By most metrics, Gerald Kowalczyk was a uniquely bad candidate to leave jail before his trial. He had a criminal record of more than 60 convictions, a history of failing to adhere to his release conditions and a pretrial algorithm’s assessment that he presented the highest risk score possible. A San Mateo Superior Court judge set his bail at $75,000, an amount Kowalczyk, homeless and unemployed, could not pay. The charges were that he used someone else’s credit card to buy a $7 cheeseburger.
Ball, the law professor, argues that Kowalczyk’s bail didn’t do what bail is supposed to do: It didn’t make the public any safer, because Kowalczyk didn’t present a threat to the public. “This guy was trying to buy a hamburger,” Ball said. “There’s no horror movie that’s ever been made about the guy who bought a hamburger with somebody else’s credit card.