Innocent and in Jail: How COVID-19 Is Robbing North Texans of Their Rights Data show that 80 percent of those who have died from COVID-19 in county jails were not convicted of a crime. By Will Maddox Published in FrontBurner December 14, 2020 10:25 am With trials paused due to the pandemic, who is in jail and who is not has more to do with who can afford bail than who is guilty of a crime. It is another existing trend exacerbated by the lengths governments are going to slow the spread of the coronavirus. Even before the pandemic, about 70 percent of the roughly 5,000 people held in the Lew Sterrett Justice Center were only there because they couldn’t afford to post bail.