So for example, a guy murders people, gets arrested and a bail is set for 5 million dollars. Does the guy walk off if the bail is paid? plz 🙂
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Strictly speaking, the money payed is not the “bail”. The bail is the accused person being allowed to leave the custody of the justice system because they promise to return for the trial.
In some places that have bail, one of the conditions of bail is a “bond”. The accused, or someone acting in their behalf, gives the court a bond payment, and that bond will only be returned if the accused shows up for trial, otherwise the bond is forfeit.
The problem with bond based bail is that it favours those with money. If you have money, you can pay the bond and go on with your life until the trial. If you are poor and living paycheck to paycheck, you will not be able to pay the bond so you will be stuck in jail, which means you will probably lose that job you were living paycheck to paycheck on. Even if you are found innocent at the trial, you’ve lost your job and been unable to find a new one for however long it took to set up and complete the trial, which probably has knock on effects like missing rent or loan payments which can lead to eviction of repossession of property. Preventing that sort of thing is one of the main points of having bail and yet the people most in need of that protection are least able to benefit from it.
This is why some places have bail that doesn’t involve a bond. The court looks at the situation and decides what conditions, if any, would be needed to make it likely that the accused will show up and if they were guilty that they wouldn’t be likely to commit further related crimes or tamper with the investigation. This could range from just promising to show up, to a complete denial of bail. This can have issues of its own where people who have little to lose from jumping bail and who are committing comparatively minor crimes that don’t justify denying them bail, become repeat offenders, continually committing the same crimes then skipping the trial.
Bail reform is one of those things that most people are indifferent to, and those who aren’t indifferent tend to be highly polarized.
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