A lawsuit filed by civil rights groups is seeking to change Riverside County’s bail system, calling for an end to cash bail, a system the complaint says is keeping those who can’t afford to pay for their release in dangerous conditions before they have been arraigned.

The suit was filed on behalf of two incarcerated individuals and Riverside County faith leaders, a reverend and rabbi.

The complaint cites a decision by the California Supreme Court in its argument that cash bail is unconstitutional. The 2021 decision ruled that it is unconstitutional for someone to be jailed due to their inability to pay bail alone and that less restrictive alternatives should be considered.

“These individuals are not detained because they are too dangerous to release: the government would release them right away if they could pay. They are detained simply because they are too poor to purchase their freedom,” the complaint reads in part.

Civil Rights Corps, a Washington, D.C. based nonprofit that has worked on matters related to cash bail and pretrial detention in other places throughout the country and Public Justice, an Oakland based legal advocacy nonprofit, filed the suit along with a group of law firms.

The suit also references the conditions of jails in Riverside County specifically, calling the conditions “dangerous” and referencing the county’s number of in custody deaths. In 2022, the Riverside County jail system had a particularly deadly year, with 22 in-custody deaths.

The complaint, filed Wednesday May 28, argues that people arrested on suspicion of a crime “also have an equal protection and due process right to be free from what the California Supreme Court has termed ‘wealth- based detention.’”

The lawsuit highlights that while defendants are innocent until proven guilty, those jailed under this system often suffer harms during the time they are in jail, missing work and being separated from family, which can be up to six days before being arraigned. The suit also highlights that many of the same individuals that remain in jail due to their finances cannot afford their own counsel, so they do not get a lawyer until arraignment, which can be days after an initial arrest.

Instead, the lawsuit’s complaint states that looking at a person’s flight risk or the danger they pose, rather than their access to money, should inform detention decisions.

The lawsuit is a class-action suit, with the two plaintiffs that are in jail seeking to represent a class of people who have been jailed before being arraigned because they have not paid bail and those who have been “systematically denied their right to a prompt hearing under Defendants’ policies,” according to the complaint.

Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, who is named as a defendant in the suit, along with the Riverside County Sheriff’s Office, the Riverside County Superior Court and Riverside County, issued a statement voicing strong opposition to the suit and the idea of eradicating bail.

In the statement, Bianco wrote that the bail system has worked as intended since the country’s founding.

“When Gavin Newsom implemented zero bail during COVID, it resulted in higher crime and more dangerous criminals roaming our communities,” Bianco said in the statement. “The voters overwhelmingly rejected prior zero bail schemes, and I will never support a zero bail system that puts our residents at risk. If criminals don’t want to pay bail, I’d advise them to stop breaking the law.”

A similar suit brought in Los Angeles County ended with a ruling that the county’s bail system was unconstitutional. As a result, a zero-bail policy was implemented in the county in 2023, except for very serious crimes. That policy has been controversial, with many cities in the county suing to end the policy, though that lawsuit was ultimately rejected. After six months of the new policy, court officials reported that there had not been a spike in crime following the policy’s implementation, as some had feared.