Are these terms interchangeable, or is there a technical difference?
Bail is a method of releasing a suspect from jail. The money you pay is merely held by the court and returned to the person who posted bail when the case is concluded. If you don’t make your court dates, the bail is forfeited. The person who posted bail for you will likely badger you to appear in court properly.
Bond is a particular way you pay bail. You offer some other person (a “bail bondsmen”) collateral to pay your bail for you (usually, home, car or other valuables). Now two people are on your ass to get to court - the person who put up their collateral, and the bail bondsmen who wants his bail back. I believe the bail bondsman takes a fee or some form of interest
Bail can also be paid in cash. In my experience in NY courts, Some judges set 2 bail dollar amounts - one for cash and one for bond. Some set the same dollar value for both. Some don’t offer a bond alternative at all, or only do so if prompted by the defense attorney.
I’m told that bonds are becoming less and less common as a way of making bail, but I’m not totally sure why that is.
You get your Bail money back??? I thought that was the fee you pay for being arrested? Wow, learn something new everyday.
Yes. Bail is NOT a fine and it is NOT intended to be punitive. Paying bail DOES NOT EVER clear you of charges. It has one purpose and one purpose only - to bring you back to court for each and every required appearance. The cost of bail is proportional to your flight risk, not necessarily the seriousness of your crimes. Obviously, very serious charges present an obvious risk of flight and thus high bail. But between two people with an equal rap sheet and facing equal charges, the one who has consistently attended every court date will generally receive lower bail than the person who has skipped out on numerous occasions.
In the law a “Bailee” is someone to whom you give something to possess for a purpose and return to you safely. For example, if you give your shoes to the shoemaker to fix, he is the bailee of your shoes.
and you are the bailor.
If you use a bail bondsman you have to pay him a fee which you don’t get back. It’s about 15% so if your bail is 100k , your fee is 15k.
Things may have changed since I had this experience, but I recall contesting a traffic ticket in L.A. and in order to file a “not guilty” plea, I had to post the bail amount, which happened to be the exact amount to pay if you don’t contest it but just pay the fine.
So if you show up in court and win, you get a refund. If you show up in court and lose, usually the amount you are fined equals the amount you already paid and you’re even.
But if you don’t show up in court at all, you are judged guilty by default and your fine is your bail. Again, you are even.
It’s probably a better system than other places, where the clerks sometimes spend years trying to chase down those who don’t pay fines after losing in court.
Montana has a similar system they seem to only apply to out of staters, except you have to post your “appearance bond” (same amount as the fine) on the spot. I got a $40 speeding ticket on the interstate once and because I didn’t have $40 on me, the cop made me drive to the next town and get it out of an ATM. I wonder how many “appearance bonds” just get pocketed?
Probably not many, because there is a paper trail that would catch cops that pocket it. There should be an appearance bond for each ticket the cop writes.
Now if the cop didn’t actually write out a ticket form, and give you a copy of it, but did this all verbally, then he might be pocketing the bond.
Just to clarify; your fine is not your bail in that scenario, the fine is your punishment which you lost the chance to contest by failing to show and thus guilty by default.
If it were your bail, there would exist some obligation to return to court to resolve your case. If your case is concluded, you are not “out on bail.” You’re just out.
Would you be happier if I wrote in the words that were assumed, like this: “But if you don’t show up in court at all, you are judged guilty by default and your fine [assessed payment amount] is [equal to] your bail [amount]. Again, you are even.”
Semantics, semantics…