Ayotte and opponents make final pitches on bill to roll back bail reform law
Gov. Kelly Ayotte speaks at a press conference to urge the passage of House Bill 592, which would undo large parts of a 2018 bail reform law, Wednesday, March 12, 2025. (Photo by Ethan DeWitt/New Hampshire Bulletin)
Advocates on both sides of New Hampshire's bail law debate have waged competing influence campaigns ahead of a pivotal House vote Thursday on a bill to roll back the state's 2018 bail reform laws.
House Bill 592, supported by Gov. Kelly Ayotte, would tighten the standards for determining bail for people who are arrested, and would eliminate a magistrate system created last year intended to allow bail hearings on weekends. That would undo much of what passed in 2018 in a bill intended to reduce the number of people held in jail the ability to pay bail.
For people charged with a series of violent offenses, the bill would require courts to find whether there is 'probable cause' that they are a danger to themselves or others, or that they are likely not to appear at future court hearings. Currently the standard for dangerousness is 'clear and convincing' evidence.
The bill received a recommendation of 'ought to pass' from the House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee in late February, but it will need a majority approval vote from the full House Thursday to advance to the Senate. One influential libertarian group, the New Hampshire Liberty Alliance, has called on representatives to vote it down.
On Wednesday, Ayotte held a press conference packed with state police, local police officers, lawmakers, and county attorneys, urging the Legislature to pass the bill. An amendment recommended by the committee last month aligns the bill to Ayotte's own proposed bail law in her budget trailer bill.
'The 2018 law — it came from a national movement,' Ayotte said. 'And what happens sometimes is these national movements don't fit our state. And I think that's what happened here.'
Speaking to reporters, Ayotte said she is recommending eliminating the magistrate system because inserting non-judges into the bail process created more issues than it solved. She argued the positions, which were intended to help accused people obtain bail certainty on weekends, are not necessary.
'In my experience as a prosecutor, judges do work weekends. I've been to many judges' houses in the middle of the night to get a search warrant,' she said.
The press conference came a week after Manchester Mayor Jay Ruais penned a letter to lawmakers in support of the law with seven other mayors, including Paul Callahan of Rochester; Robert Carrier of Dover; Byron Champlin of Concord; Robert Cone of Berlin; Dale Girard of Claremont; Jay Kahn of Keene; and Desiree McLaughlin of Franklin.
'Like many municipalities, we have vacancies in our police departments that make an already trying job more difficult,' the letter stated. 'This problem compounds itself when criminals cycle through a process of arrest and release, only to be arrested again.'
But critics of the law say it will make it far too easy — and likely — for courts to hold people in jail ahead of their trials. That change, they say, could increase the state's incarceration rate and cause people to lose employment or custody of their children even if they are later proven innocent.
'This is a criminal legal reform issue that keeps people from immediately being held in jail after being arrested because they cannot afford to pay bail, or because they were arrested on a Friday night and now need to wait until Monday, or because they haven't been able to address tickets or pay fines, et cetera,' said Amanda Azad, policy director at the New Hampshire ACLU, which is recommending representatives vote no. 'So if people are deemed dangerous or not deemed dangerous, they shouldn't be incarcerated before they've even been convicted or had a trial.'
The Liberty Alliance is also seeking to encourage no votes. The group publishes a document known as the 'Gold Standard' ahead of House voting session days, in which the group lays out recommendations for how its members should vote on certain bills. In this week's document, members of the Liberty Alliance are recommended to vote against the bill.
'This bill does many things that are bad for civil liberties,' the document states, citing the elimination of the magistrate system and the change of the standard of proof to hold defendants as among the problems.
Asked Wednesday his reaction to the Liberty Alliance's recommendation, House Majority Leader Jason Osborne, an Auburn Republican, said he was confident HB 592 would pass on Thursday
'The governor was very gracious and gave us a lot of time to try to negotiate with all of our members about all of their concerns,' he said. 'At the end of the day, not every word in the bill that came out of the committee is to every member's liking, but I do believe that Republicans as a whole will stand behind the product that was produced.'
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