Zina Makar, Assistant Professor of Law, participated in Bail Reform and Backlash: Litigation, Legislation and Experimentation, a major symposium reflecting on the ten-year anniversary of the landmark ODonnell v. Harris County litigation.
The event, hosted by the University of Houston Law Center, brought together scholars, practitioners, and reform advocates to assess the litigation’s legacy and the broader national landscape of bail reform. The symposium was made possible with support from the University of Houston Law Center Criminal Justice Institute, the Houston Law Review, and the UH Law Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP Fund.
The ODonnell case began in 2016 when a single mother arrested for driving on a suspended license challenged Harris County’s misdemeanor bail practices on behalf of thousands detained solely because they could not afford small amounts of money for release. Following a federal preliminary injunction — upheld on appeal — the case culminated in a landmark consent decree approved in 2019. The decree dramatically reshaped misdemeanor bail practices in the nation’s third-largest county, virtually eliminating the use of cash bail for misdemeanors, significantly reducing convictions, and resulting in tens of thousands of releases annually. The decree remains under active monitoring.
Professor Makar’s presentation, titled Pretrial Friction, examined how deliberate procedural “friction” — including the preventive equitable relief ordered in ODonnell — can serve as a constitutional safeguard in systems characterized by systemic inertia, mass incarceration, and diminished procedural scrutiny at critical stages. Her remarks highlighted how structural reform may require intentional disruption of entrenched practices where inertia, rather than meaningful judicial oversight, continues to shape the state’s authority to incarcerate.
Makar will publish an essay expanding on these themes, Friction and Systemic Inertia, in the Houston Law Review following the symposium.
Makar’s research focuses on prisoners’ rights and prison law jurisprudence, examining how carceral spaces shape individuals’ orientation to the state and how emerging carceral technologies redefine the boundaries of incarceration. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in the Yale Law Journal, the Harvard Journal of Law and Technology, and the Southern California Law Review, among others.
Prior to joining the academy, Makar was an Open Society Institute Fellow from 2014 to 2016. During her fellowship, she founded the Pipeline to Habeas program, which the Baltimore City Office of the Public Defender continues to use as a model to challenge wrongful pretrial detention of indigent individuals. Her work helped secure the pretrial release of 101 protestors arrested following the death of Freddie Gray in police custody. In recognition of her advocacy advancing bail reform in Maryland, Makar received the Baltimore City Bar Association’s 2017 Public Interest Attorney of the Year Award.
Through her scholarship and advocacy, Professor Makar continues to contribute to national conversations on constitutional safeguards for prisoners’ rights.