What is Bail?
Bail – do you really know what BAIL is?
Do you know that it cost the taxpayer $0.00?
Do you know that it is a constitutionally guaranteed right?
Bail is an insurance policy written by a Missouri Department of Insurance licensed bail bond agent that only GUARANTEES THE APPEARANCE OF THE DEFENDANT FOR EACH COURT DATE, so that the victim gets closure and the court system can flow.
Should the defendant fail to appear for their court date a licensed bail bond agent must obtain a certified copy of the bond they issued from the court so that the defendant can be placed back into the custody of the sheriff. Without that certified copy of the bond a bail bondsman cannot legally put their hands on the defendant.
You can’t have court without defendants, right?
July of 2019 the Missouri Supreme Court issued “court rules” that basically instructed all judges in the state of Missouri to use every effort to release defendants on anything other than Bail. Think about that for a while – the judges on the highest court in the state of Missouri are instructing all the other judges to use anything other than bail to release defendants from jail, because, after all, defendants really didn’t mean to do the crime, and then they tell the judges oh and you can’t take the defendants past actions into your decision concerning release and then they tell the judges and if they say they can’t afford an attorney you must give them a public defender no questions asked.
Do you realize how much you, the taxpayer, are funding in the above paragraph? Pretrial Release salaries, public defender, victim gets no closure.
It seems everyone is concerned with the rise in crime, and are actually verbally communicating their opinion. The problem starts with the Missouri Supreme Court judges who have power over the locally grown judges and have used that power to institute liberal beliefs in the guise of Republican candidacy in the elections. The constituency of Missouri must vote “Do Not Retain” on every Supreme Court candidate every time so that none of them have that power for any great length of time and realize they need to “listen to their constituency”.
Surety bail is the only accountable method of Pretrial Release.