163
Explain why the US bail system is not insane
(lemmy.today)
Crimes exist for the poor. Simple as.
Just so we’re clear, bail is a temporary release from imprisonment while you’re awaiting trial. And the bail money is a deposit that you get back when you attend trial.
The purpose of lodging the bail money is to give you an incentive to attend trial, and the judge will consider your income when they decide the bail amount. A rich person might have to post more bail than a poorer person.
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.
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
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.
Thanks, this is useful information for when they find the evidence.
It is biased towards the rich. Much of American society and laws are biased towards the rich or biased towards large corporations.
So it is insane, but since it's just as insane as the rest of the system, you aren't supposed to notice.
Well it's not insane because the laws in the us are made to be chains for the poor and spiderwebs for the rich. This is on purpose.
The lies we tell ourselves to cope, and the "justifications" the powerful use to keep those laws in place are what's insane.
The 8th amendment has a clause that disallows "excessive bail". In Stack v. Boyle, the Supreme Court found this to mean "that a defendant's bail cannot be set higher than an amount that is reasonably likely to ensure the defendant's presence at the trial." So it follows that IN THEORY, bail is SUPPOSED to be set at an amount that is consistent with the defendant's financial resources (including, it would also follow, increasing the amount for more wealthy people to ensure that it has the same proportionate effect on the defendant's decision-making process).
Of course, that rule is just a bunch of meaningless words if nobody enforces it... and guess what, the main way to enforce this is by bringing a suit against the government alleging that they violated the rule. So IN PRACTICE (speculation warning here, I'm just some guy), I would imagine that they just set bail schedules at a level where anyone who can afford to pay won't be able to win an "excessive bail" lawsuit, and anyone who can't afford to pay it will also probably not be able to afford the cost of that lawsuit.
And something tells me that we aren't likely to see a wealthy person suing the government for not setting bail high enough for them.
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.
It's one of those things that mostly works because there aren't many rich people.
Since crimes committed by rich folks are mostly white collar, they're rarely a danger to society if let back onto the streets.
It's one of those statistical solutions that doesn't really do enough thinking about why the statistics shake out that way.
That said, there is a gradient, rich folks can make bail for petty offenses but for violent ones judges may be inclined to just deny bail purely because the rich prick would be able to post it easily and the crime they're accused of warrants not letting them back out.
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.
It is, I don't think it can be explained as "not insane"
Logically it favors the rich, just like every other aspect of society.
So I guess it's no more insane than so many other aspects of society, like how Enron Musk can get paid more by Tesla than every single worker working there.
Illinois just got rid of cash bail and it's working pretty well so far, so at least there are folks there who see how crazy it is too.
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.
It's not insane, just very classist
I don’t see why people with money should get benefits in the legal system?
Because they are rich, duh!
Isn't it one of the basic principles in that legal system that people with more money get more rights?
Yes. Better rights, too.
It's just as insane as asking this question on Lemmy.
No offense, but you'd have better luck on Reddit, which has at least a larger number of users who don't veer as far left as the average Lemmy user, as well as decent numbers of actual conservative and MAGAs.
But yes, like the rest of the commenters here, I agree it is insane, prejudicial, and one of the most clear cut examples of systemic racism.
Back when VICE was still somewhat of a journalistic organization, they did a pretty good piece on it.
It's very interesting that it's just there, out in the open, and most people never seem to think about it.
I don’t see why people with money should get benefits in ~~the legal~~ a capitalist system.
I agree cash bail is insane, however, reframing the problem should help make it clear what is really going on
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?
Creating businesses by rich people with the use of overworking people getting minimum wage is defined as a good human... A pimp is then a person with a heart of gold 🏆🏆🏆
I like how you redefined what a "better person" is to mean more like "better company resource".
If you are a company resource then you are a poor, and not an economic engine. True riches create companies and employ poors.
this post was submitted on 05 Oct 2024
163 points (95.0% liked)
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