I consume a lot of law related content and I always hear about bail and bond being used in the same context almost interchangeably. I googled it but I still can’t really make sense of it.
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Bail is what a judge says you need to put up to get out of jail before trial, say, $10,000. This money is returned when you return to court.
Not everyone has $10,000 is cash or assets lying around to do this.
So companies exist that will pay your bail for you, for a fee that’s isn’t returned to decrease their risk, usually around 10%. Similar to how a credit card charges you interest to borrow money you don’t have to buy things.
So you only have to come up with $1000 to get out of jail. But you get that back. These are bail bondsman. They post bail, and you pay less.
Of course if you have cash or assets bail saves you money.
“Bail” is an amount set by a judge intended to secure the defendant’s presence at future court appearances, and is based on the severity of the crime, the defendant’s risk to the public, and the resources available to the defendant that might be used to escape the jurisdiction (“flight risk”). Bail can be forfeited if the defendant fails to appear at future court appearances, and is a legal obligation to the state (via the court).
“Bond” in this context is more of a process by which a defendant pays a bail bondsman some percent of his or her total bail amount, and the bondsman fronts the full amount of the bail to the court. Bonds may be collateralized, so that the bondsman can recoup losses if the defendant fails to appear in the future and the court decides to forfeit the bail. A bond is a private relationship between the defendant (or someone acting on their behalf) and the bail bondsman.
A judge will set a bail amount to pay so that you don’t have to sit in jail waiting for trial. You can either pay that in cash up front, or have a third party promise to pay the court on your behalf if you don’t show up for court. This “promise” is called a bond. It’s a lot like an insurance policy. So basically, a bond is one of several ways to post bail.
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