ICAP, in partnership with Civil Rights Corps, Advancement Project, and ArchCity Defenders, represented a class of individuals in a landmark constitutional challenge to the wealth-based pretrial detention system in St. Louis, Missouri. The lawsuit alleged that the City and local judges operated a system where presumptively innocent people were routinely jailed because they could not afford to pay money bail set without any meaningful inquiry into their financial circumstances. For many, this resulted in weeks or months of detention in deplorable conditions, including extreme heat and lack of medical care, simply because they were poor.
The litigation served as a critical driver for systemic reform. Shortly after the suit was filed, the Missouri Supreme Court issued new statewide rules requiring judges to perform individualized assessments of an arrestee’s ability to pay and to prioritize non-monetary release conditions. By late 2021, the case was dismissed as moot specifically because these legal and procedural shifts had addressed the core unconstitutional practices alleged in the complaint. During the life of the case, the jail population in St. Louis saw dramatic reductions, demonstrating that ICAP’s advocacy not only protected individual rights but also forced a fundamental shift toward a more equitable legal system.
