No, the Constitution does not say that.
In other words, the prosecution is expected to have their case ready to roll when the arraignment is handed down. The defense, however, is allowed to drag their feet, as they have not had as much time to prepare. “Right” remains optional, WRT the subject.
That happens more than you might think. John Oliver had a show that addressed that just a few years ago.
Do you rally think the PAC would get the money back? I wouldn’t put it past Trump to have a PAC put up the money for his bond, and after he shows up for trial the money gets returned to his personal account.
If anybody would use court-ordered bail as a means to launder money, it’s Donald J. Trump.
I thought the whole point of a bond was that you only pay 10% but you don’t get it back.
Sorry, I phrased that wrong. The PAC would put up the full amount of the bail, and when it’s returned Trump would put it in his personal account.
@EllisDee , you are correct. Surety bonding is somewhat complicated. If you’ve ever seen or read Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, well, the whole thing is based on a surety bond, sometimes called a guarantee bond. There are many different kinds of surety bonds; bail bonds are just one of them.
At any rate, they are a fee-for-service deal. You (the obligee) pay the bondsman (the surety/guarantee) a fee–and 10% of the bond is an example–and in exchange, the bondsman guarantees that if you have to make good on your obligation to the person you owe (the principal), he will cover the total. The principal is happy and thus subsequently is out of the picture, but then, the surety will take steps to subrogate against you.
That is a very simple explanation, but it should serve. No, Mr. Trump won’t get his $20,000 back because that is the surety bondsman’s fee. The bondsman has earned it by guaranteeing that should Mr. Trump not show up when the court orders, the bondsman will pay $200,000 to the court. For obvious reasons, sureties tend to select their clients very carefully–by doing so, they collect the fees, and rarely to never have to pay out.
Seems like trumpy would be a very bad risk, given his reputation as a piker. Unless the bondsman feels the publicity notoriety would be worth it (as discussed above… I think it was in this thread. I"m getting confused.).
No sweat. All the Trump threads do get confusing.
Understand, that I’ve written on the topic of surety bonds before, and even conducted one or two lectures on them, but those were always construction completion, and labour and materials payment bonds. Bail bonds are outside my direct experience, but so far as I understand things, the principles are the same, as they are for any surety bond (court bonds, fidelity bonds, etc.).
I’m thinking that the bail bondsman (“Foster’s,” I think) chosen by Trump does see him as a bad risk, but is willing to deal with him for marketing purposes. “Foster’s Bail Bonds. Be underwritten like a President” on a billboard facing the Interstate would probably bring in a lot of business.
But in Trump’s case, even if he does cause Foster’s to make good for $200,000 to the court, I’ll bet dollars to donuts that Foster’s won’t eat that just because it’s Trump. They will subrogate against Trump, like they would against any obligee who causes them to have to pay out. And from what I understand, sureties are very, very good at subrogation, when the need arises.
He’s an outstanding risk having family, business, and political ties to his community. If he fled, and it’s not likely, you wouldn’t need a a normal bounty hunter, because dozens of journalists would be trying to find him, and then publish their results without your paying a dime. As for how hard to would be to pick him up once found, elderly fugitives who insist on golf carts don’t run fast.
Another way to say it – a bail bond business that insists on safer risks than Trump won’t get much business.
As seen in the news this week, there have, rarely, been younger-when-they-fled national leaders who became a fugitive for many years. So I’m not saying zero percent risk. But that up-front non-refundable-on-acquittal $20,000 fee should move than cover it.
P.S. Re my last link, one difference between Trump and former fugitive prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra is that, being a real billionaire, Thaksin had more financial resources, when he fled, than Trump would have. A debt king like DJT would have trouble rolling over loans as a fugitive. Not as easy as some may think.
Would you explain this? I looked up subrogate, but it didn’t help me figure out what you mean here. Just because trump can’t hide doesn’t mean they’ll get their money back.
So does this mean that Foster’s makes their income from the accumulation of all their previous clients’ 10% payments?
It just struck me that one of Trump’s co-defendants , Scott Hall, is a bail bondsman in the Atlanta area. Maybe he gave Trump a special deal or something.
It would be the icing on the cake if Trump further screwed his one of his co-defendants by skipping out on bail.
Typically a defendant pays the 10% fee and signs over some collateral, like a car or a house. Then, if they don’t show up, the bond company pays the court as promised and goes after the defendant’s assets for the rest. Or, like we see on TV, they hire a bounty hunter to go find the defendant and haul him in so they can ask the court for their money back. If they can collect elsewhere, they don’t have to bother looking for the defendant. (sometimes they require someone to co-sign the bond, as many accused criminals don’t have much in the way of assets)
Procrustus has explained it well in the bail bondsman’s instance, but more generally speaking, subrogation involves an insurance company (it could be said that surety is a form of insurance, but one which bears little resemblance to normal casualty insurance like on your home or car) taking steps to collect what it paid out on the policyholder’s behalf. It tries to collect from the person who caused the claim in the first place.
Example: You and your neighbour do not get along well. One night, your neighbour gets so fed up with you that he takes a baseball bat to your car, causing $5000 worth of damage to your car–windows, headlights, taillights, you name it, it’s broken. You make a claim on your insurance. Insurance pays you the $5000 in repairs as per your policy contract, then goes after—that is, subrogates against—your neighbour for the $5000 it paid out. That’s pretty much what subrogation is: the insurance company is trying to get paid back by the person who caused the claim to arise in the first place.
In Trump’s case, if Trump skips bail, then Foster’s will pony up $200,000 to the court. Then, Foster’s will subrogate against Trump to regain the money that it paid out on his behalf. This can take many different forms, but it typically boils down to garnishment of salaries and/or bank accounts, or seizure of assets. In Trump’s case, I don’t know what he has that isn’t protected by some sort of corporation, but there would be something. Foster’s would have a staff whose job it is to find out, and lawyers who could make it happen. In some way, shape, or form, Foster’s would squeeze the $200,000 it paid on Trump’s behalf, out of Trump.
Just for fun, I’m thinking, “Mr. Trump, we’ve just seized the ninth hole at your golf course. The property has been severed, and we now hold title to the ninth hole. You are prohibited from playing the ninth hole, as it now belongs to us. If you want it back, a cashier’s cheque in the amount of $200,000 plus legal expenses is necessary.” A silly example, but I hope that it serves to illustrate the extent to which an insurer could go in order to subrogate against the person who caused it to pay a claim.
Does that help?
Certainly helps explain why Trump is starting to shelter assets (like the recent “sale” of mar a lado to a corporation headed by his son.)
Right. I don’t know what it would be called in Georgia or Florida, but in my jurisdiction, it’s known as a “fraudulent preference.” It’s like you know that a creditor is coming against you, and wants to seize your car, so you sell your car to your brother for $10 and a promise that he will sell it back to you for $10 once this all blows over. When they come for your car—“What car? I don’t own a car.” And it is just what Trump is doing by “selling” Mar-a-Lago to a company owned by his son.
A series of court dates could, of course, interrupt his campaign and lead to fewer stops and speeches. I’ve seen a few articles or discussions on this.
But it seems to me this won’t make an iota of difference to Trump’s results. No one is going to vote for Trump, or not, based on whether he gives a local speech. I’m not saying campaigning is dead in the current Internet age. But I am saying it doesn’t really make a difference for well-known, media-savvy candidates of considerable notoriety. How many people watched his Carlson clusterchat on the night of the debates?
He only cares about himself. He doesn’t have ties-he has tools.
Edited to add: Even the election itself is a tool to avoid serving time.
Would he likely be subpoenaed as a witness in each of the cases that gets severed?
No matter what your day job that could be cumbersome.
Not that I feel sorry for him.
If so what it means politically is only that this being his defining issue increasingly dominates all his news cycles: reinforcing the perspective that the Biden and the Deep State are unfairly persecuting him for perfect behaviors for those who hold that POV, reinforcing his horribleness to those of us who hold that POV, and maybe swinging the mindset of an important very few who are not already set into one or the other mindset.
Given that Biden and Harris, for all their many strengths, are each capable of gaffes along the way, having the news cycles with no room to focus on any that occur is maybe a good thing?