No Stupid Questions

And since bail is generally set at the discretion of a judge (I'm sure some jurisdictions have limitations, and others just "guidelines"), it can be increased based on the perceived heinousness of the crime or in some cases outright denied entirely.

cannot be set higher than an amount that is reasonably likely to ensure the defendant’s presence at the trial

That is a sentence that you can really roll over in your head. It does not necessarily also mean an amount within the resources of the defendant. I watch a lot of hearings, and something I've seen at least a few times is a set of allegations and past facts (usually something like multiple failures to appear in the past, and/or fleeing from police) in a situation where the actual charge being bailed on has a statutory requirement that bail be offered. The judge doesn't want to let the person out on bail, so therefore sets the bail at $1 million or something which is functionally the same thing as not giving them bail.

Usually this triggers a motion for a hearing about the bail amount by the defense lawyer to argue down the amount, but if the court date on the charge is earlier than court date for the motion, it becomes a moot issue.

This avoids the whole premise of it though. It is supposed to be if they are a threat to not showin, but mostly a threat to the public as well, you set no bail. Non violent crimes make 0 sense to have bail on. If you don't attend there is a warrant placed for your arrest whether or not you paid bail. Also, ONLY rich people get all of their money back. The majority of the population posts bail using a bail bondsmen, so if they set your bail at $3000, you pay a bail bondman $300 to get out of jail until the court case (which will take months). You do not get that $300 dollars, the bondsmen gets it when you show up. If you do NOT show up, the bail bond company hires a bounty hunter to come after you, on top of the warrant for your arrest often times.

So you get pulled over for an accusation, are "innocent" until proven guilty, but either are forced to pay money to gain freedom, or are placed in jail until getting decided "innocent" as you already were

Thanks, this is useful information for when they find the evidence.

I think a lot of people misunderstand because in so many TV shows and movies it's a trope for someone to get in trouble and be bailed out. The fact that they've got a court case to attend and that's not the end of it is often left out.

Bail is not money you get back. It's money that a bail bondsman doesn't have to fork over if you dont show.

Either you are so rich that the opportunity cost of tieing up the whole amount is more than the fee (so you just pay the bond fee) or you don't have enough and need to ask someone to lend it to yoy (that is, you pay the bond.)

New York tried to largely ban cash bail (becaue its essentially just a way to lock up the poor), but because of Republicans and police unions (i repeat myself) who whined about offenses while out on bail, the state poked a bunch of holes in it instead of making pre-trial detention easier.

Cash bail is ALWAYS indefensible. If someone is so dangerous to civic order they need to be detained pre-trial, then no amount of money should get them out of it.

The last time I saw this question asked on reddit, the OP thought paying bail was an alternative to serving prison time if you’re found guilty of a crime.

Haha that's funny :) I can actually see this happening in a future America though. The love of money is obscene.

And this is why stuff should be defined in terms of day's earnings to provide scaling. If an ultra-rich person gets jailed and has to post 20 billion dollars in bail, they can't treat jail as a minor inconvenience.

The big white collar crimes are far more of a danger to society than many of the so-called blue collar crimes. Massive pollution leading to global warming, which impacts billions of people around the globe, that's high impact, and that's 100% white collar.

Or pick something that's not as dramatic. Pick the bank collapse in the US 15 years ago, where many people lost their homes but we didn't see finance experts get locked up even though they created a massive catastrophe for the country and had to get bailed out by the government. But of course we would lock up someone for stealing an orange, or breaking a car window, because somehow those are more dangerous.

Or let's get even smaller scale. Let's just talk about wage theft. If my boss steals thousands of dollars from my paycheck, as she did many years ago, there's zero chance she's going to get locked up. But if I were to steal $20 from the cash register, the police might take me away in handcuffs.

And republicans (or, at least one, in my district) are campaigning here on how cashless bail is letting criminals go free.

Cashless bail isn’t letting criminals go free any more than cash-based bail was. I am just as safe. There is nothing to see here, except a more level playing field for all.

Why do the republicans in charge hate people so much? I don’t think their constituents hate people nearly as much as the leaders.

We all agree that the bond system functions. The question is whether it's discriminatory, and data shows that it is, which is why it's no longer used in some places. It's not only the corrupt judges, it's the judges. It's not only the judges, it's the cops who know that the judges will do their thing. You can beat the rap but you can't beat the ride, as they say, and this is one piece of it.

And suppose you get arrested. Now you want to post bond, but part of that involves pretrial release conditions, which would ordinarily be a violation of your constitutional rights, but if you agree to them, then they're acceptable. And what's your real option here? Get locked up until the trial? Then you can't work and you lose your house and your car and your family. So you get onerous conditions imposed on you, assumed guilty until proven innocent, and somehow it's supposed to be consistent with the Bill of Rights. We all know it's not, but that's no matter, because the appeals courts are down with it, and nobody can stop them.

No, crimes exist for whoever isn't in power. There are several crimes that can only be committed by rich people, such as those related to banking and the stock market, formation of cartels* and monopolistic/anti-competitive practices, etc. But conveniently the criminals are only prosecuted when they are the political or commercial opponents of whoever happens to be in charge at the time.

*Not the drug kind, the "a small group of companies with a combined market majority conspires to fix prices while pretending to compete with each other" kind

Yes. Better rights, too.

Because being rich is measurable evidence that you are a better person than a poor. You have more ability to spend money, powering the economic engine, and capital to fund new ventures, either directly by starting businesses and employing people or indirectly through savings and investments.

A rich person in jail objectively harms society.

Maybe if we ate the rich and distributed their assets it would be an alternative?

I feel like the other answers undercut the message that you were trying to deliver. Users here are quite clear about when they're describing their own opinions versus when they're describing how a system theoretically works. Nobody is getting tricked about anything.

It's very interesting that it's just there, out in the open, and most people never seem to think about it.