If you have to make an appearance in court, you might feel nervous and stressed out. Your worries will get even double if you know that you have to pay a big amount to get yourself free from jail. Let’s take a look at the significance of bail bonds in criminal offenses.
Orange County bail bonds can lend you a helping hand. They keep you away from facing the worries of being locked up in a jail. They offer a great way to secure your freedom between the court appearances by allowing you to submit the amount for your bail. Hence, bails are pretty important to keep yourself and your loved ones away from going to jail when they don’t have to by paying money to enjoy freedom.
Before you get registered for a bail, you must have complete information about the entire bail process. This article would prove to be an easy guide for you all about the bail bonds. After going through it, you will exactly know what are the bail bonds, how they operate and what you are required to do if any of your loved one has been arrested. You can also pick few smart tricks if you happen to stuck in some complicated situation.
What are the bail bonds?
The word ‘Bail’ is used for someone when someone who is a suspect and has been kept in jail for custody to wait till the court hiring. That suspect may be free from the jail after paying a specific amount set by the judge. This bail happens after the arrest and before the court hearing date. If the suspect appears in court hearing, the money is returned back to the party who has paid that amount. The bail amount can be termed as ‘release fee’.
Bail bond agency
Bail bond agency is a company which utilizes money as an object of surety for the person who is accused of a criminal offense or is a suspect in court and will appear in the court hearing on a future set date. It is most likely that banks and other financial institutions do not offer the bail amounts to the party for bail. The bail bond agencies are into the business of taking risk for the suspect that he will appear in the next court hearing. They held themselves responsible to help the suspect. Usually the close family members of the accused work with a bail bond agency to get their loved one out of jail in few hours after the arrest.
Know few basic facts about bail bonds
Conducting bails is not a common legal practice except in USA and Philippines. If you talk about USA, Maine, Illinois, Nabraska, Wisconsin, Kentucky, Massachusetts and Washington DC are the places where you won’t find the practice of bail bonds at all.
Few states set their judges work on the amounts of bail for a particular crime. They issue a list of charges according to the severity of the crime. Few of the states allow their judges to determine the amount while considering the flight risk of the accused.
Who has the right to apply for a bail?
If a person has committed a non-capital crime, he is entitled to apply for a bail. There are different laws which apply on accused while considering the kind of crime they have committed. Few laws are applied on accused in the court custody until they appear in the court for hearing if they are prone to flight risk or may be dangerous for the public at large. Only such category of accused is not eligible to apply for a bail. Everyone else except the dangerous kind of accused may apply for a bail. Only the amounts of bail will vary.
How a bail bond agency works?
The bail bong agent will provide instant help by financing money for the payment of your bail of the accused quickly. When a person is got arrested, he will get a court hearing date from the court. It depends on the person and his family to pay the amount of bail to get him released from the jail between the arrest and the court hearing date. A bail bond company steps in to provide an instant help as a third party.
When you have hired a bail agent and they have registered for a bail, it literally depends on the bondsman to ensure the accused to appear in next court hearing. However, if the accused refuses to appear the bond agent will try to get the accused to the court. The court gives a grace time also for the accused to present him in front of court within the given grace period. If he appears, the bail money is returned back to the bondman.
If the accused has a hostile attitude and doesn’t appear in the court even within the grace period, the court will take the money paid by the bond agency. Now the bonds agency will recover that amount from the accused family or friend which was acting on behalf of the accused. Therefore, it is highly important that the accused appears in the court to keep him out of trouble.
Bonds types
When it comes to paying bonds, they are basically of three categories.
- Cash bond
- Property Bond
- Federal bond
- Surety bond
- Citation release
- Immigration bail bond
- Personal Recognizance Release
Cash Bond
Cash bonds are an easiest way of payment. The accused pays the full bail amount to the court either through credit card or check.
Property Bond
This property bond is applied in case if you have not enough cash to pay for the bail. You present your property for your bail and the court may seize your property if you have not appeared in the court.
Federal Bail Bond
If the accused has committed a federal or interstate crime, a federal bail would be applied then. This involves a bit higher bail amount and an extra surety is required in federal bails too. The crimes which come under federal bails are kidnapping, fraud, hate crimes and bank robbery etc.
Surety bonds
In surety bonds, the bail agent steps in as a third party to pay on your behalf provided with the surety that the accused will appear in next court hearing.
Citation release
A citation release is a kind of notice given by an officer who has arrested the accused. After taking that notice, the accused is permitted to go home without being taken to jail. Citation release notice only ensures the accused to appear in next court hearing. This type of release is only given to people who commit minor crimes.
Immigration bail bond
This type of bail helps those criminals who are detained for any immigration reasons. It acts just like a surety bail bond. It may involve relatively a high level of surety and bail bond amount as compared to other bails as it involve federal crimes.
Personal Recognizance Release
This kind of release is given to that accused that is not dangerous to a community or is not on flight risk. If the accused is guilty of a minor crime, he may not have to pay the bail amount. Only personal recognizance release will free him.
If you have got arrested, what should be your modus operandi (way of action)?
Bye now you must have got a sound grip on the topic of bail bonds and its types, so should exactly know what you should do to tackle the situation. If you don’t have money for bail to pay in cash, it’s a high time that you call a bail bond agency. The information which you need to have is:
First Step:
- Full name of the person who is arrested
- Which jail he is in.
- His report/booking number.
- The charges he is accused of.
- Any more information you can collect related to his arrest.
Step 2
Get your paper work completed
Your bail bond agency will require you to sign on some documents for securing their services. The paperwork usually involves that you are paying amount to your bail agent as some set percentage of the total sum of bail and signing off on any related surety required for the bail bond.
Step 3
Posting the bail
After you are done with signing off papers, your bail agent will see you at the jail to post the bail for the release of your family member, friend or a loved one.
Step 4
Releasing from jail
If the jail is crowded, the process of posting the bail can take a bit more time varying from half an hour to few more hours to get you a quick release from the jail.
What to do now?
When the accused has been released from the jail, it is very important that he/she must appear in the next court hearing on the given date. It is important that she/she meets the conditions of the bail set by the court. Here are few tips to make sure that accused don’t bring hurdles to the bail like:
✔ Keep him/her feel positive to lower the flight risk.
✔ Keep a close connection with the accused so he should not feel left alone.
✔ Distract him from being with bad influences which have lead him/her to face such difficult situation.
✔ Provide the maximum information about the accused and his whereabouts to your bail bond agent so that if he skips from court hearing, they can easily him.
✔ Make sure that the accused also understand the bad consequences if he skips the bail.
In case of absence in court hearing, the bail bond agent would have to pay the full amount to court as agreed earlier. The agent would attempt to bring the defendant back to the court to get their money back within 90 days. If there was any collateral signed before, the agent is eligible to get that as well. So adherence to the bail conditions is very important in any case for the benefit of the accused, his family and for the bail bong agency.
I wanted to understand why a bail bond was used to free a character in a movie I watched from jail. I never knew that these bonds pay for their bail amount if they can’t afford it. I’ll probably consider these tips if ever I end up landing in jail.
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