Time to Reform Practice of Cash Bonds
Share this article
ADVERTISEMENT
(comments below)
Comments
Comments
5 responses to “Time to Reform Practice of Cash Bonds”
-
If there is a significant drop in people showing up voluntarily for court dates, or some person out on his own recognizance does something stupid, this may be a short experiment. But it seems worth trying. Just about everything involving money in our society, to use Jim’s phrase, “disproportionately burdens the poor.”
I think Ms. Ogunkeyede has a point. Yes, some bail decisions are made by magistrates but in those cases – I think, not my area – it is easier to reverse if the judge is willing to do something else.
In those instances will the local prosecutor stand by silently, or actively advocate for trusting the defendant to come to court without a cash bond? Fair question. -
Dear Jim,
Why was posting bond first established? We should try to understand the history and rationale of posting bonds and the likely results before embarking on such an experiment. What if the Left wants to abolish prices on items and make everything a matter of “donation”, i.e. trust, should we do it? I think this and the enfranchising of felons is going to go very badly. We have denigrated our ancestors to such an extent that we are getting to the point where even cannibalism and incest will be tried since we have so convinced ourselves of their foolishness with all sorts of taboos. The past two or three generations have done a complete “mind dump” on all traditional knowledge and experience. I guess this is the horror of “beginning the world anew.” A land-use version of this was the totally zoned city and suburb with “separated uses,” complete with auto dependence. At the time, the Forward Thinkers promised it would be “Progress.” Seems like one can sell just about anything as long as your audience is convinced it is all part of “Progress,” becoming self-aware “gods.” And such thinking goes back to the Revolution, in one form or other. And everyone is just so free and easy with their opinions, too.
It doesn’t have to be this way, but with the proud it does. Full disclosure: My wife and I foolishly posted the bond of someone who later “jumped.”Sincerely,
Andrew
-
I don’t think I fully understand the law with respect to this – although posting bond seems like it has been around awhile.
It’s also true that a lot of things disproportionately affect the poor – but that should not mean it’s okay for govt policies and the criminal justice system to join that crowd especially when ultimately it means people lose their jobs or end up costing taxpayers money for unemployment/entitlements/prison.
Finally, people DO make bad choices – but it’s not just the poor that do – it’s just that the poor are closer to the edge when they do…. we have lots and lots of folks who have bad credit or have lots of traffic tickets that are not “poor”.
-
My understanding of this area is pretty much limited to watching reruns of Dog, the Bounty Hunter. However, I think the following are points to consider:
1. More affluent people are assigned higher bonds. While that doesn’t help somebody who can’t afford any bond price I think there is an effort to make the bond big enough to hurt.
2. Bonds are largely posted by bail bond outfits. While these organizations certainly have a reputation for shadiness they also provide a service. Mainly, they lend a large percentage of the bond price to people accused of crimes and go find those people if they don’t show up for trial. Effectively, the accused finance their own potential retrieval. Isn’t the alternative more marshals, police, etc to track and find the people who inevitably decide not to show up for trial?
I certainly get the idea of “innocent until proven guilty” and putting people in jail based only on being accused is something of a violation of that principle. However, “ensuring the domestic tranquility” is also a goal of government and putting dangerous people back on the street seems to violate that principle.
-
Let us start with the basic premise that it is really expensive to be poor, to wit, the prices charged in inner city markets, the cost of bond. etc.
That being said, it is my experience that the people you least expect to be able to post bond somehow manage to come up with it if they are innocent, were only riding in the car where the drugs were found, or otherwise have a case where it’s reasonably certain that the Commonwealth won’t be able to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt. Otherwise, they just sit in jail and collect jail credit against the time they are reasonably certain to get from the judge. There are many cases in which the attorney, with the agreement of the client, doesn’t even bother to file a bond motion. Further, the guy who jumps bond is usually not the guy who is innocent. The innocent (or at least less guilty) guy is usually confident (albeit sometimes mistakenly, but that’s another discussion) that the system will exonerate him.
Consideration of the issue of cash bonds usually gets hung up in high blown principles instead of what happens on the ground. No matter what system you have that is consistent with the notion of innocent until proven guilty, there will be costs associated. The question is: who bears the cost? Is it the taxpayer who must fund the pre-trial services department that takes the place of the bondsman in supervising the defendant? What is the cost of running a drug court that puts the man back on the street? Are the demonstrably better than jail?
It’s fine to have the discussion, but politically, on both sides of the aisle, there is not much percentage in spending a lot of time on these issues.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.