When you have been arrested for a crime you must either post bond or be realeased on pretrial release or your own recognizance. I will go over the pretrial release and or release in other blog post. In previous blog post I went over how to bail someoene out of jail and in this post I will address briefly address what the court considers as to whether to release someone on bail or reduce bail, and how a strike affects that process and what lawyers refer to as 654 issues.
WHAT FACTORS DOES THE COURT CONSIDER AS TO REDUCING AND OR GRANTING BAIL.
The court will mainly consider two factors as to wheter to grant or reduce bail.
1. FLIGHT RISK
The court will conisider what the persons ties are to the community, how long has the person resided in this particular community. And what ties does he have is he deeply entrenched in the community so that he is less likely to bail the jurisdiction if released on bond. Do you coach soccer? have you worked a job for a long period of time? etc.
2. WHAT IS THE DANGER TO SOCIETY IF YOU ARE RELEASED. ?
Are there allegations of violence or guns? was someone injured? are you a member of a gang. All of these things are taken into consideration when the Judge makes a decision as to your bail. The Judge must take into consideration what is in the police reports and take them as the truth. However, I have had this work to my advantage people, even lawyers often assume that everything that is in the police report will be detrimental to there client. This is not true. We had officers willing to testify under sub at a bond hearing based upon favorable facts in the police reports indicating self defense etc.
WHAT IS PENAL CODE SECTION 654 AND HOW DOES 654 AFFECT BAIL?
654 is the penal code that states in part that you can be convicted of the same crime but you cannot be sentenced for the same crime. An easy example of this is the driving under the influence statutes. You can be convicted of both the a and b count under vehicle code section 23152 however, you cannot be punished for both crimes only one.
Now how this affects bail is that if you are charged with a bunch of crimes that are jacking your bail way up. The court can take into consideration the fact you are charged with duplicate crimes which are driving your bail way up. This is believe it or not, not a requirement but may be taken into consideration.
HOW DOES A STRIKE AFFECT MY BAIL AND AMOUNTS.?
Every strike on your record amounts to an increase of $100,000. so even if you are charged with an underlying crime of only a five thousand dollar bail amount the amount will be increased by the 100 thousand amount per strike.
You must be aware that when you go to a bail bondsman the amount of your original bond may be wrong for several reasons.
bail bondsman will not count the enhancments such as strikes gang enhancements etc, before making your bond, therefore, you may have a bond that is much lower than what the Judge will accept because the bondsman did not propertly calculate the amount.
The District Attorneys office may charge different charges than what you were arrested on.
For example you hit someone with a bat, they are in a coma you are charged with battery and bail out. The person later dies. You will have to bail out on the Murder not the Batter. This is just one example.
You should see an Attorney before you bail somoene out or rely on bail schedules. If you have any questions don’t hesitate to call. 559-441-1418
