The amended version of the bill would eliminate the newly created magistrate system and lower the standards that must be met for people who are arrested for serious offenses to be held behind bars. (Getty Images)
The New Hampshire House passed a bill to roll back large portions of the 2018 bail reform bill signed by then-Gov. Chris Sununu, in a victory on a key issue for Gov. Kelly Ayotte.
House Bill 592 passed 204-175. The amended version of the bill would eliminate the newly created magistrate system and lower the standards that must be met for people who are arrested for serious offenses to be held behind bars.
The bill will head next to the House Finance Committee; it will need to pass the whole House again before being sent to the Senate.
The bill pares back much of what was passed in 2018, when civil rights advocates argued New Hampshire’s laws kept too many people in jail ahead of their trials solely because they could not afford bail. The 2018 law required that judges find there be “clear and convincing” evidence that a person is a danger to themselves or others in order for them to be held without bail.
Since 2018, police departments in the state have raised concerns that the new laws tie the hands of courts and prosecutors and have resulted in people reoffending after being released on bail. Supporters of the bail reform law, meanwhile, note that the violent crime rate has dropped in New Hampshire since the law passed, and said the law provides important protections for the accused.
Ayotte made crime a key part of her gubernatorial campaign, and argued as a candidate that the 2018 law should be largely repealed. Ahead of Thursday’s vote, the governor held a press conference urging lawmakers to pass the bill, flanked by dozens of local police chiefs and officers.
HB 592 would lower the standard for when a court could deny bail to someone who is accused of one of 12 serious offenses, ranging from homicide to kidnapping to possession of child sexual abuse imagery. Under the bill, a court would need to determine whether there is “probable cause” that the arrested person is a danger to themselves or whether they are not likely to appear at future court hearings — a lower standard than the “clear and convincing” evidentiary standard currently in law.
Sununu signed a compromise bill last year that was intended to be the final fix to the bail law. But Rep Terry Roy, a Deerfield Republican and the chairman of the House Criminal Justice Committee, said the bill passed Thursday was more reflective of Republican priorities.
“The bill last year was a good bill,” Roy said. “It wasn’t a Republican bill because we didn’t have a (strong) Republican majority, so we compromised, and we came up with a good bill. We don’t have to compromise. It is now a Republican majority, and we’re going to pass a Republican bail bill. We don’t need to be ashamed of that.”
Rep. Buzz Scherr, a Portsmouth Democrat and University of New Hampshire law professor who helped draft the 2024 compromise bill, argued the current laws do not need a revision.
“It is working,” Scherr said of the bail laws. “The Legislature has done an excellent job at slowly and carefully adjusting bail reform issues when they come up, and it’s been done on a bipartisan basis. Let’s continue with that.”