Higher Stalking Bail a Good 1st Step

Ventura County residents unlucky enough to become the targets of violent stalkers will be a little bit safer thanks to action taken by a committee of judges.

The judges voted to raise the county’s mandatory bail in cases of felony stalking to $100,000 from the current level of $20,000.

The action came in response to the Dec. 9 death of Vicki Shade, a 37-year-old Ventura hairstylist and mother of three who was stabbed to death by her former boyfriend, Roland Sheehan. Sheehan was in jail on charges of felony stalking and making terrorist threats, related to his harassment of Shade. He had violated restraining orders 15 times. Yet he was released after posting $20,000 bail.

He then went to Shade’s house, broke in and held her hostage for nine hours before stabbing her to death with a butcher knife as SWAT officers rushed into the room. Police shot and killed Sheehan when he reportedly lunged at them with the knife.

As local law enforcement officials analyzed what went wrong in this tragic case, they noted that Ventura County’s bail for these offenses is far below that charged elsewhere in Southern California: $50,000 in Orange County, $100,000 in San Diego County and $150,000 in Los Angeles County.

Higher bail makes it less likely that a person who is making violent threats will get loose to carry them out.

The judicial committee’s action is a positive step toward improving the protection the law gives people, most frequently women, whose partners are threatening them with domestic violence. Other steps should follow.

The committee of judges will meet next month to conduct its annual review of the county’s bail schedule. It should make a similar adjustment in the mandatory bail for felony spousal abuse. That crime commands bail of $50,000 in Los Angeles County, $25,000 in Orange County, $15,000 in Santa Barbara County but only $10,000 in Ventura County.

Ventura County should not lag behind its neighbors in viewing domestic violence as a serious crime.