Adams, Broomfield, and Weld County Bail Bonds

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.

When a person is arrested on suspicion of committing a crime it sets in motion a series of events. Sometimes the person is simply fined and released. Sometimes they are charged but released on their own recognizance. Other times the police - working from an established “bail schedule” - inform them how much bail they or a loved one working with a bondsman will need to pay in order to secure their release. And still other times the suspect is held for a bail hearing before a judge or magistrate. At such hearings bail may be set, negotiated or denied. But why is it that some defendants are allowed to post bail after being arrested and others need to wait for a bail hearing?

Getting arrested is confusing, embarrassing, scary, infuriating, inconvenient and expensive. Fortunately in the US we have a bail system that allows the accused to secure their release while awaiting their day in court. In some cases bail may only be a couple of hundred bucks. In other cases however, it may be $50,000 or more, depending on the charge.

In most cases where large amounts of money are involved it’s common for the accused to contact a loved one who, in turn, contacts a bail bondsman for assistance. But how is the amount of the bail determined in the first place? Do the police just pull a number out of thin air? Not exactly. In most cases the amount is predetermined and specified on what’s called a “bail schedule”.

The Constitution prohibits the imposition of unreasonable bail amounts but other than that is silent on the issue. This absence of strict federal guidance has resulted in a situation where bail bonding means different things in different states.

Recently, a growing number of jurisdictions across the country have adopted what are called “bail algorithms” which are touted as a way to ensure everyone pays a fair bail amount, but which have been roundly criticized for their lack of transparency among other things. While they haven’t appeared in Adams County, Broomfield County, Weld County or Denver just yet, their adoption here may not be far off and so it’s an issue worth exploring.

When a loved one has been arrested posting the full bail amount is often not an option. After all, 60 percent of Americans have less than $500 in cash available at any given time. So even if bail is set at a modest $1,000 it may be too much. That’s where the bail bonds agent comes in. For a modest fee the bail agent will post a bond for the full bail amount that will enable your loved one to walk free and resume a normal life while awaiting their day in court.

The majority of people who wind up needing the services of a bondsman are first time offenders who have no experience with the bail process. So they usually have a lot of questions. One of the more common questions people ask is “Can I post bail for myself or my loved one using a credit card?” In a growing number of cases the answer is “yes”. But it’s not always cut and dry and there are some impassioned voices that argue against the use of credit cards, particularly right inside the jail.

The legal system guarantees the presumption of innocence. The bail system in the US reinforces that notion by ensuring that in virtually every case a person arrested on suspicion of a crime has the opportunity enjoy freedom while awaiting their day in court. Recently though, bail bonding has come under fire by pontificators claiming that the system actually punishes the poor, when in fact it does nothing of the kind.