What is a cash bond in a legal setting and what purpose do they serve?
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A bond (typically called bail when it’s in cash) is some amount of money you pay to the court to get out of jail while there are pending criminal charges against you. Courts also want to make sure you come back for your future court appearances, but in a lot of cases, it’s not just to keep someone in jail prior to conviction. Bond is basically a compromise – it’s collateral to incentivize you to come back to court. Whatever money you pay, you get back once your case is over if you show up for all of your court appearances. If you don’t show up, you forfeit that money and a warrant is issued for your arrest.
Most people can’t pay cash bail if the amount is high, so there are often bond services that allow you to pay only a portion of the bond amount and they pay the rest. Some are commercial and charge you a fee, and others might be run by the state. The same rules apply as above – if you show up to court, you get your money back (minus any fees you pay) and if you don’t, you get a warrant and someone comes after you.
A bond is something you give an entity like a court to prove that you will do as they say, because if you don’t, you will lose it.
The idea of this goes way back to for example the Greek legend of Damon and Pythias. Damon gets sentenced to death but asks the king to be let go to put his affairs in order before his death and as guarantee that he will actually come back to be executed he lets the king hold onto his beast friend Pythias who will get executed if he doesn’t come back in time.
In the modern US in criminal trials people may be required to post a bond to the courts to ensure they will come back and stand trial.
This is basically the same idea as the one in the Greek legend but instead of a person getting taken hostage, money gets taken hostage.
So the judge says give us $10,000 as a hostage so we can be sure you will actually show up at your trial. If you do show up you will get the money back (whether found guilty or not).
People sometimes put up deeds to property as bonds too, but usually it is cash that is asked for.
Many people don’t have enough cash for that.
So in order to not await their trial from jail, they borrow money from a bailbondsman.
The bondsman will post the bail for them and ask for a fee, like for example 10% to keep for the service.
So if you have to put up a $50,000 bond you either have to give up $50,000 in a cash bond and get it back when you show up for trail, give a bail-bonds man $5,000 that you won’t get back no matter what or stay in jail until trial.
Bonds also come up outside of criminal trials and being released on bail.
For example a prominent US reality TV star and real estate mogul recently lost several civil trial where he was found to owe the other party money.
He would like to appeal those judgments, but courts have had to deal with that sort of thing in the past and don’t want a defendant who has already been found guilty to simply spend years appealing a judgment only to when it finally end to say that they spend all that money and can’t pay.
So before he can appeal he has to put up the money that he owes into a sort of escrow like bond. The money will be kept there and if he wins he gets the money back and if he loses the other party will get the money.
This is a common thing and banks and other institutions have services like bailbondsmen where they will put up the bond for people and companies who are in that sort of situation.
Unfortunately for the former casino and airline owner in question, it doesn’t seem like there is anyone left who might trust him enough to front him the money and he has just been barred from doing business with any bank in the state. It doesn’t help that he has stiffed creditors in the past and used an office he is currently trying to regain to shield himself from having to pay back other debts.
The shoe salesman in question is likely going to have to put up cash if he wants to appeal and he may not have that amount of cash lying around.
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