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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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
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