A federal judge ruled Monday that San Francisco’s bail schedule violates poor defendants’ rights without protecting the public.

San Francisco’s bail schedule sets bail amounts for each crime and requires a defendant to pay that amount to be released after arrest, even if no charges have been filed. The lead plaintiff in this case was held in prison on a $30,000 bail, which she could not afford. She was released two days later but was fired from her job at the Oakland airport due to her absence.

The judge, after hearing arguments from opposing sides, said that she would issue an injunction requiring San Francisco to adopt new rules for freeing defendants after their arrest. She held that San Francisco’s current bail schedule “merely provides a ‘Get Out of Jail’ card for anyone with sufficient means to afford it.”

Bail agents have argued that the current bail schedule protects the public and ensures that defendants will show up to their hearings. However, Gonzalez Rogers did not find from the record that the current bail schedule considers either of these goals, and that a system which assessed risk on an individual level would serve these goals while treating rich and poor defendants the same.

The State of California is set to vote in November 2020 on whether to abolish cash bail statewide and allow a judge to decide whether an individual defendant can safely be released while they await trial. San Francisco will effectively become a test case for abolishing cash bail if Monday’s ruling stands.