{"id":859338,"date":"2026-06-11T07:09:27","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T07:09:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/859338\/"},"modified":"2026-06-11T07:09:27","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T07:09:27","slug":"getting-bail-in-irving-is-harder-than-other-dallas-county-cities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/859338\/","title":{"rendered":"Getting bail in Irving is harder than other Dallas County cities."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The<\/p>\n

The Irving Criminal Justice Center is pictured on Wednesday, June 10, 2026, in Irving. (David Guzman\/The Dallas Morning News)<\/p>\n

David Guzman<\/p>\n

When a person is arrested in Irving, their journey to get bailed out of jail is more burdensome than in other cities in Dallas County.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Irving police two years ago stopped allowing anyone arrested on charges higher than a Class\u00a0C misdemeanor to have their bail set by a judge inside its city detention center. Unlike most other cities, Irving makes people wait for the 12-mile ride to the Dallas County jail,<\/a> where they have to be booked a second time before their first chance at freedom.<\/p>\n

The new first appearance procedure faces challenges on multiple fronts, in the form of two federal civil rights lawsuits and new county jail intake rules set by Sheriff Marian Brown.<\/p>\n

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The pair of lawsuits accuse Irving of causing unnecessary and unconstitutional delays by transferring people to a second jail before they have a chance to see the judge who sets bail. One alleges the policy has caused some to be detained illegally for more than 48 hours before seeing a magistrate at the Lew Sterrett Justice Center when they could have seen one in Irving.<\/p>\n

Both complaints, filed April 7 on behalf of six plaintiffs by Spangler Law and the Forester Haynie law firm, seek class action status to capture potentially thousands of people impacted since Irving stopped holding first appearance hearings for most charges in its city jail.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a basic constitutional protection that people are entitled to,\u201d Matthew McCarley, an attorney on the plaintiff’s legal team, said of seeing a judge without unnecessary delay.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The North Tower Detention Facility (left) as part of the Lew Sterrett Justice Center photographed, on Tuesday, Aug. 16, 2022, in Dallas, TX.<\/p>\n

Juan Figueroa\/Staff Photographer<\/p>\n

Beginning Oct. 1, defendants who have not been given first appearance hearings by municipal judges will not be accepted in the Dallas County jail unless the arresting agency has a contract with the county, according to a letter Brown sent all law enforcement agencies within the county.<\/p>\n

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Brown did not answer questions asking whether Irving is the target of her letter, but the city will be impacted by the new rules more than most municipalities.<\/p>\n

Dallas Police is the only agency that has a contract with the county for jail services and pays the county nearly $9 million a year to take its arrestees directly to\u00a0Lew Sterrett. Most other agencies take arrestees to a municipal jail to see a magistrate before sending those who don\u2019t post bond to Lew Sterrett.<\/p>\n

In the first five months of 2026, Irving sent an average of 350 people a month to the overcrowded Dallas County jail<\/a>, representing 7% of Lew Sterrett\u2019s total bookings, according to county data.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In a statement to The Dallas Morning News, an Irving spokesperson said the city believes the lawsuits are\u00a0without merit and\u00a0“intends to vigorously defend against the allegations” but declined to comment further citing pending litigation. Attorneys for the city filed motions Monday to dismiss both lawsuits, arguing the right to have bail assessed within 48 hours after arrest is not guaranteed by the constitution.<\/p>\n

The plaintiffs, according to the city\u2019s motions, did not allege they were denied a timely probable cause determination following an arrest made without a warrant, which is a constitutional guarantee. At most, according to the city\u2019s motions, the plaintiffs allege \u201cthey were not timely brought before a magistrate to have charges read and to have bail assessed,\u201d which alone is not a constitutional right, the city alleges.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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In Texas, the probable cause review on warrantless arrests required by the U.S. constitution is typically done at the same hearing where the magistrate determines bail.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Texas law requires arresting officers bring a detainee to a magistrate “without unnecessary delay, but not later than 48 hours\u201d after an arrest, where they will be read their charges, rights to an attorney and have bail determined.<\/p>\n

The city argues the constitution doesn\u2019t guarantee the same, according to the motions filed by the Thompson Coe law firm.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Attorneys for the city state the Supreme Court has ruled the Fourth Amendment requires a probable cause determination by a neutral magistrate be made within a reasonable time but not later than 48 hours \u201cabsent emergency or extraordinary circumstances.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Citing case law, they allege a reasonable postponement of a probable cause determination is permissible while police deal with processing delays in \u201can overly burdened criminal justice system.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Irving adopted its new magistration procedure May 1, 2024 via a memo sent by an Irving chief deputy to a jail manager, which called it an \u201ceffort to improve the efficiency of the prisoner arraignment and prisoner transport functions.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a previous statement to The News, an Irving police spokesperson said the change was done to \u201caddress overcrowding, enhance operational efficiency and ensure the safety\u201d of those held in the 172-person capacity city jail.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Jim Spangler, an attorney representing the plaintiffs, said this is an unconstitutional delay that not only deprives arrestees of due process but can destroy lives and families.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI speak to people all the time who say one or two days I can do, but three or four, I\u2019m going to lose my job,\u201d Spangler said. \u201cThree or four, I\u2019m going to miss my rent payment.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The plaintiffs are asking a court to declare Irving\u2019s policy unconstitutional, an injunction to change its practices and unspecified monetary damages.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Irving Criminal Justice Center is pictured on Wednesday, June 10, 2026, in Irving. (David Guzman\/The Dallas Morning…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":859339,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5135],"tags":[5229,1596,358,325183,326777,342942,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-859338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-america","tag-dallas","tag-texas","tag-tp-courts","tag-tp-dallas-county","tag-tp-irving","tag-tx","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116730225154517652","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/859338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=859338"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/859338\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/859339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=859338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=859338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=859338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}