a difficult case, the rule of law is not tossed under the bus to appease the mob.”
The court unanimously denied review Wednesday, without comment.
