How Bail Works

and you're very fortunate. It's not a pleasant experience. I'm sure you get booked, yes, right, the fingerprint you sure? They make fun of how fat you look. They take all the things out of your pockets. Yea, and keep them not whatever. Know, they give them back. They carefully catalog everything except any hundred dollar bills you have on you. Do you have a mug shot? I do? And actually when they took my mug shot, I was smiling and they thought it was funny, so they blew it out

full size and hung it on the processing center wall. Really, yeah, now do you actually have that? They don't give you a copy, that dud I do really. Yeah, I asked for a copy. You should have to find it somewhere. Yeah, should see if you're famous enough to get on the Smoking Gun Yeah, the smoking guy. Yeah, I'm not. You're not people like who. Yeah, there there is a munk shot out there. So if anything ever happens to us,

then it'll it'll surface, I'm sure. Yeah. Um, but I'm here to tell you that you can get out of jail if your bail is set like five thousand dollars and all you have is five hundred. Not a bad deal, No, especially if you have a friend who's willing to come lend you five dollars to get out. Yeah. Sure, But how would you do that, Chuck? How what kind of sense does that make? If you're If you're bail, the amount that's required to release you from jail until your

court aid uh is five thousand dollars. How can you get out for five? Well? I would I would think that that's some sort of security type of deposit kind of yeah, or the pecurity deposit. Yeah. Maybe are we talking about bail? We're talking about bond buddy, Okay, Yeah, I just wanted to officially introduce the Bail Show we're doing a two parter here, right, Yes, this was brought to our attention by listener Steve who saw a little MPR thing on bail, and Josh happened to hear the

same one, right yeah, and found it very interesting. Right. Yeah. It was a three part um. It was a three part series on MPR from Laura Sullivan who really got to the heart of the matter and kind of exposed a pretty serious racket that's going on here in the United States that unfairly burdened the poor. Well, we'll get to that, but we want to cover bail first, and then part two of the series will be Bounty Hunters. So when we don't talk about that dog jerk in

this podcast, don't send us an email. Wait two days and you'll hear all about them. Yeah. Okay, So, like I said, Chuck, bail is basically um money that you ex change to the court in return for your freedom after you're arrested. Right, Yeah, how this all start? Well, frankly, it started a long time ago, Chuck. It started in the thirteenth century. Um, I believe the UK. I'd say,

we weren't around back then, No, we weren't. But it started in the uk Um in the thirteenth century, where so a surety, A surety is somebody who assures your bond, your bail, right, um was actually a person rather than money. Well it used to be a person, is that what you're saying? Yeah, And they would actually hang in your place if you skip bail. Yeah, So I mean somebody really had to love you to stand in as your your surety, your your bail. I bet that didn't happen

a lot back then. I wouldn't guess. Yeah, I mean maybe if the person who was arrested was like a quadruple amputee, then I'm sure you can find somebody who's a surety. But other than that, I don't know. I don't know that I would have put myself up right. And so then habeas corpus comes along, yeah, in the seventeenth century, right, and that basically established terms for bail, and then the Bill of Rights in England there shortly thereafter UH talked about excessive bail and kind of set

some more parameters on what you could do. Right, Yeah, Habeas corpus remember we did that podcast on that. Indeed kind of huge, but yeah, that created the idea of bail for money or money as bail. And then in the United States we adopted a lot of the the the English common law that had to do with bail and jailing and all that, uh, and we came up with the Judiciary Act of what sev. Nine. Yes, And what I found most interesting is that that sucker state

in effect and fairly unchanged in nineteen sixty six. Yeah, it's a long time, it is, but I mean it's it's pretty basic stuff. It's if you are arrested, uh, and you're not a threat to the community, you should be able to post bail because you know, people like their money and you want your money back. That's the whole point of the thing. If you you're saying, here, five thousand dollars, I'll be back from my court date, because you are going to give me that five thousand

dollars back, right right. Um. So, yeah, it did remain unchanged until nineteen sixty six, although it was put into the eighth Amendment that people would be granted bail and that bail would not be excessive. And that's the same one that contains the cute little provision about um no cruel or unusual punishment. So sixty six, it changed some and then it changed again, and what we ended up with was, uh, some loopholes were closed that allowed dangerous

people to go free. More limits were imposed on judges, and they basically made it to wear a non violent criminals were the ones most apt to get bail, and if you were a violent criminal, your bail was probably pretty large or denied. Right. And originally, if you were accused of a capital crime where you could get the death penalty, you couldn't have bail. And I'm pretty sure that still remains in effect. But yeah, and uh, there's a lot of places, especially huge metropolitan areas like say

Los Angeles, UM, that have bail schedules. There's just so many people coming in and out of the doors that they're like, oh, perjury, well then that's a five thousand dollar bail. They just literally look it up on their chart, follow their little finger across right until they get to kidnapped with intent to rape? And and what was that one?

Actually one million dollars? Sure, and it should be pretty high, I would think so, right, So, Chuck, let's say someone is caught kidnapping and they have some sort of malicious intent associated with it, and their bail set at a million dollars. They have a million dollars? Uh, say they have an AMEX black card, right, all right, good for them. They can slap that puppy down and pay what's called

the cash bail. Yes, many places, but that they would rack up on sky miles a bad criminal who gets caught a lot with the But they do some places to accept check, some credit cards or just good old fashioned green backs. Right. But let's say that you have a million dollars or you don't. Your your bail is a million dollars, but you can only come up with a hundred grand in cash? Right, Yes, who are you gonna call? Not ghostbusters, a bail bondsman, Josh, or a bailor? Right,

it's another name. Yeah, you remember in Athens they were like T shirts, bail bond t shirts, and they give you like a teen percent discount if you wear it. I can't remember. I mean that lay were literally it was an institution Athens. I can't. I can't remember that. I don't either. They have match books in all the bars. Yeah, they were very famous. Actually, did you ever have one of those? Did they help you out? Or was that in Athens? It wasn't an athen that I was arrested.

No more questions, Okay, I'll let you off on this one. So Chuck, what what when you call bail bondsman? What you're what? They're gonna put up as a surety bond? Remember we talked about. A surety is somebody who um says I will cover this person's bail. Yeah, And that's basically the bail bondsman. And they are backed by an insurance company, a very special insurance company. Obviously they don't

have just a regular farm policy. And they are now on the hook for you appearing in court and they have to pay that uh you know, huge sum of money if you don't show, right, So they'll take a teen percent premium. Sure, well yeah, that's why they do it. And that's on top of everything else, right, Yeah, And then they'll put up the money or they'll say, actually they don't put up the money. They say, I will put up the money out like you said, I'm on

the hook now, um. But they'll also take some collateral, maybe like a title to your parents house or the title of your car, some jewelry or whatever. They will also Josh, get friends and family involved to help chip in and uh so that way, if they're kind of on the line, they think the person will show up for court. Right, Yeah, you're you're kind of indebted to your parents for bailing you out and putting their house up, and you don't want your poor parents to lose their house,

right exactly. Um, you can also do We'll get some more on that, right yeah, yeah, okay. You can also do released on on citation, where the cop just basically it's like the same trap ticket is a released on citation bail. That's my favorite kind of bail, is it? My favorite is the kind where they're like, you know what, I'm not even going to give you this ticket. Go ahead, just be careful. Yeah exactly, Yeah, that's my favorite. There's

released on recognisance. Yeah, that's when you actually are booked and arrested, but uh crime is probably not so severe and definitely not violent, and they'll say, we trust it, you'll show up, You're not a flight risk, don't worry about paying anything. And then, uh, we we talked about how your parents can give their house title is collateral to a bounty hunter. You can actually do that in sorry, yes, you can do that in some states with the the

jail directly through a property bond on the spot. Yeah, the court places a lean in the amount of the bail against your say your house or your land or whatever. Um. And if you skip, then they can foreclothes on it and actually sell it to get their money back. Yeah. So well they use if you have, like you said, the five dollars, if your bail was fifty thou, would you give that five hundred to the bail bondsman? Is

that how that works? Yeah? What they do is, let's say you're usually they charge ten percent premium, right, so that's just their feet, right, that's just their feet because it's a ten percent, it's ten percent usually of the bail. People assume that, Um, what you're doing is you've just carved out ten percent and then you know they you don't owe them anymore. Not true. No, this is tim percent on top of the bail. So if it's fifty thou dollars, the ten percent will be five thousand dollars.

And that's just the money they took for saying i'll i'll cover you. Yeah. It's basically loan interest exactly, very quick and urgent loan. Yeah. And and that is it's very it's it's alone. They're loaning you your freedom. Basically, um, chuck. Dealing with bail bondsman is um the most common way to get out of jail. Yeah. Uh, you know, people can't come up with five grand bail, but they can usually come up with five premium. Sure, that's the the

whole deal. And we'll get into that later about the poor, but not very many people can afford their bail. Even if they're rich fat cats. They will often set the bail. I just saw the record was last October. Did you see that. The guy's name, he was the head of the Galleon Group and they were apparently did some insider trading RAJ Roger ATNHAM and he set the record in October one million dollar bail. Bernie Madels is only ten million,

if that tells me. So he had twenty mill to put down as his I guess deposit and the judge said all right, you can hang out, and the bill bondsman was like, yes, score, because that's twenty that's pure profit to pure profit. Um. And when you're dealing with the bail bondsman, there's some things you want to look for.

I mean, their their business people. Um, they deal with some of the seedier quarters of society, right, Yeah, but it's a real business and the documents are very real as well, and you want to very you at the very least, you want to be aware of what you're signing in most cases, and you definitely want to read it as well. You can't. No, you're kind of stuck

between a rock and a hard place. But you have to be aware of what you're signing when you sign the Bill Bond contract because it is an extremely powerful and pretty much airtight contract. We'll get to exactly all it entails and in the Bounty Hunter episode. But just this isn't like, hey, I'll come back for court. That's not all that that thing says. Now you're signing a way certain rights and that big one that's the teaser

for Thursday show. Yeah, so um, Chuck. You also want to make sure that a Bill bondsman that you're dealing with, um will be responsive to questions from your family, is easily contact as a cell phone, that kind of thing. And if you get the impression that your Bill bondsman is not going to um be there for you, then you you want to move along and find another one that you feel more comfortable with in every town is a lotusy with bail bondsman because every town is allows

well not every town, but many towns are allowsy with crime. Sure, and then one leads to the other. So Josh. The other thing you should do if you go to hire bail bondsman is uh like, if you're hiring any personal contractor, look at their I d get their make sure they're registered or license that they have to be. I think you have to be licensed in every state now, right if it's legal. Yeah, there are states where it's not legal. We'll get to that in a second. Okay, So check

out their credits. UM, ask for detailed explanations of UM any kind of fees in addition to the ten percent. You don't want to get a bill at the end that says, well you had to pay for this, this and this as well, right, So just make sure it's on the level. And like you said, make sure that

they communicate with you regularly. UM. And if you if you aren't comfortable with who you're who you're talking to, ye again, just move along unless there's a you're in a state one of four states in the Union that just do not allow commerce for bail bond market whatsoever. And where's that there? Uh, Wisconsin, Oregon, Illinois, and Kentucky

all have laws on the books that outlaw commercial bail bonding. Um, Wisconsin doesn't in a roundabout way, which says that no surety, remember the person that gets you out, uh can be compensated for being a surety. And well that's how they make their money in the bail bond market. So there's that. UM.

And then say, like Kentucky expressly outlaws of bail bond industry. Yeah, so in those states you have to put up your own money or a property bond or something like that, or I imagine they probably have higher rates of being released on your own recognizance. Yeah, maybe maybe not, or maybe you're just s o L. If you're in Kentucky. Well if you're UM, poor, chuck your s O L. In the United States, we were talking about the MPR report by Laura Sullivan. Yeah, I gotta say, I think

everybody should go read this. It really it really exposed a round packet in the US between UM, the criminal court system and Bill Bondsman. Yeah, they used UM. Broward County, Florida is a really great example because they had a situation down there where they were kind of a situation that's all over the country. Jails are full, uh, tax stay dollars are like people are paying tons of money to keep these people. Nine billion a year in the US. A hundred and fifteen dollars a day is what it

cost to jail someone, at least in Broward County. Yeah, per inmate. That's like a you know, not the worst hotel in the world. Now. And there are alternatives, specifically pre trial programs, yes, and that is when they release people with UM sometimes as GPS or ankle monitoring systems. Uh. Sometimes you just have to call in or text when their home and stay within a certain radius of their home. And it was a huge, huge success, right, and then it dried up. All funding for it dried up except

for just the tiniest amount. Why because as of bribes, well not bribes, we should c o a here, because bail bondsman rallied together and UM hired a lobbyists and they wrote a bunch of checks to the Bard County commissioners. Yeah, the commissioners and the mayor as well, right, and actually chuck the uh, the mayor of the Commissioners, the head of the Board of Commissioners UH. Four days before this vote on pre trial funding, UM got fifteen checks totaling

five grand from local bail bondsman for his campaign. Yeah, and pre trial it was it was it cost about two dollars a day, where you said that keeping someone in jail cost a hundred and fifteen a day. Yeah, they were able to shut down a twenty million dollar wing of their jail. It was that popular and successful

the program. But the problem is because it was popular and successful, there were people who normally would have gone to a bail bondsman UH to get out of jail, who were just getting out through the pre trial pre trial programs. So, like you said, they got a lobbyist who's actually also a lobbyist for the boarder commissioners and got the whole thing shut down basically like a few people who are still in the program. UM. But it's not nearly what it used to be, even though it

was a success. So there's one way that bail bondsman I mean manipulating the system. UM. And another part of that MPR report, people in Lubbock, Texas were profiled and these people like they're they're bail. Their bond would have been like seventy five bucks because they had like seven fifty dollar bail. But these are very, very poor people that can't come up with seventy five bucks. They don't have anybody to borrow it from, so they're rotting in

jail for months. One guy stole forty dollars worth of blankets because he was cold in the station wagon one night. Um, and he's been in jail for four months to thousands and thousands of dollars, thousands of dollars. And the reason is is these bills bail bondsmen are saying, this is a cutthroat industry and we can't afford to let anybody who would potentially be a customer slip through. So that means that people who can't afford to be a customer don't have the option of pre trial because it was

shut down. Um, so they get to stay in jail at the taxpayer expense, to benefit only the bail bond industry. And you know, I'm all for capitalism and someone earning a buck, I'm not anti bail bondsman, not at the expense of someone's freedom. Well, and the fact that it's if you're talking about the bail bondsman, maybe a few of them shutting down or costing the taxpayers billions of dollars. It's just there's it's a no brainer. No, it isn't.

But again, powerful lobby as as uh Laura Anderson points out the you know, most indigent inmates don't have a lobby. Well, yeah, and I think she said fifty of people in jail are the only reason they're in jails because they can't afford bail. Yeah, that's at least in Brower County. So billions of dollars in taxpayer money, months and months of freedom for inmates, um or incarceration for inmates, and the bail bond industry is thriving. Right, there is another way

that they are thriving. Actually, chuck um, they don't pay up when people run. Wh Yeah, what do you mean? So as part of a kind of a punishment in most states, if you're a bail bondsman and you're somebody skips um, you're supposed to automatically pay that, say, five thousand dollars. They don't intesta no, so they keep the premium a ten percent premium, and then sometimes they well, in most cases they negotiate um with the county. Yeah, about five percent of the actual bail is what they

end up paying. So that means that they got a ten percent premium. All right, they made five percent of that for doing nothing. That's it. They don't have to pay out any money. They're insured anyway, though, So even when they do have to pay out, they're not really paying out right. I'm sure they're insurance premiums are sky high, but I'm sure we're gonna hear from a bail bondsman. I would like to actually, well, Chuck, let's let's go

on to the next episode two days from now. Well, I have a quick question because my favorite all time movie comedy is Midnight Run Really oh yeah, Robert de Niro and Charles Gardens and is probably the best bounty hunter movie ever made. In that movie, the bounty hunter Joey Pants hired I'm sorry, the bail bondsman hired two bounty hunters to cover the same case. And that's where a lot of the comedy comes from. The great John Ashton opposite de Niro. Is that true? Can that happen? Uh?

It depends? Yeah, really, sure you can have freelance bounty hunters running your cases. Well, I thought it said in the article that they try to keep ethical boundaries set because it's no good. All right, but you can, okay, depending cost a lot of problems in the movie. Have you ever seen Dead Man? Oh? Yeah, caused a lot of problems in that movie too. Yeah, a good point. Yeah, specifically one smushed head. Yes, God, I love that movie.

Do you know? It took me probably five or six times of seeing it before I realized it's actually a dark comedy. Uh, there's some funny parts, for sure. No, watch it like that. Like the whole thing is a dark comedy from beginning to end. It's a great soundtrack too, by the way. Yeah, I have that the great Neil Young. I'm not a big Neil Young fan, but I even like that so well because he didn't sing. So here we go. Yeah, okay, well Chuck, that's it for bail

right now? All right? Yeah, I'm it'll come up here there when we talk about bounty hunters in two days. But in the meantime, what is it time for listener mail? It is Josh, Josh, I'm gonna call this blood transfusion from Jehovah's witness. Oh yeah, actually it's not from a Jehovah's witness, but it's a good story. This is from Mito, and Mito is Portuguese. Yes, it's from Portugal. Cool. Hello, guys, I heard your podcast about organ donation and you mentioned

Jehovah's witnesses not being big on blood transfusion. Have a little scoop on that. My father was a doctor in Brazil and many years ago he came home all shaken up when he told us a story. He revealed that he came upon an accident where a small kid came into his operating room. Man just stabilized a kid and all he needed was a blood transfusion and he would go home in a few days. And I know you know where this is headed. The kid's family was Jehovah's witness.

They argued with the father um for hours and basically said, very clearly, we would rather him die than get a blood transfusion. So, like any good doctor, the or I don't know if that's true or not, but like this doctor did, he basically went against their wishes and gave the kid a transfusion without the parents knowing it. Exactly. The parents got really mad and we're ready to take his medical license, but the kid awoke by that time, smiling.

Seeing this, the parents started crying, thanked my father for saving his life. More than ten years later, they still received Christmas gifts my dad does from them every year, so they're like, oh, hey, this is kind of nice. Actually my son lives. Well, you remember the Jehovah's witnesses believed that the blood becomes impure once it leaves the body. Yeah, it seemed to How about this guy, Yeah, it seems

seemed to impure to me. So he attached a picture of his father and says, uh, there's one of many stories that turned my father into a hero while I was a boy. He saves life for a living, lives for a living. Doesn't that make a hero? Definitely? And I say absolutely. And he emailed back and he said his dad also gave a big pen tricky out of me one time. Awesome. So this dude is on the scene. I told you about a friend of mine whose mom got an emergency tricky out of me with a steak

knife and a straw. Yeah. Yeah, So kudos to you, Mito, and to your father. And he also sent a picture of his little nephew, Lucas we just welcomed into the world and whom his father delivered. So he does a little bit everything. Yeah, it sounds like a pretty good guy and a hero indeed. Well, if you have a great hero story, Chuck and I want to hear it right, Yes, you still make it up? Please don't. You can put it in an email and send it to stuff podcast

at how stuff works dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, is it how stuff works dot com. Want more how stuff works, check out our blogs on the how stuff works dot com home page. Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you