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if the Astros win it all,

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you get your money

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back. Mac gives back

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He's the sponsor of our podcast and

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a supporter of what we do. He shares

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our values and he's willing to get involved.

0:13

In local, state and national

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politics to bring about change

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for the better. If you're thinking about

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furniture, Matt gives back Gallerie

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Furniture. The Michael Berry Show

0:25

yesterday told you the tragic

0:28

story of Michael Essien and his

0:30

son, Micah. You'll

0:32

remember this story. This

0:35

is the guy who's gunned down by a

0:37

thug so

0:39

that his vehicle can be stolen. And

0:42

as the thug who's

0:45

now been arrested, alleged

0:48

killer Bolanley Fidero,

0:51

thirty eight. Been

0:53

charged with two counts of murder and tampering

0:55

with evidence.

0:56

He

0:58

murders the father, steals

1:01

his car, drives

1:05

away, would have realized that there's

1:07

a toddler in the back who's

1:10

just witnessed his dad being murdered. dumps

1:14

the car. The

1:17

toddler dies because

1:20

of the heat. because

1:23

he's stuck inside the vehicle.

1:26

Well, that turd who did that

1:30

It turns out,

1:32

we have a record on him. There's always

1:35

a record. There aren't nearly

1:37

as many killers

1:39

As there are

1:40

killings, it's

1:43

the same guys doing it

1:45

again and again And

1:47

again, I've got his record

1:49

here somewhere. Well,

1:52

anyway, this

1:54

brings us to our next guest,

1:56

Ken Good. a

1:58

bail attorney who

2:00

is apparently very well respected in the

2:02

field, I'm told. by folks

2:04

who would know, and a board member of the Professional

2:07

bondsman of Texas. And

2:10

I read a statement on the

2:12

high failure to appear rate since

2:14

the implementation of bail

2:16

reform measures in

2:18

the county. failure to appear,

2:20

of course, being

2:22

these guys get out.

2:23

We they have blood all over them. They've just they've just

2:25

murdered miss Medina. They

2:27

got blood all over them.

2:28

The cops arrest them and bring them down. And the

2:31

judge says, oh, it'd be great for

2:33

you to head on out. But pinky swear you'll be

2:35

back ninety days. Right? And guess what?

2:38

That guy didn't show up ninety days. Ken Good.

2:40

Welcome to the program.

2:43

Thank you so much for having me, sir. Can

2:45

you I don't know if you're right into the phone or if you're on

2:47

a speaker phone, but if you would lean in because I wanna

2:49

make sure everybody hears what you have to say.

2:52

First of all, talk a little bit

2:54

about bail reform as they've

2:56

called it. What exactly it is and

2:59

why it isn't working? And assume you're

3:01

talking to people who have only

3:03

a passing knowledge of the subject.

3:06

Okay.

3:09

Well, we have a county commissioner who

3:11

colluded with an outside

3:14

activist group and went to them and said, hey, why

3:16

don't you come to Harris County and You could say Harris

3:18

County. It's Rodney. You said I want I

3:21

wanna make changes to the way we do

3:23

criminal justice and

3:25

and how we do our bail system. and

3:27

I can't get it through the legislature, so I wanna

3:30

force it through kind of weaponize

3:32

the federal court through a settlement.

3:34

And I'll get friends to file

3:37

half a day that's in the case and say,

3:39

oh, the way we do that is unconstitutional. Now

3:41

years later, the courts held that

3:43

it's not unconstitutional. But in the

3:45

meantime, you know, it it looks terrible.

3:48

And then we've got the editorial board

3:50

of the Houston Chronicle saying

3:53

oh, we have to settle. We spend eight million dollars

3:55

in legal fees. And and everybody agrees

3:57

it's it's bad. And so what happens?

3:59

New judges are elected. They

4:02

all say we're gonna settle. We're gonna

4:04

give the plans whatever they want. They

4:06

do. And then we spend a hundred

4:08

million dollars to implement this new

4:10

system. and the new system is

4:12

just a fiasco. Here's

4:14

what we're doing. If

4:17

you're arrested on a misdemeanor in Harris County,

4:19

you just get a hundred dollar p r bond, which

4:21

is not a hundred dollars. They cost anything.

4:23

It's free. And you get out,

4:26

and then we've tied our hands of our

4:28

judges in the settlement. they have to miss

4:30

court three times before we can even

4:32

do anything too. That's what they agreed

4:34

to. And then we tell everybody

4:36

in the nation

4:37

how great it's working.

4:39

you know, these people went to Ohio

4:41

in the summer and said, it's working great

4:43

in Harris County. We need to do the same thing

4:45

in Ohio. and then it bleeds over

4:47

into the felony cases just like you

4:49

mentioned. And so our

4:51

license is working. So they start

4:53

doing it for felonies as well, and we're

4:55

seeing the results across the board.

4:58

Nobody's coming to court. The only

5:00

way they're keeping the misdemeanor cases from

5:02

system from collapse, is they're

5:04

just dismissing everything? They just missed

5:06

seventy two percent of the cases

5:09

last year. Hold on. Hold on. Can't

5:11

hear before? stop you there. You're so used to

5:13

hearing this that you're like

5:15

the resident of Nagasaki that talks about

5:17

what they We have to see this. We have to

5:19

understand it. Slow down and go back.

5:21

Seventy two percent say that again

5:23

real slow.

5:25

Well, according to the Houston

5:28

Police Officer's report, which was released in

5:30

April of last year, and it's

5:32

based upon data that is reported

5:34

to the state by Harris County. In

5:37

the misdemeanor courts, all of them,

5:40

seventy two percent of the cases

5:42

that were disposed in two thousand and

5:44

twenty one were

5:45

dismissed, not convictions,

5:48

not anything, but just a dismissal.

5:51

it was seventy-one point nine nine percent

5:53

and then in twenty twenty

5:55

it was seventy-one point nine eight

5:57

percent So the only way

5:59

they're keeping

5:59

their system from collapsing is they're

6:02

just missing everything because

6:04

you get arrested You never see

6:06

a judge. You get a free bond.

6:08

You've got a eighty percent chance to never come

6:10

to court. And so then

6:12

you

6:12

got a seventy two percent chance your case

6:14

is dismissed, and they're calling

6:16

that bell form. I

6:19

call it giving up on crime.

6:24

So

6:26

if this were to be fixed, You've

6:30

got the federal is

6:32

is this through the federal appeals?

6:34

How can this be fixed?

6:37

looked at the courts have already

6:40

given them a roadmap to fix it. They've

6:42

refused. In

6:44

January of this year, the fifth Circuit

6:46

reversed O'Donnell. the

6:48

basic the the fundamental ruling

6:50

o you know, Donald is that judges

6:52

can be sued in federal court.

6:54

And the Dave's case, the Fed circuit

6:56

reversed that ruling. and specifically Rosenthal.

7:00

And it was by the by

7:02

by an en banc review. That means the whole

7:04

of his circuit, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen

7:06

judges. they all ruled

7:08

that they reversed her decision,

7:10

and they said essentially they went out

7:12

of the bellies, so there's no jurisdiction anymore.

7:16

and commissioner's court was asked,

7:18

hey, don't we wanna go back to court and have this case

7:20

dismissed? No. What are you

7:22

talking about? No. We love this. It's

7:24

working great. It's working

7:26

so great. Lena Hidalgo refuses

7:28

to debate her opponent because

7:30

she can't defend it.

7:32

So you're telling me? that

7:35

have cactus Jack Kega wins and

7:37

Tom Ramsey wins and and

7:41

Alex Meuler beats Lena Hidalgo.

7:44

That's three out of five. We've got a majority,

7:46

and this thing is done.

7:49

Yes. And Mueller has already filed

7:51

an amicus brief in the Russell

7:53

case where they're trying to extend the

7:56

misdemeanor stuff to the felony stuff. And

7:59

she's already said,

7:59

we need to dismiss Russell. We need to

8:02

dismiss O'Donnell. So she's

8:04

already on the record saying that's what we should

8:06

do.

8:07

And, you know, Russell is already on

8:09

track to be dismissed. They're having

8:11

hearings across over this

8:13

from now till the end of the year over whether

8:16

it should be. So it may be dismissed

8:18

anyway because that's what the Pittsburgh

8:20

said, should happen, but nobody's going

8:22

back on O'Donnell.

8:26

And you can see why they

8:28

spent a hundred million dollars. Are they gonna admit

8:30

it was all a waste of money?

8:31

No. I'm

8:33

assuming you're aware, are you willing

8:35

to discuss the influence of Arnold

8:38

Ventures on all of this?

8:41

Absolutely. Okay. Absolutely. That's

8:43

alright.

8:49

Michael Berry Show. If

8:51

he doesn't say it, who

8:53

will? He's menu in his

8:56

hand. Ken Good is our guest. He is

8:58

a bail attorneys on the

9:00

bondsman board. This

9:02

is what he does. Ken,

9:05

I asked when when the county so

9:07

gleefully entered into the

9:09

settlement, which has

9:11

led to the problem we're seeing now.

9:14

There was a photo taken with some

9:16

Arnold Ventures folks and

9:18

Rodney Ellis in their high fiving.

9:20

This was a great moment. So what

9:22

we're seeing now is exactly

9:24

what they wanted. This this

9:26

is not an accident. This

9:28

isn't a flood or a storm or

9:30

a drought. they intended this. It's

9:32

important people understand that.

9:35

Your understanding of how Arnold Ventures

9:37

was involved in all this? Well,

9:39

you know, they started by enticing

9:42

the county into talking

9:44

to them and getting allowing them to be

9:46

involved in the process through a grant. that

9:48

they gave to the county years ago. And

9:50

so that started the discussions. But,

9:52

you know, I would, you know, I would

9:54

say the best you can say is they

9:56

have good intentions, but they

9:58

just don't think these things

9:59

through. You know, they always say,

10:02

well, any reform is gonna cause a forty

10:04

percent failure to pure rate. And

10:06

I'm like, you do realize a forty

10:08

percent day of the pay rate will kill your

10:10

criminal justice system. Because

10:12

the current the system they replaced

10:14

was less than ten percent failure

10:16

to peer rate with the private

10:18

industry. And so we've now

10:20

create a website harrison

10:22

county court watch dot com where you

10:24

can go and look it's interactive.

10:26

You can look for any day for the last two

10:28

years for any misdemeanor court.

10:30

to see what they're failure to appear right. And

10:33

what we is and we found the same

10:35

thing the Houston police officer unions

10:37

found is that their failure to appear right

10:39

is seventy five eighty five

10:41

percent on average.

10:43

And we found days where

10:45

a

10:45

hundred percent of the docket

10:46

did not show up for

10:48

court.

10:49

what are they doing? Nothing because they've

10:51

tied their hands. And so

10:53

you can't get justice. And

10:55

are How often can how often

10:57

are family members of victims

10:59

showing up to then realize

11:01

the person who did this is not showing

11:03

up.

11:05

It's it's worse than that.

11:08

Because no one shows

11:10

up. And so III

11:12

mean, you know, the prosecutors, how

11:14

can they even ask victims

11:16

to come? when they know

11:18

there's a seventy two, eighty

11:20

percent, eighty five percent chance

11:22

that people are not gonna show.

11:24

and and the court's not gonna do anything to him. I

11:27

mean, look, we've got judges who are

11:29

saying, oh, we've cleared a hundred and eight

11:31

percent of our the

11:32

case is pending. So we're doing great.

11:34

Well, over the last ten years, your docu to have

11:36

backlogged has increased a hundred and

11:38

seventy eight percent and

11:40

sheriff's the rest are down thirty

11:42

thousand, only because why file

11:44

them? They're just gonna be dismissed. Can

11:46

you imagine our criminal justice system,

11:48

our misdemeanor courts, is ahead of

11:51

an additional thirty thousand cases

11:53

when

11:53

they're dismissing seventy two percent

11:56

of any disposition. They just

11:58

be dismissed again. It'd be

12:00

eighty percent. Eighty five percent.

12:02

You get to the point where you're

12:04

like,

12:05

isn't this just a backdoor California

12:08

where we're decrimeralizing certain

12:10

crimes. Doesn't that kind of explain

12:12

why crime is going up? We're kind

12:13

of falling in the same trap.

12:17

Arnold Ventures has lured us into

12:19

this cycle where we're just

12:21

repeating the mistakes in California. Worth

12:23

noting, I don't have the article in front

12:25

of me, but Fox News did a profile on

12:28

the George Soros type billionaires around the

12:30

country who are funding this

12:33

this bail reform, and it's not just George Soros.

12:35

John Arnold, I think they

12:37

said ten new tens of millions

12:39

of dollars that he has poured

12:41

into New York. And this guy lives in Houston. He

12:43

has poured into New York and

12:46

and their criminal quote

12:48

unquote, criminal justice reform that has caused

12:50

crime to go through the roof. In fact, crime is so

12:52

bad there that the guy who was

12:54

most recently elected mayor

12:56

IS A FORMER POLICE CAPTAIN AND

12:59

PEOPLE THOUGHT, WELL, AT LEAST IF

13:01

NOTHEN ELSE, HE'LL DO SOMETHING ABOUT

13:03

THE CRIME. And and that's saying

13:05

something for New York to elect a law

13:07

enforcement officer, but that's really

13:09

saying something. So this guy is

13:11

interested in this quote unquote criminal justice

13:13

reform and and I honestly do

13:15

believe as as Ken Good has just

13:17

said. I think his intentions are

13:19

good. I think this guy says, well, these

13:21

you got these black guys and they're getting arrested

13:23

and they're going to jail and prison

13:25

and they don't have the money for a good

13:27

lawyer and it's not fair and I sought to

13:29

kill a mockingbird and that poor guy and that was

13:31

wrong and look at how many blacks

13:33

have criminal records and go

13:35

to prison and something has to be done

13:37

And so something that has to be done is

13:39

instead of a lot of people getting

13:41

arrested and going to prison, who did

13:43

commit crimes then none of

13:45

them are getting arrested and going to

13:47

prison who are committing crimes, and that

13:49

makes for more crimes being committed.

13:52

Well,

13:52

and what and the thing that they don't

13:55

realize is they're setting rules

13:57

which they say are to protect the

13:59

poor. but what they

13:59

end up doing are is tying the

14:02

hands of judges so they can't

14:04

even address gang members,

14:06

organized crime, or career

14:08

criminals. So as

14:09

long as you just stay on that one

14:11

climb, like, what what New York did

14:13

is, if you're arrested for this set of

14:15

crimes, you get released on no bodge. Yeah.

14:17

Harris County you released on a hundred

14:19

dollar free bond. And so it's

14:21

the same result. But in New

14:23

York, at least they acknowledge it. They've

14:25

rolled back parts of it. twice now, and they're

14:27

talking about having a special session. But here in

14:29

Harris County, they'll admit crimes going

14:31

up, but they won't even they have anything

14:33

to do with it.

14:37

Wow.

14:37

I've

14:39

said it before and I'm gonna say it again.

14:43

There's going to be a high profile murder

14:45

in Harris County. It's gonna

14:47

be a newscaster, it's gonna be a

14:49

celebrity, it's gonna be somebody that people

14:51

actually care about, you know, a

14:53

professional baseball player or

14:55

football player or basketball player

14:57

or a politician. It's

14:59

going to be somebody people are

15:01

gonna pay attention to because they're not paying attention

15:04

to lord of this Medina's mom. And they're

15:06

not paying attention to Michael Essien.

15:08

It's going to be somebody famous and the person

15:10

who does it is going to be out on a capital

15:12

murder bond. They will have been arrested multiple

15:14

times and they'll be out on a bond and they committed

15:17

another bond. And we'll all say,

15:18

What happened? How could this

15:21

be allowed to happen? So

15:22

I wanna go back, Ken. This guy

15:25

Michael Essien. who

15:27

was just murdered and his two year old toddler

15:29

is in the backseat and the guy

15:31

murders him and steals his car and drives it

15:33

off, realizes There's a toddler in the back

15:35

seat pulls over and runs away

15:37

and the toddler dies from

15:40

suffocation or I guess heat

15:43

heat exhaustion in the seat before

15:45

anyone discovers him. This

15:47

guy's now been charged with murder. He

15:49

here's his record. tampering

15:51

with and fabricating evidence

15:54

He's been charged with criminal trash

15:56

past. He's been charged with robbery and

15:58

threats driving with

15:59

suspended off license, driving with the suspended license, driving with suspended

16:02

license, evading arrest with a motor

16:04

vehicle, driving

16:05

with a suspended license, possession of

16:07

marijuana, possession of control substance,

16:09

assault with bodily injury,

16:11

and theft. So this guy's got

16:13

a long record. And

16:15

by the way, he was out on a

16:17

bond for criminal trespassed. You

16:20

know, he's

16:22

a he's he's a tenter box. He's

16:24

he's waiting to explode. And here

16:26

it is, a father killed and a

16:28

child dead. and and

16:30

this just continues to happen. And I guess you

16:32

see it more than anybody?

16:34

Well, I went to a forum

16:37

where these judges were asked

16:39

that question. and I got

16:41

so mad because the answer just

16:43

made me curious. Because

16:45

what the judge said is, well, we

16:47

can't We can't

16:48

we

16:49

can't keep them in jail. We have this

16:51

is what the constitution requires. We have

16:53

to set a bond in the amount they can

16:55

afford. And, you know, when a judge says

16:57

that they're like, well, this is what the constitution requires.

16:59

So you go, oh, this must be right.

17:01

The problem is,

17:02

that's absolutely wrong. That was an

17:05

argument made

17:05

on the O'Donnell case by

17:07

the plaintiffs, and it was rejected

17:09

by the Fifth Circuit. And so the

17:11

old judges were winning that case.

17:14

They were winning. That's what upset, you

17:16

know, the commissioner and his allies

17:19

and the editorial board of the

17:21

paper. And that's why they're saying, well, we got to settle.

17:23

We spent eight million dollars. Now we spent a hundred

17:25

million. Crime is going up, so we spent another

17:27

forty million. only

17:28

to arrest more people and get them into a broken criminal

17:30

justice system that they broke. And

17:32

to have judges say, well, I can't keep them

17:34

in jail because that's

17:37

they have to I have to say amount they can afford when

17:39

the fifth circuit rejected that

17:41

very argument. And he

17:44

goes, are they Are they

17:46

intentionally

17:46

lying? Or are they just

17:49

or do they really

17:50

believe that? And

17:52

I've come to the conclusion I think they're just

17:55

misleading us now. And good. Thank

17:57

you for being with us. It should politics.

17:59

If Jack

17:59

Cagle holds his seat, He will join

18:01

Tom Ramsey as a solid

18:04

conservative on

18:06

that bench, and Alex Mueller beats

18:09

Lena Hidalgo. we

18:11

can change all of this. This is

18:13

why you must get involved. This is

18:15

why we must win the selection.

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