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From The Police Blotter: Charitable Donations
The presumption of innocence principle applies to jurors. Outside the courtroom, a citizen is free to draw their own conclusions on guilt, or innocence before someone is found guilty, or innocent of a crime by the court. Bail is set to ensure that a defendant that is freed before their trial will show up for the trial.
Oregon is a state that does not allow bail bonds companies. A defendant must make their own arrangements to come up with the money they need to make bail. Some defendants will be refused bail; they may be a flight risk, have a history of FTA (Failure to Appear), or a danger to the community. If bail is set at $100,000 then the defendant must provide 10% of that amount. If the defendant fails to appear in court a family member, or friend that provided the $10,000 is liable for the $90,000 balance. The lesson is this: choose carefully who you endow with bail money.
Chicago is allowing charities to proffer bail money. I have no idea if they’re on the hook for the entire bail amount if their defendant fails to show for trial; Chicago, Cook County, and Illinois are a mystery to me when it comes to the judges and prosecutors, especially in Cook County.
From the Chicago Tribune:
Prosecutors charged 34-year-old Christopher Stewart with being an armed habitual criminal last year after the four-time felon was allegedly caught illegally carrying a handgun. At the time, Stewart’s ex-girlfriend had obtained an order of protection, saying that just days earlier he had shot a pistol into the ground at her 6-year-old son’s birthday party and threatened to kill her. “I should pop you right now b….h,” he shouted, according to her filing.
A charity called The Bail Project posted $5,000 in cash to release Stewart from Cook County Jail. A month later, Stewart was charged with attempted murder after he allegedly set fire to the ex-girlfriend’s apartment while she was inside. Police rescued her as she hung out of a kitchen window.
From the Chicago Tribune:
A $5,000 bail payment is amazingly low for some of these crimes listed in the graph. Either the judges are living in a fantasy world, or the State’s Attorney Office in Cook County is withholding the full rap sheet of some of these criminals, perhaps it is a bit of both. You can click on the link in the essay to read some more stories about individuals these charities have bailed out of jail demanding that Cook County jails should be emptied due to Coronavirus.
Some contributors to the bail fund are anonymous; they refuse to release details on the criminal history of individuals that they have bailed out of jail, citing privacy concerns. One donor who is not anonymous is Richard Branson. Think about that before you book a trip on Virgin Airlines, or purchasing any other product that Virgin offers.
Published in Policing
Well, isn’t that special!
A $5000 bail paid by a non-profit third party seems nuts.
Either there is a (a) a measured financial incentive to appear for trial (aided by the resources likely to be deployed by the for-profit bondsman to aid that outcome) or (b) there is an adequate pre-trial services program to keep an eye on the defendant in lieu of bond or (c) the accused is released on personal recognizance. A tiny bond with no personal liability for the defendant seems rather silly, a feel-good gesture that is not part of a well-thought out policy.
Doesn’t that describe 99% of what our friends on the left propose.
From the Chicago Tribune article that I linked to in the essay:
The year to date stats for Chicago:
Shot & Killed: 143
Shot & Wounded: 618
Total Shot: 761
Total Homicides: 161
I agree. The commercial bail bond system seems to me to put various incentives in the right places.
The bail bondsman is putting his own money at risk when putting up bail, so the bondsman has incentive to understand the risks of helping this particular defendant out. Plus, the bondsman has incentive to keep tabs on the defendant and to ensure he does in fact show up for trial. The defendant and/or the defendant’s family has paid a fee to the bail bondsman for the bondsman’s services, so the defendant and his family have “skin in the game” to also help ensure he shows up for trial. [I do not know if the typical bail bondsman agreement provides recourse against the family for the remainder of the bond if the defendant doesn’t show. If it does, that provides yet more incentive for the family to help ensure the defendant appears.]
A charity is working with donor money, which most charities want to treat properly (they don’t want to keep going back to donors for more money because their bailees keep fleeing). I would hope that if a defendant fails to appear, the charity must pay the full bond to give the charity incentive to help ensure the defendant sdoes in fact appear. But if the charity has put up the bond as an act of charity, neither the defendant nor his family is invested in ensuring the defendant appears for trial. Overall, a charity bail arrangement seems to provide less incentive for people to ensure the defendant appears for trial.
There are some longstanding legitimate concerns about affordability of bail that I think this non-profit program is intended to address. It is just that it kinda misses the mark in terms of incentives. There have been commissions, studies, panels and reforms back and forth for decades about bail. It is nor an easy question especially since as Americans we instinctively reject long pre-trial jail terms when the accused is still presumed innocent.
Court calendars in urban cities are packed with cases. Once a prosecutor charges a defendant they are ready to go to trial. Delaying tactics usually come from the defendant. This is not necessarily the fault of defense attorney’s. Defendants with long rap sheets know how to game the system. They’ll demand a new attorney to slow down the process.
Some defendants are released without bail. The problem is that each case, and each defendant is unique. These bail charities operate on a collective basis. There is no such thing as a collective conscience.
If I were
runningadvising a county court system that was having troubleskimmingmeeting their budget, I might point out that (assuming forfeited bail enriches the court system) multiple small bonds funded by a ‘charity’ might add up to a not insubstantial sum over a year or so.Cook County politics usually exceed my capacity for cynicism. I see no reason to moderate it in this case.
Well, no. The bail bondsman is in fact an insurance agent. In California, at least, the bail bondsman’s license is a type of insurance agent’s license. Bail is a (very expensive) insurance policy, and the bonding company, an insurance company, requires that somebody put up collateral of a value that reflects the amount of bail. Many people who find themselves in jail, charged with serious offenses, say, that call for $100,000 bail don’t have a lot of friends who have those kinds of assets, surprise surprise.