When prosecutors charge a person with a crime, the judge can order pretrial release, bail or pretrial detention. Judges use bail and pretrial detention to protect public safety and ensure that defendants appear for court proceedings.
The judiciary’s plan is to give judges more background information on each defendant in a criminal case, not just the new charges filed against them, so the court will have a better grasp of who needs to be held and who poses little enough threat to the community that they can be released pending trial.
In his report to the Utah Legislature in January, Utah Chief Justice Matthew Durrant told the Legislature he was concerned about Utah’s current bail system, especially regarding defendants who could not pay bail.