CONCORD, N.H. — In a room packed with members of law enforcement and lawmakers, Republican Governor Kelly A. Ayotte signed a new law Tuesday to make it harder for people to get released on bail after they’ve been arrested but before they’ve been convicted of a crime.
“We understand how important it is to protect the public, and the bill that I’m going to sign today, House Bill 592, will end the revolving door of criminals that we have seen on our streets,” she said moments before signing the bill. “There have been too many cases where our law enforcement officials have seen someone that they shouldn’t see again, that should be held pending trial because of their background or because of their dangerous crimes they’ve committed in the past, or they failed to appear.”
She thanked those in attendance who helped push the bill forward, including the attorney general and Manchester Mayor Jay Ruais, who has been a vocal advocate of bail reform.
“Now that HB 52 has been signed into law, we are returning to a strong bail bystem, where public safety comes first and the revolving door for violent and repeat offenders has been slammed shut,” Ruais said in a statement Tuesday. “Our previous bail system was seriously flawed, putting our citizens, businesses, visitors and law enforcement in danger.”
In Ayotte’s short time in the corner office, she’s emphasized tough-on-crime policies. Among her top priorities has been tightening the state’s bail law. She has advocated for it as a public safety measure, arguing that the state’s current bail law allows too many violent offenders to go free, enabling them to commit additional crimes.
“I’ve heard so much about the issues we’ve had with bail creating a revolving door that is putting our law enforcement in danger, that is putting average citizens… in danger,” she said, during a press event in March, when she urged lawmakers to pass House Bill 592.
Her hands-on approach successfully put the bill on a fast track, landing on her desk months ahead of the deadline to do so. Earlier in March, Ayotte touted bipartisan support for the measure from eight mayors, in addition to all 10 of the state’s county sheriffs, in front of a room she had packed with dozens of members of law enforcement.
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Shepherding this bill into law illustrates how, as a new governor, Ayotte isn’t shy about pushing lawmakers to advance her priorities. And at least in this case, with strong Republican majorities in both chambers, they were happy to oblige. The bill also enjoyed unanimous support from Senate Democrats.
But some civil liberties advocates have warned about the harm the new law could cause. People accused of low-level crimes could lose their jobs and custody of their children while awaiting a trial that could prove them innocent, and taxpayers ultimately have to foot the bill for detaining these individuals. Then, there are concerns about freedom, justice, and due process.
Attorneys at the ACLU of New Hampshire have said it was already possible to detain dangerous individuals and they point to lowering crime rates in the state. Plus, they said, tightening the bail law raises concerns about due process.
“Police are not a judge and jury, and they should not have the power to take away someone’s freedom. That power is left to a judge’s discretion,” said Amanda P. Azad, the organization’s policy director, in a statement.
The current debate about bail stems from a change to the state’s law in 2018, when New Hampshire passed reforms that made it harder to detain people who couldn’t afford to pay bail. Now commonly referred to as bail reform, these changes also allowed any person deemed a danger to the community to be detained before trial, regardless what kind of crime they had been accused of.
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Lawmakers have been tinkering with those laws in the years since, passing additional reforms as recently as last year. But Ayotte disagreed with some of the changes, and began championing HB 592.
It eliminates a magistrate system that was only fully enacted a few months ago when three magistrates were appointed. The system was supposed to decrease how long someone has to wait behind bars for a bail decision when a judge isn’t available. The magistrates were scheduled to work on weekends.
While the law used to provide a 24-hour window for an individual to appear in court for a bail determination, HB 592 extends that to 36 hours.
It also lowers the standard required to detain someone from “clear and convincing evidence” to probable cause.
The updated law maintains a provision that the court should not to impose a financial condition that would result in incarceration just because someone can’t afford their freedom, although it allows cash bail if there is “no reasonable alternative” to ensure the person will not commit a new crime, violate bail, or fail to appear in court. Here too, it lowers the standard for making this determination from clear and convincing evidence to probable cause.
And it allows people to be detained if there’s probable cause they have broken certain rules while out on bail — such as committing a felony or class A misdemeanor, failing to appear for court, or violating a condition of their bail.
The new law takes effect 180 days from its signing, on Sept. 21.
This article has been updated with a statement from the mayor of Manchester.
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Amanda Gokee can be reached at amanda.gokee@globe.com. Follow her @amanda_gokee.