Suzanimal
12-03-2017, 09:50 AM
Sean Ramsey was arrested on Sept. 19 near the state Capitol. His crime? Holding up a handwritten cardboard sign that read, “homeless, please help.”
Unable to post the required $200 bond, he sat in jail until Wednesday, never once appearing before a judge. Ramsey was released only after the Southern Center for Human Rights filed a petition challenging his 2 ½ month detention.
The suit was brought against Fulton County Sheriff Ted Jackson because Ramsey is in his custody, but its real focus is the Atlanta Municipal Court which the center argues routinely throws poor people in jail for low-level offenses.
“This is a case that sounds like it came out of another country, one not governed by the rule of law,” Sarah Geraghty, managing attorney with the Southern Center for Human Rights, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “And it is but one example of the dysfunction and fundamental unfairness of Atlanta’s pretrial system.”
Sean Ramsey had not been before a judge nor had he spoken to an attorney when Municipal Court Judge Terrinee Gundy sent his case to Fulton County State Court — and him to the Fulton County Jail — on Sept. 20. Fulton County taxpayers have been paying $77.20 a day to keep him behind bars on the ordinance violation, which bans pedestrians from soliciting rides or business.
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http://www.myajc.com/news/local/homeless-please-help-sign-lands-man-jail-for-more-than-months/GH9jRvQpmFvUPhAH4Xz21L/politicallygeorgia.html
Unable to post the required $200 bond, he sat in jail until Wednesday, never once appearing before a judge. Ramsey was released only after the Southern Center for Human Rights filed a petition challenging his 2 ½ month detention.
The suit was brought against Fulton County Sheriff Ted Jackson because Ramsey is in his custody, but its real focus is the Atlanta Municipal Court which the center argues routinely throws poor people in jail for low-level offenses.
“This is a case that sounds like it came out of another country, one not governed by the rule of law,” Sarah Geraghty, managing attorney with the Southern Center for Human Rights, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “And it is but one example of the dysfunction and fundamental unfairness of Atlanta’s pretrial system.”
Sean Ramsey had not been before a judge nor had he spoken to an attorney when Municipal Court Judge Terrinee Gundy sent his case to Fulton County State Court — and him to the Fulton County Jail — on Sept. 20. Fulton County taxpayers have been paying $77.20 a day to keep him behind bars on the ordinance violation, which bans pedestrians from soliciting rides or business.
...
http://www.myajc.com/news/local/homeless-please-help-sign-lands-man-jail-for-more-than-months/GH9jRvQpmFvUPhAH4Xz21L/politicallygeorgia.html