Seven months after a federal judge ruled that San Francisco's bail system is unconstitutional, nothing has changed.

Police can still jail arrestees for up to 48 hours before they reach arraignment, the hearings where judges either set bail or release them without it.

While jailed pretrial, those arrestees who can afford to pay an amount preset by the county bail schedule are still allowed to do so, while those who can't afford to pay are forced to wait for a hearing.

A new system, tentatively agreed to by civil rights litigators and the local sheriff's office, would put everyone on an equal playing field, according to Equal Justice Under Law executive director Phil Telfeyan.

Blocking its implementation, however, is a lack of approval from the board of supervisors, the elected local legislature of San Francisco City and County.

"The board of supervisors can meet and approve this at any time," Telfeyan said. "Reform is long overdue."

He would know, having filed the underlying class action nearly four years ago on behalf of two women named Riana Buffin and Crystal Patterson.

Charged with grand theft and conspiracy at 19, Buffin was offered a $30,000 preset bail bond she could not afford and detained for 46 hours before being released after prosecutors dropped the chargers. The needless stint in jail led to her losing a job at a nearby airport.

Patterson, then 29, received a preset $150,000 bail on assault charges and managed to get out with the help of a bail bond agent. Like Buffin, charges were dropped within two days of arrest, but Patterson spent months paying off a $15,000 debt, plus interest.

The class action sought a permanent block on wealth-based detention and was bound for trial until, in August 2018, then-California Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill eliminating cash bail.

All parties agreed the new law made a bench trial unnecessary, and U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers ultimately ruled that the schedules are unconstitutional in March. Her ruling stated she'd block their use pending a hearing on how to word her order.

Determining the wording, however, is where things got sticky. Telfeyan's team argued for an injunction requiring a new process that would allow those who have the money to pay bail and leave, while those who don't could get a waiver and also leave.

But Sheriff Vicki Hennessy's office maintained that the case was about bail schedules, not a complete pretrial processing overhaul. As a result, the sheriff said the injunction should only block the use of bail schedules, not grant "a mass release of arrestees."

Meanwhile the California Bail Agents Association, which had intervened in the case in 2015 after Hennessy declined to defend the schedules, argued against both proposals. The bail group, which successfully lobbied for a 2020 referendum on the state's bail ban, said eliminating schedules entirely would exceed the scope of the class action by also affecting those who could've paid.

The dispute went to mediation, and by mid-July the parties said an agreement "in principle" had been reached.

But before that deal could be revealed, the San Francisco Superior Court told the sheriff's office not to agree until the state decided whether to provide $13.8 million for the 24-hour, 7-days-a week-staff and resources that it believed a new pretrial bail system would require.

The request was denied a few weeks later in a move that Telfeyan said surprised him. He noted that the state Judicial Council granted funding to several other large counties, such as Los Angeles and Sacramento, for changes required by the new state bail law.

"I don't have any insight into their judicial council decision-making," he added, "but they were aware of this lawsuit."

In the wake of the state's decision, the sheriff's office ended up sticking with its original plan: no bail schedules, no new system for dealing with the expected increase in pretrial detainees. The plaintiffs, on the other hand, called for a plan in which the bail schedules were still used but all those who couldn't pay could be released without bail within 12 hours.

Overcoming their differences, the parties pitched a compromise proposal Aug. 30. Instead of bail schedules, jails would use a risk assessment tool and several other factors to determine if arrestees should be released without bail or see a judge.

If 18 hours — or up to 30 hours, for those police fear will threaten society or flee — pass without a hearing before a judge, the arrestees would be released without bail.

On Sept. 3, Judge Rogers granted the proposed injunction with one key condition: It cannot take effect until the local legislature says it will pay for the associated costs.

An attorney for the city declined to comment on whether the board of supervisors would sign off. But American Bail Coalition executive director Jeff Clayton said it's unlikely, considering they could be held liable for paying attorney fees on a case that's dragged on for four years.

"They have to fund the use of the algorithm on all these cases, they actually have to spend money," he said. "And why should they be liable for their state judges following the law? They could say, 'No, we're not paying.'"

He added that, under the proposal, people who used to be able to pay for release within a few hours could be stuck waiting to find out the bail amount for up to 30 hours, much longer than the 12.6-hour average pretrial incarceration under the old schedules.

"It could triple or quadruple the amount of time that people, who would've gotten the same bail under the schedule, would get out," he said. "And it has the potential to increase how those who can't afford to post bond are going to have to sit there and wait. It just makes no sense."

But Telfeyan said that, if the deal is implemented, advocates will be able to monitor how the system affects people and whether sheriffs routinely push for 30 hour-detentions. He also maintained that it would allow the "vast majority" of arrestees to get out much sooner than before.

The board has until Thanksgiving Day to make its decision. If it won't pay, it's up to Judge Rogers to decide how bail works in San Francisco going forward.

--Editing by Kelly Duncan.

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Correction: This story previously misstated a quote from Jeff Clayton of the American Bail Coalition. The error has been corrected.