Third Circuit Revives Challenge to Lancaster County Bail Hearings

The seven plaintiffs appeared at separate preliminary arraignments in Lancaster County in 2022 and 2023. Each appeared by video from a police station or Lancaster County Prison. None had counsel. The proceedings typically last only a few minutes and are neither recorded nor transcribed.

The plaintiffs allege that magisterial district judges imposed cash bail without asking about the Rule 523 factors, including financial status. All seven remained detained pending trial because they could not pay.

The Fourteenth Amendment claims based on those allegations will now return to federal court. In its precedential decision in Hartmann v. Chudzik, issued July 31, 2026, the Third Circuit vacated the district court’s decision to abstain from the plaintiffs’ due process and equal protection claims. It did not decide whether Lancaster County’s practices were unconstitutional. It also left in place the dismissal of the plaintiffs’ Sixth Amendment claim.

The panel divided over what federal review of the remaining claims would require. Judge Patty Shwartz, joined by Judge Marjorie Rendell, concluded that a federal court could resolve a discrete constitutional question without supervising individual bail hearings. Judge Peter Phipps believed that enforcing the requested relief would force federal judges to reconstruct those hearings and review the conduct of the state judges who presided over them.

Counsel at the Preliminary Arraignment

The panel agreed that the Sixth Amendment right to counsel attached at the preliminary arraignment, when the charges were read and bail was set. It nevertheless held that counsel did not have to be present at that proceeding.

The court emphasized the preliminary arraignment’s limited scope. No prosecutor appeared, and the magisterial district judge could not question the accused about the charges. The judge read the charges, advised the accused of the right to counsel, and made an initial bail decision. The court found no trial-like confrontation that required a lawyer’s presence.

Pennsylvania also permits a defendant to seek review of the initial bail decision at any time, including at the preliminary hearing. That hearing must be scheduled within fourteen days, although postponements can extend the time a defendant remains in custody before review occurs. The panel held that pretrial detention, standing alone, did not make the preliminary arraignment a critical stage.

The court distinguished Betschart v. Oregon, which involved a bail hearing at which witnesses could testify, evidence and mitigating facts could be presented, alternatives to detention could be proposed, and the accused could address the court. The proceedings described in the complaint had none of those features.

The Third Circuit therefore affirmed the dismissal of the Sixth Amendment claim.

The Fourteenth Amendment Claims

The district court dismissed the Sixth Amendment claim in 2023. After later denying the defendants’ second motion to dismiss the due process and equal protection claims, it raised Younger abstention on its own. In August 2025, it declined to hear those claims because it concluded that the requested relief would intrude into Pennsylvania’s criminal proceedings.

The Third Circuit majority disagreed. The plaintiffs do not seek to stop their prosecutions or affect the determination of guilt. They challenge the basis for their detention while those prosecutions continue. Whether a judge considered a defendant’s financial circumstances in setting bail cannot be raised as a defense to the criminal charge, and each prosecution would proceed regardless of the outcome of the bail challenge.

The plaintiffs seek a declaration that the challenged practices violate the Fourteenth Amendment. They also seek an injunction preventing the Lancaster County Prison warden from detaining people on cash bail unless the issuing judge has conducted the required inquiry, including consideration of ability to pay.

The majority concluded that a federal court could consider that request without taking control of the underlying prosecutions. It relied on Gerstein v. Pugh, Stewart v. Abraham, and Conover v. Montemuro to support federal review of a pretrial issue that would not halt the criminal case. On abstention, the decision places the Third Circuit alongside the Ninth and Eleventh Circuits, and at odds with the Fifth and Second Circuits, in similar bail challenges.

The Dispute Over Enforcement

The majority described the case as presenting a yes-or-no question: whether the Constitution requires magisterial district judges to consider the Rule 523 factors when making initial bail decisions. It rejected the premise that the plaintiffs were asking a federal judge to inspect individual arraignments for subjective adequacy.

That distinction separated Hartmann from O’Shea v. Littleton, in the majority’s view. The requested relief in O’Shea reached several stages of state criminal proceedings and would have required continuing federal supervision. The Hartmann plaintiffs challenge one part of the pretrial process, and their criminal cases would continue regardless of the result.

Judge Phipps rejected that distinction. He read O’Shea to bar federal supervision of each challenged practice, including the setting of bail without regard to a defendant’s circumstances. The fact that the plaintiffs in O’Shea challenged additional practices did not, in his view, make its ruling any less controlling here.

He also distinguished Gerstein and Stewart. The plaintiffs in those cases had been detained without the judicial proceedings they sought. Each Hartmann plaintiff received a bail hearing. Their claim concerns what the judges did, or failed to do, during those hearings.

For Judge Phipps, that difference made recurring federal review unavoidable. If a detainee asserted that a judge had failed to consider ability to pay, a federal court might need testimony from the detainee about what occurred. The state judge might then testify in response. Repeated disputes of that kind, he concluded, would amount to the continuing federal audit forbidden by O’Shea.

The absence of an official record gives that disagreement practical force. A general injunction could state what an initial bail inquiry must include. But if compliance were later disputed, there would be no official recording or transcript to consult. The majority concluded that the case did not call for hearing-by-hearing review. Judge Phipps believed that enforcement would eventually require it.

The Remand

The due process and equal protection claims now return to the district court. The plaintiffs must prove that the challenged practices occurred and that they violated the Fourteenth Amendment. The defendants may contest both the allegations and the scope of any relief.

The Third Circuit did not invalidate cash bail, require counsel at preliminary arraignments, order anyone’s release, or decide what financial inquiry the Constitution demands. No injunction has issued.

The immediate result is narrower: the plaintiffs may pursue their Fourteenth Amendment claims in federal court. If they prevail and obtain relief, the district court will have to decide how to enforce its order. That task may determine whether the case remains a general constitutional challenge or requires the hearing-by-hearing review that Judge Phipps anticipated.