Get Out on Bail, Don't Pass Go

Bail bonds allow a person who has been arrested and accused of a criminal act to be released on a high dollar bail without mortgaging their house in the process. A professional bail bondsman is usually a company or person who acts as a surety in order for the defendant to be released pending trial.

And while the accused is supposed to be presumed innocent until proven guilty that is not exactly how the court system works. For one thing, once arrested, the accused is processed into jail and held until the preliminary hearing. Certainly there is no assumption of innocence for a defendant who may end up waiting twenty four hours after their arrest for a hearing. And if arrested on a Friday night or on the weekend that twenty four hour wait gets even longer since a defendant won’t see the inside of a court until Monday.

Bail, the magic word to getting out of jail is something a lawyer won’t even be able to get for a client until after the preliminary hearing is held. The Judge will decide if the defendant is a flight risk at the hearing and if so, bail will either be denied or set incredibly high.

Even if the accused isn’t considered a flight risk, most bail amounts are set too high for the average person to come up with. Bail bondsmen make their living by posting the bail bonds amount and ensuring their client show up for their court date.
The actual bail bonds amount is set by several different factors including the type of charge, the defendant’s criminal history, and their ties to the community. Even if a bail bondsman does make the bail amount, they can revoke their bond anytime if they want to. If you have been following the ongoing Casey Anthony murder trial you probably remember she was charged with the murder of her two year old daughter and initially a bail bondsman put up her bail but later revoked it.
If a client decides to jump bail, a judge will issue a bench warrant for their arrest and the police and the bail bondsman will be looking for them for jumping bail. Bondsmen don’t get their bail bonds back if they don’t get their client back. And if a defendant is arrested on a bench warrant for jumping bail, they will likely be sitting in a jail cell waiting for their trial and for the trial itself.

In the long run bail bondsmen help to ensure the justice system works by keeping defendants out of jail until they are actually tried and found guilty. Without bondsmen any person who lacked the high resources to make bail would be forced to serve time long before their guilt was even determined by a court of law.