As the title says, I’ve never comprehended how someone who has been charged with a serious crime can afford to pay a million $+ bond. Do they get that money back? Does it stay in the court? I just have no clue about what happens to all that dough.
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1. Yes, you get the money back so long as you don’t run away.
2. Some places let you use property as a bond so you could use a home as collateral instead of having to put it all up in cash.
3. If a judge has given a $1,000,000 bond to someone who isn’t wealthy then they fully intend for that person to stay in jail until their case is resolved. The law may say a person is entitled to a bail even if the judge doesn’t want to grant it, so the judge simply sets an unreasonably high one.
4. You can pay a bail bondsman approximately 10%-15% to put up the money instead of putting up your own money. However, you never get this back.
When someone gets a huge bail, its generally one of two things 1) They’re rich, so they can pay the bail (or can get a bail bond for it, which we’ll get to). 2)The point is that they can’t pay it and have to stay in jail. This all also assumes the crime is serious enough to warrant an extremely high bail, and that the judge feels if you do post bail, you won’t just flee.
To pay bail, you have to either hand over the cash in full, or get a bail bond. A bail bond works in that you pay 10% of the bail (so if its $1M bail, you need to pay $100k in cash, straight up homey) and then the bail bondsman will pay the rest, provided you can back it up with assets. That means you may back up the rest of the $900k with, say your house, all your money, your car, your jewelery, your brother’s house, and so on until you reach $900k in value.
As long as you show up for your court dates, if you paid your own bail, it gets refunded. If you used a bail bondsman, it gets refunded, but the bondsman takes your 10% as his profit/take, and you’re out that.
A bail bond is essentially a loan to pay bail and the cost of it is 10% of the bail, you lose that.
If you’re wondering, you’d think: well, this system seems to favor rich people over poor people. You’d be right, and some states are eliminating or changing the concept of bail
Typically, or pays a bail bondsman 10% of the bond amount and they put up the rest. When you show up for trial, the money is returned — it’s meant as a deposit to make sure you don’t skip town or leave the country to avoid trial. The bail bondsman charges you a fee for the service, which typically will be the 10%.
Bounty hunters are the people who hunt down fugitives who skip on bail. The bail bondsman loses the money if you flee, so they have a big incentive to pay somebody to find you.
* If you are charged with a crime and have a court hearing scheduled, the judge may set bail.
* Bail is a sum of money or other collateral that is temporarily forfeited to the court to ensure you don’t flee. Usually there will be bail conditions, like being unable to leave the city/state/country, having to surrender your passport etc.
* If you are not permitted bail, or cannot/will not pay the bail amount, you will be kept in custody (usually in a correctional facility) until your court date.
* If you pay the bail you are free to go, until your next court date. Usually you would use this time to prepare your defence, make arrangements in case you are found guilty, spend time with family etc.
* As long as you follow the conditions of your bail (including showing up to court), the bail is refunded, minus any administrative fees.
* If you fail your bail conditions, the money/assets are kept by the court. Usually it goes to the government to do with as they wish.
* There may be several scenarios where bail should or must be granted, but the bail amount is at the discretion of the judge. An amount significantly higher than you can afford is basically the judge deliberately making bail impractical.
* A bail bondsman is someone that loans you cash for your bail if you can’t afford it. They charge a fee for this, usually a fixed percentage of the bail, which you will never get back even if the bail is refunded. It’s their cost of doing business and taking on risk.
* A bounty hunter is essentially a debt collector who works for a bail bondsman. If you flee, their job is to return you to the custody of the court. Courts usually have a grace period in which bail will be returned to the bondsman, but the terms of your bond contract will not require them to return your portion of the bail to you.
* Bounty hunters aren’t too different from private investigators; they are private citizens, in some jurisdictions they may be granted special legal privileges, but usually not the same liability protections as law enforcement.
If they pay the bail to the court from their own pocket, they get all back (or if they pledge an asset like a house or a guarantee from another, those obligations are removed if you appear in court) . A bail bonds agency will issue their million on your behalf for a percentage, which you don’t get back. They are like an insurance company – pay $1000 a year but get your house replaced for $500M if it catches fire. The odds of the fire are lower than 500:1 (or the insurance company will go broke) so they make a profit.
People pay $1MM bail if they have more than $1MM in cash. Or $50 for that matter.
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