An important consideration, obviously, is whether or not the accused in a criminal investigation is likely to jump bail and flee the country.
If you live in a place near the US-Canadian or particularly the US-Mexican border and maybe grew up there, you are probably more aware of ways to cross the border illegally and undetected than somebody who resides in, lets say, Kentucky or Kansas.
Does proximity of international borders have an impact upon how often bail is granted?
what crime were u arrested for?
I can’t really see it as a factor. Let’s say you get arrested in Jacksonville, which is about as far from an international border as you can be in the US. You can take a bus to Detroit for $155. So if you’re planning on jumping a border, proximity doesn’t matter.
Plus, nowadays you need a passport and the Canadian and American police databases are connected. For “Think of the Terrorist” reasons, the land where you would sneak across is usually heavily monitored.
(a) I don’t see that it’s that easy to flee.
(b) Canada at least has extradition arrangements with the USA - if you are going further, you still need that passport and need to show it at the airport; and all passenger lists are shared with Big Brother.
© As mentioned above, it’s a day or two from anywhere in the USA to the border, unmonitored. SO who cares?
I suspect the issue in court is not geography, but circumstances that might cause a person to want to flee - how slam-dunk is the case, what resources or safe havens do they have overseas, ties to community, etc…
In Canada, no.
Factors applied in determining pretrial release are generally specified by statute. For (US) federal prosecutions, the factors are:
[QUOTE=18 U.S.C. § 3142]
(g) Factors to be considered.–The judicial officer shall, in determining whether there are conditions of release that will reasonably assure the appearance of the person as required and the safety of any other person and the community, take into account the available information concerning–
(1) the nature and circumstances of the offense charged, including whether the offense is a crime of violence, a violation of section 1591, a Federal crime of terrorism, or involves a minor victim or a controlled substance, firearm, explosive, or destructive device;
(2) the weight of the evidence against the person;
(3) the history and characteristics of the person, including–(A) the person’s character, physical and mental condition, family ties, employment, financial resources, length of residence in the community, community ties, past conduct, history relating to drug or alcohol abuse, criminal history, and record concerning appearance at court proceedings; and (B) whether, at the time of the current offense or arrest, the person was on probation, on parole, or on other release pending trial, sentencing, appeal, or completion of sentence for an offense under Federal, State, or local law; and
(4) the nature and seriousness of the danger to any person or the community that would be posed by the person’s release. In considering the conditions of release described in subsection (c)(1)(B)(xi) or (c)(1)(B)(xii) of this section, the judicial officer may upon his own motion, or shall upon the motion of the Government, conduct an inquiry into the source of the property to be designated for potential forfeiture or offered as collateral to secure a bond, and shall decline to accept the designation, or the use as collateral, of property that, because of its source, will not reasonably assure the appearance of the person as required.
[/QUOTE]
As you will notice, location of the proceeding does not appear. I suppose to the extent that judges must consider family ties, they’d look at the practicality of flight to nearby overseas relatives.
Why would Judges bother?
Having an accused criminal flee is a great cost savings to the jurisdiction:
And since they have fled, they won’t be committing more crimes against the public in the jurisdiction (which is often not true for someone tried, convicted, and then released after serving their sentence).
Why is a judge going to worry about those expenses? Even if he has some degree of concern about finance, it’s going to fall far behind his primary concern of upholding the law.
Prosecuting any crime generally makes no economic sense if considered in isolation. The crime has already been committed when it’s brought to trial and the trial can rarely reverse the costs of the crime.
But you have to place the legal system in context. A pattern of unpunished crimes encourages further crimes, which put a high cost on society. So society forms a legal system which punishes crimes after the fact in order to discourage the commission of future crimes. And under that principle, a criminal who successfully flees the jurisdiction before his trial represents a failure of the legal system.
I’m of the opinion that judges will do anything to clear their calendars of cases that don’t interest them, which is virtually all of their cases. So I vote no on international borders influencing their decisions to deny bail. Judges aren’t even discreet with their calendar clearing motives, many say it out loud in open court and all will say it in chambers.
Depends I suppose - if the guy is accused of minor theft or assault, and then he’ll be deported because he has not naturalized yet after a year or two in jail, or some such - letting him flee would certainly save a lot of make-work for the system.
If he’s American and flees, odds are the recipient country will deport him back once they catch him - so you have to retreive a deported fugitive, then the aggravation of a trial 2 or 5 years down the road, when evidence is old, witnesses forget, etc.
If the guy committed a particularly heinous crime like murder, kidnap, rape… do you really want the guy running around free in Brazil or Saudi Arabia laughing at the US justice system? And explain to the victim and their family “well, we knew he’d run, but what they hey, we saved some money…”?
There are quite a few judges whose primary motivation seems to be keeping their dockets clear, and in this era or shrinking judicial resources I can’t say I blame them. They would be the exceptions, though.