Bail Bonds Essay Research Paper Criminal Law free essay sample

Bail Bonds Essay, Research Paper Condemnable Law term paper 17OCT00 Bail Chemical bonds The rule of bond is basic to our system of justness and its pattern every bit old as English jurisprudence itself. When the disposal of condemnable justness was in its babyhood, apprehension for serious offense meant imprisonment without preliminary hearing and long periods of clip could happen between apprehensiveness and the reaching of the King # 8217 ; s Justices to keep tribunal. It was hence a affair of extreme importance to a individual under apprehension to be able to obtain a probationary release from detention until his instance was called. This was besides the desideratum of the medieval sheriff, the representative of the Crown in condemnable affairs, who wore many chapeaus including that of bailing officer. He preferred the conditional release of individuals under apprehension to their imprisonment for several grounds: it was less dearly-won and troublesome ; the gaols were easy to transgress and under so bing jurisprudence the Jailer was hanged if a captive escaped ; the gaols were unsafe to wellness, and as there was no proviso for equal nutrient, many captives perished before test was held Purpose Of Bail # 8211 ; 2Influenced by factors such as these, the sheriff was inclined to dispatch himself of duty for individuals expecting test by passing them into the personal detention of their friends and relations. Indeed, in its rigorous sense, the word # 8220 ; bail # 8221 ; is used to depict the individual who agrees to move assuredly for the accused on his release from gaol and becomes responsible for his ulterior visual aspect in tribunal at the clip designated. As surety, the bond was apt under the jurisprudence for any default in the accused # 8217 ; s visual aspect. Purpose Of Bail # 8211 ; 3Between the 13th and 15thcenturies the sheriff # 8217 ; s power to acknowledge to bail was bit by bit vested, by a series of legislative acts, in the justnesss of the peace. In the instance of a individual committed for felony, the justnesss of the peace had the authorization to necessitate, if they thought tantrum, his staying in gaol until the test took topographic point, but, on the other manus, a individual committed for a misdemeanour instance could, at common jurisprudence, insist on being released on bond if he found sufficient sureties. Writing in the mid-1700 # 8217 ; s, Blackstone d escribed the arrest-bail process his twenty-four hours in the undermentioned transition: # 8220 ; When a delinquent is arrested # 8230 ; he ought regularly to be carried before a justness of the peace # 8230 ; If upon # 8230 ; inquiry it obviously appears that either no such offense was committed or that the intuition entertained of the captive as entirely baseless, in such instances merely it is lawful wholly to dispatch him. Otherwise he must be committed to prison or give bond ; that is, put in his securities for his visual aspect to reply the charge against him. This committedness, hence, being merely for safe detention, wherever bond will reply the same purpose it ought to be taken # 8230 ; Bail is # 8230 ; a bringing or bailment of a individual to his sureties, upon their giving ( together with himself ) sufficient security for his visual aspect ; he being supposed to go on in their friendly detention, alternatively of traveling to goal. # 8221 ; The impression of bond pending test was non changed over the centuries. For case, Mr. Justice Robert H. Jackson of the Supreme Court in discoursing its intent said, # 8220 ; The pattern of admittance to bail, as it evolved in Anglo-American jurisprudence, is non a device for maintaining individuals in gaol upon mere accusal until it is found convenient to give them a test. On the contrary, the spirit of the process is to enable them to remain out of gaol until a test has found them guilty. Without this conditional privilege, even those wrongfully accused are punished by a period of imprisonment while expecting test and are handicapped in confer withing advocate, seeking for grounds and informants, and fixing a defence, Admission to bail ever involves a hazard that the accused will take flight. That is a deliberate hazard which the jurisprudence takes as the monetary value of our system of justness The possibility that the accused might fly or conceal must, of class, be squared with the traditional right to freedom pending test. In order to accommodate these conflicting involvements, hence, his release on bond is conditioned upon his giving sensible confidence in one signifier or another that he will look at a certain clip to stand test. In this respect, the Supreme Court has remarked: # 8220 ; Like the ancient pattern of procuring the curses of responsible individuals to stand as sureties for the accused, the modern pattern or necessitating a bond bond or the sedimentation of a amount of money topic to forfeiture serves as an extra confidence of the presence of the accused. # 8221 ; Modern legislative acts, which regulate bond process in item today and vary from legal power to legal power, provide that an accused may be set at autonomy pending test in several ways. For illustration, he might be released without security by holding in composing to look at a specified clip and topographic point, i.e. , on # 8220 ; his ain recognisance # 8221 ; ; or he may put to death a bond with a sedimentation of hard currency or securities in an sum equal to or less than the face sum of the bond ; or he may put to death a bond bond which requires one or more sureties. A bond bond, with sureties, is basically a contract between the authorities on the one side and the accused and his sureties on the other. Under the contract the accused is released into the detention of the sureties on their promise to pay the authorities a stated amount of money if the accused fails to look before the tribunal in conformity with its footings. Historically, the contract of bond, traced to a gradual addition of religion in the award of a surety and the attendant relaxation of existent imprisonment, constitutes one of the first visual aspects of the construct of contract in our jurisprudence. The early contract of bond differed from the modern bond bond in its manner of executing as it was merely a grave admittance of liability by the sureties made in the presence of an officer authorized to take it. No signatures of the bond was required, and it was non necessary for the individual bailed to adhere himself as a party. The project to give up a peculiar amount in a written bond bond came subsequently in the class of clip. The intent of a bond bond with sureties is to see that the accused will look in tribunal at a given clip by necessitating others to presume duty for him on punishment of forfeiture of their belongings. In times past, particularly when the sureties were friends and relations of the accused, it was assumed that due to his personal relationship the menace of forfeiture of the surety # 8217 ; s belongings would function as an effectual hindrance to the accused # 8217 ; s enticement to interrupt the conditions of the bond by flight. On the other manus, it was assumed that this menace would besides animate the surety to maintain close ticker on the accused to forestall his absconding. On a bond bond, the accused and the sureties are the obligors, the accused being the principal, and the authorities as the obliged. In the event the conditions of the bond bond are satisfied, the duty is null: the accused and his sureties are exonerated ; and any hard currency or other securities deposited are returned to them. If there is a breach of the bond bond # 8217 ; s conditions, nevertheless, the duty remains in full force, and the accused and his sureties are apt to the authorities for the amount stated. A forfeiture of the bond will be declared on default ; but in the involvements of justness the forfeiture may be set aside or, if entered, its executing may be stayed or the punishment remitted. For illustration, the resignation of the principal after forfeiture does non dispatch the surety but however the tribunal may have the resignation and remit the punishment in whole or in portion. As in the yesteryear, the sureties on a bond bond in England are still the friends and relations of the accused. Consequently, the relationship between them remains personal and the accused # 8217 ; s natural sense of moral duty to fulfill the conditions of the bond is strong. As a consequence the English experience has been, on the whole, that really few individuals admitted to bail fail to look for trail. In the United States, nevertheless, this stopping point relationship has by and large yielded to a distant impersonal connexion the more duty has become in the chief a fiscal one. More frequently than non the sureties on a bond bond are surety companies and professional bond bondmans who operate on a wide graduated table and charge fees for their services which may non merely be big but besides unretrievable regardless of whether the accused appears. Under the traditional position taken in England, bond is non a mere contract of suretyship and the accused is non allowed to indemnify the bond. In fact it has been held that any agreement between the accused and his sureties to the consequence that he will indemnify if he absconds is so contrary to public policy that it is null as an understanding and, furthermore, is chargeable as a confederacy to corrupt the class of justness. This position contrasts with that taken in the United States where an express understanding by the principal to indemnify the surety on forfeiture of a bond bond is non so regarded. Therefore, in a Supreme Court instance, where the statement was made that it was contrary to public policy to authorise a principal to contract to indemnify his sureties in a condemnable instance since it would destruct the effectual precautions provided by the interested wakefulness of the bond, Mr. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes stated: # 8220 ; The land for declaring the contract invalid rests instead on tradition than on significant worlds of the present twenty-four hours. It is said that # 8230 ; nil should be done to decrease the involvement of the bond in bring forthing the organic structure of his principal. But bail no longer is the # 8220 ; medium # 8221 ; although a hint of the old relation remains in the right to collar. The differentiation between bond and suretyship is reasonably about forgotten. The involvement to bring forth the organic structure of the principal in tribunal is impersonal and entirely monetary. If, as is this instance, the bond was for $ 40,000, that amount was the step of the involvement of anybody # 8217 ; s portion, and it did non affair to the Government what individual finally felt the loss, so long as it had the duty it was content to take. Despite the tenor of the foregoing transition, tribunals still stress the demand for a moral every bit good as fiscal confidence of the accused # 8217 ; s visual aspect in tribunal. For illustration, in a instance where the bond offered was a certified cheque from a person, the Federal Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in necessitating revelation of the beginning of financess on which the cheque was drawn declared: # 8220 ; The giving of security is non the full step of the bond # 8217 ; s duty. It is non the amount of the bond bond that society asks for, but instead the presence of the suspect. If the tribunal lacks assurance in the surety # 8217 ; s aim or ability to procure the visual aspect of a bailed suspect, it may decline its blessing of a bond even though the fiscal standing of the bond is beyond question. # 8221 ;