When May Bail be Denied in a Noncapital Case?

The California Constitution, at Article I, Section 12(b), states that defendants, in noncapital cases (where the death penalty is not punishment) “shall be released on bail by sufficient sureties” except for “felony offenses involving acts of violence on another person, or felony sexual assault offenses on another person, when the facts are evident or the presumption great and the court finds upon clear and convincing evidence that there is a substantial likelihood the person’s release would result in great bodily harm to others.”

What is a good example of a case where bail is denied in a noncapital case meeting such an exception? 

The Sixth Appellate District Court held that the case of Shannon Marie O’Connor in In re Shannon Marie O’Connor, met this exception.  Ms. O’Connor was denied bail and filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus for her release.

Ms. O’Connor was accused of 30 offenses involving 15 different minor victims over a period of nine months.  Twelve of the 30 counts involved felony child endangerment (Penal Code § 273a(a)).

Ms. O’Connor was the parent of victim John Doe 3.  During an eight month period when John Doe 3 was fourteen years old, O’Connor allegedly “supplied excessive amounts of alcohol to her son and his minor friends to the point where minors would vomit, be unable to stand, and fall unconscious.  When these minors were extremely intoxicated from the alcohol, she encouraged them to engage in sexual activity with each other, facilitated sexual encounters, and watched some of these sexual encounters.”

It was alleged that O’Connor also helped the minors leave their homes surreptitiously at night or in the early morning hours without their parents’ knowledge, by communicating with them via Snapchat or text messaging and picking them up down the street from their homes.  O’Connor would then drive them to her home, where she would provide them with alcohol at such secret parties.

After one evening where O’Connor provided alcohol and a minor male and a minor female had sex, both intoxicated at O’Connor’s house, O’Connor texted the minor male and asked him “How was it?”

O’Connor told the minors to keep the parties secret, or to tell them it was a ping pong and basketball party.  In one evening, there were 12 minors attending a party wherein alcohol was provided by O’Connor.  In another evening, she bought eight cases of beer and two bottles of hard liquor for a party at her home and even called the Los Gatos and asked them to call her before knocking on her home’s door.  She then hid the alcohol in the backyard in case the police were to enter the home.  In that particular party, four girls passed out from too much alcohol.  She then laughed as minors had sex while intoxicated.

Eventually, a mother of one of the minors contacted the Los Gatos Police Department and they investigated and arrested Ms. O’Connor on 39 charges involving 15 minors for child endangerment, sexual battery, annoying or molesting a child, and furnishing alcohol to a person under age 21. 

The Santa Clara County District Attorney filed a motion for the judge to deny bail to Ms. O’Connor.  Ms. O’Connor opposed the motion, arguing she did not meet the standard for denying bail under the California Constitution, Article I, section 12(b) because she did not supply alcohol or promote its ingestion through the use of force.

The trial court granted the motion and denied bail to Ms. O’Connor.

O’Connor then appealed to the Sixth Appellate District in San Jose, which affirmed the trial court, finding that while Ms. O’Connor did not directly applied force on any minor, she was an indirect participant wherein her felony offense was “related closely” to an act of violence that injured another person.

While we certainly do not condone Ms. O’Connor’s very sad conduct, we do have concerns with the legal standard the Sixth Appellate District relied upon in affirming the trial court.  The “related closely” standard is ambiguous and most likely will be applied in the future to offenses that are not so numerous as those of Ms. O’Connor and not so damaging.

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