HOUSTON (Legal Newsline) – John Arnold, creator of Milwaukee County’s bail calculation tool, takes no responsibility for the Nov. 21 Waukesha Christmas parade massacre that left six dead and more than 60 injured.
As of Dec. 6, the website of his Arnold Ventures philanthropy posted an article hostile to those who think the massacre exposed danger on a national scale.
“Waukesha tragedy highlights the problem with cash bail,” reads the headline of a top story on the website. The article leads off, “Partisan actors and analysts turned a moment of mourning into a megaphone for their own agenda.”
The author called the massacre “another sad example of the human toll of substituting money for a measure of public safety…In fact, the driver’s previous risk assessment had flagged a potential need for preventative detention.”
Arnold is a former Houston energy trader-turned billionaire philanthropist, who, according to several media sources, supports left-leaning causes along with wife, Laura. A commentary published in Investor’s Business Daily, “Meet The Mini George Soroses,” says, “From abortion, to anti-Second Amendment work, to liberal ‘investigative’ journalism, to single-payer health care, the Arnolds fund the gamut of far-left causes."
Arnold’s “Advancing Pretrial Policy Research” website identifies four states, 55 counties, and three cities – involving 75 million in population – that use the Arnold assessment tool, including:
-The states of Arizona, Kentucky, New Jersey and Utah;
-San Francisco, as well as California counties of Calaveras, Contra Costa, Del Norte, Los Angeles, Riverside, Sacramento, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Sonoma, Sutter, Tulare, and Tuolumne;
-In Florida, Volusia County;
-In Illinois, Cook, Kane, Lake and McLean counties;
-New Orleans;
-In Missouri, Greene and St. Louis counties;
-In Montana, Butte Silver-Bow, Cascade, Flathead, Lake, Lewis & Clark, Missoula, and Yellowstone counties;
-In North Carolina, Buncombe and Mecklenburg counties;
-In Ohio, the city of Cleveland and Lucas and Stark counties;
-In Pennsylvania, Allegheny and Montgomery counties;
-In South Dakota, Minnehaha and Pennington counties;
-In Tennessee, Hamilton and Shelby counties;
-In Texas, Dallas, Harris, Tarrant and Williamson counties;
-In Washington, Clark, Spokane and Yakima counties; and
-In Wisconsin, Brown, Chippewa, Dane, Eau Claire, La Crosse, Marathon, Milwaukee, Outagamie, Rock and Waukesha counties.
The website states that jurisdictions must adhere to core requirements and follow practices to implement the assessment with fidelity and use it responsibly.
In the Waukesha case, a spokesperson for the research group deflected a question on whether Milwaukee County used, misused or didn’t use the tool in assessing suspect Darrell Brooks after a previous arrest.
“Jurisdictions that use the public safety assessment develop their own local policies to guide how the scores from the assessment inform pretrial decision making,” spokesperson Holly Ziemer responded by email.
Ziemer wrote that judges maintain independence and discretion throughout the process.
She also wrote that Arnold Ventures developed the assessment, and the research group provides implementation guides and technical assistance.
Arnold Ventures started providing the tool at no charge in 2018, and Arnold started the research group in 2019.
According to the research group’s website, a judge considers all relevant information including arguments and circumstances.
The assessment “adds research based information about the estimated likelihood of court appearance and remaining arrest free while on pretrial release.”
It uses factors of age, offense, and charge, and prior factors of misdemeanors, felonies, violence, failure to appear, and sentences.
It states that factors and scoring methods are available to the public.
Scores on these factors combine to produce three bigger scores that must be reported separately to an automated system to avoid human error.
The website strictly prohibits calculation by hand.
It describes the assessment as “actuarial” without explaining what that means.
The American Academy of Actuaries couldn’t provide any information about applying its science to criminal justice.
A spokesperson directed attention to the academy’s standards of practice.
The standards appear under headings of pension, life, health, casualty, enterprise risk management, and general.
A general standard for risk classification covers rates, contributions, reserves, benefits, dividends, refunds, assumptions, and underwriting.
It predicts evolution of actuarial systems and recommends reasonable steps to keep abreast of emerging practices.
It states that laws allow risk classification as long as it is based on sound principles related to actual or reasonably anticipated experience.
It points out a dilemma “when political considerations support a system that contradicts to some degree practices called for in this standard.”
Members of a task force who wrote the standard expressed belief that social and public policy considerations didn’t belong in it.