Adams, Broomfield, and Weld County Bail Bonds

The system of bail we use in the United States is a direct descendent of the medieval system of bail that arose from English Common Law. Bail is such an important aspect of our criminal justice system that the 8th Amendment to the constitution states clearly that excessive bail shall not be imposed. Over the past 50+ years two important pieces of legislation have attempted to reform the bail system. The 1966 Bail Reform Act created a statutory right to bail, while the Bail Reform Act of 1984 gave the government the right to deny bail in certain circumstances. But even these well-meaning attempts to clarify what bail is and what it means today have failed to quiet the discord around the subject. Below we’ll take a look at the essence of that discord and whether bail opponents have a point.

How Bail Bonds Fell Out of Favor

Although they still provide one of the most important services offered by any professionals operating within the criminal justice system the bail bondsman has nonetheless fallen out of favor in many circles. In fact, the entire concept of bail is under continual assault these days. Why is this? Here are 3 aspects of bail that opponents complain most loudly about:

Subjectivity- Whereas other amendments to the Constitution state in black and white that (for example) freedom of speech and gun ownership are inalienable rights, there is nothing in the 8 Amendment that’s quite so clear. While it does say that “excessive bail” shall not be charged, it doesn’t say that “Every defendant shall have an ironclad right to bail”. This murkiness on the part of the Founding Fathers has led to all kinds of confusion, nitpicking and conflicting interpretations about just what bail is and what it isn’t.

Unfair application - 70 percent of people being held in county jails in the US are there because they can’t obtain bail. This is one of the primary talking points bail opponents use to argue for scrapping the entire system. But this statistic is very misleading. The fact is most of those 70 percent are not innocent first time offenders who got busted for jaywalking. Most in fact have either:

• Jumped bail in the past, (which led the presiding judge in their new case to call for a higher bail amount), or
• They are accused of violent crimes (the bail amount for assault with a deadly weapon is much higher than it is for disorderly conduct) or
• They are being held on non-bailable offenses such as child sexual assault or murder.

When you strip away all the people who are being held for good reason the percentage of those being held because bail for their first offense is too high is reduced to single digits. As such the notion that large numbers of people are in jail in Adams County, Broomfield County, Weld County and Denver because bail rules are being applied unfairly is a baseless argument that ignores the particulars of most cases.

Coercion- It’s argued by bail opponents that bail is used as a means of coercion. That is, person X gets arrested for crime A and can’t afford the bail. The prosecutor knows this and exploits it by offering a plea deal: “Plead guilty to a lesser offense and we’ll credit you for time served and release you.” Which sounds good. But in reality it has caused lots of poor people to confess to things they didn’t do just so that they could gain their freedom and prosecutors could clear crimes from their books. Does this ever happen? Of course. On the other hand the reason the person could not obtain bail isn’t always cut and dry. It may be because they are a repeat offender or accused of a non-bailable offense.

Throwing the Baby Out With the Bath Water

California, New Jersey and other states have recently voted to all but eliminate cash bail and leave the decision whether to detain someone until trial or release them while awaiting trial to a computer algorithm and trial judges. Although this sounds reasonable enough it ignores a couple of salient facts:

People are human - And judges are people. Leaving the decision of whether or not to release prisoners awaiting trial to judges invests them with broad new discretionary powers they didn’t have before. Almost as soon as California did away with cash bail the ACLU and other organizations moved to block the new law. Their argument was that by eliminating bail too much discretionary power was granted to judges. And this from an organization (the ACLU) that helped sponsor the original bail revocation law.

Still guilty before being tried - One of the main arguments for doing away with bail bonding was that innocent people were allegedly being treated like they were guilty even though they had not been convicted of any crime. When defendants are released now in CA and NJ however, they’re being forced to wear monitoring bracelets, adhere to curfews, have mandatory drug tests and check in with the court. All these restrictions smack of someone who has been convicted of a crime even though these people have not yet been tried for the charges against them.

Conclusion

The subject of bail is a complex one that resists easy solutions. Certainly though, the headlong assault on bail in recent years has done little but toss the baby out with the bath water. Is reform needed? Most likely yes. But thoughtful, effective reform. Not simply change for the sake of change.

Bail and bail bonding have been invaluable parts of our criminal justice system since the country’s founding. They’re the way the state honors the presumption of innocence while at the same time providing an incentive for the accused to appear in court to face the charges against them. Those who are eligible for bail (not everyone is) either pay the amount in full themselves or contact a loved one who, in turn, contacts a bail agent who arranges for a bond. For the most part the system works reasonably well, as it has for centuries. But in some cases difficulties arise that muddle the situation and may imperil the ability of the accused to obtain or maintain pre-trial release.

Over the past couple of years immigration issues have been thrust into the limelight. Internationally we’ve seen European governments buckling under the strain of massive influxes from the Middle East and Africa. While on the national scene the question of how to deal with those in the country illegally has divided the nation along sometimes bitter partisan lines. Many people in Denver know of, employ or may even have started families with undocumented aliens. Sometimes, however, those persons are arrested, at which time their undocumented status is revealed. The question then often becomes: do they have the right to contact a bondsman?

Most people are aware that if they are arrested for driving under the influence or assaulting someone that they are going to be taken to the city or county jail. There, they’ll be processed before being offered bail. If they can’t afford to pay the full bail amount they then have the right to engage the services of a bail bondsman to help. But what if you or your loved one is not arrested for violating state or local laws? What if you or they are arrested for violating federal laws? Is the process the same? Are they taken to the same jail and processed in the same way? And most crucially, what about bail? Does it work the same way as it does for violations of state law?

Just about everyone we encounter at Rapid Release Bail Bonds is aware of the right to bail. But that’s not because they all paid close attention in social studies class. Instead, it’s because anyone who has ever watched Law and Order (or a hundred other police procedurals on TV over the past half century) has seen and heard bail discussed a thousand times. It’s part of the American vernacular. But while most everyone is aware of bail as a concept they’re usually a bit short on understanding the specifics. For instance; are juveniles eligible for bail in Colorado? If you asked 100 people on the streets of Denver that question you’d likely get 99 glazed looks.

For years now self-proclaimed “progressives” have been trying to put one over on the American public. This ongoing scam goes by the name “Bail Reform” and, like cultural termites, its advocates have been working tirelessly behind the scenes to promote an increasingly bizarre and untenable array of proposals aimed solely at putting the bondsman out of business.

For a time their notion of replacing bail with pretrial computer algorithms (that leverage big data to determine whether a person should be released or held pending their court date) gained quite a head of steam. So much so that several states, including California, adopted some variation of the concept.

Fortunately, a number of organizations who were at first gung-ho in their support of “risk assessment algorithms” (as they’re called) have finally seen the light. And in a major rebuke they, in concert with bail bonding companies, have formed a united defense against this short-sighted and fatally flawed system.

If you love fugitives walking the streets you’ll love the various efforts at bail reform being enacted across the country. One of the latest and most head-scratching of these efforts is that enacted in El Paso County, Texas. The good folks in that southern Texas county were anxious to address what they were told were injustices in the cash bail system. While most believed any changes would take the form of identifying those being wrongly held and rectifying the situation, what they got instead was a wholesale abandonment of the centuries old bail system and its replacement by a promise. Under the new system, in order to gain release, the defendant only has to promise to pay the bail amount if he or she fails to appear in court. And of course, no defendant would dare break such a promise. Would they?

Winston Churchill once famously said “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.” The same could be said for cash bail. While it’s certainly not a perfect system no one has come up with a better way to safeguard the presumption of innocence. Remember, in the American legal system a person is presumed innocent until proven guilty. Because of that forcing someone to molder in jail until they can have their day in court is extremely problematic from a legal perspective. At the same time however, simply letting people go and taking their word that they’ll show up to face the charges against them is also a dubious proposition. Bail bonds allow the innocent to remain free while awaiting trial and provides an incentive for the accused to fulfill their obligation to appear in court.