Sponsors (5)
The bill gives victims a new civil remedy and aims to reduce dangerous pretrial releases, but it removes judges' immunity and risks chilling fair judicial decisionmaking while raising detention and liability costs for governments and taxpayers.
State and local governments and law enforcement may have stronger incentives to keep repeat violent-offense defendants detained pretrial, potentially reducing violent reoffending and improving public safety.
Victims and their immediate families can seek monetary damages from the judge or government entity whose release decision led to harm, creating a direct remedy for harmed individuals.
Defendants and the fairness of the judicial process could be harmed because the threat of lawsuits may chill impartial judicial decisionmaking and push judges to prioritize liability avoidance over legal standards and individualized assessments.
Taxpayers, local governments, and defendants may face higher costs because judges fearful of liability could deny more pretrial release (increasing detention costs) and government entities may incur substantial litigation and damage awards.
Federal and state judges — and the government entities that employ them — lose judicial immunity for release decisions, exposing them to civil liability and creating new legal and administrative burdens for courts and governments.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Allows victims (or immediate family of deceased victims) to sue judges or government entities for harms caused by defendants released on bail who are charged with and previously convicted of crimes of violence, and bars judicial immunity.
Creates a federal civil cause of action that lets a person harmed by a defendant released on bail — or the immediate family of a person killed by such a defendant — sue the judge or other government entity that ordered the release for damages in federal court. The bill removes judicial immunity as a defense and applies when the released person is charged with a "crime of violence" and has a prior conviction for a crime of violence, using the statutory definition at 18 U.S.C. § 16; "judge" is defined to include both Federal and State judges.
Introduced September 11, 2025 by Randy Fine · Last progress September 11, 2025