Q and a stands for question and answer. So, ask your question

>> Steve Palmer: Ah. All right. Lawyer Talk, off the record, on the air, coming at you with our weekly q and a session. So, Q and a. It stands for question and answer. And if you've got a question, you can ask it@lawyertalkpodcast.com. or you can just leave a comment either on YouTube, on Facebook, or even on the tick tock. As much as I, uh, whatever I feel about TikTok. But, yeah, ask your question.

Luke has some questions about p. Diddy Bond, and, uh, really,

And we have a question today from Luke. I'm not going to disclose, uh, Luke's last name is normal. Uh, but Luke had some questions about the p. Diddy Bond, and, uh, really, it was a general question that goes far beyond the p. Diddy case. What Luke wants to know is, uh, what's the story with Bond? Why is he getting bond? Or how does this all work? And look, I'm not going to break down. Maybe I'll do another breakdown of the p. Diddy case separately, but I am going to take this opportunity to talk generally about how bond works and what the heck bond means, because we use terms like Bailey, we use terms like bond, uh, we hear, like bondsman and surety and property bonds, and all sorts of other stuff that gets, uh, thrown around. So I'm just going to sort of break all this down, and maybe we'll call this a breakdown. I don't know. We'll figure it out on the back end, uh, at any rate. So in Ohio, which is where I practice law, uh, and I think this is probably true in most places, even in federal court, bond, um, is sort of a generic term, and the rules of procedure and even the statute in Ohio talks about what some of the considerations of bond are. So let's just say you got arrested and you're just charged with a new crime, and you show up for something called an initial appearance in front of a judge or maybe even arraignment, uh, in front of a judge, where you plead not guilty, and then they talk about bond. What does that mean? Well, the idea of bond is you're going to be let out of jail, where you're being held after your criminal charges have been filed against you, uh, until your case goes to trial or court. And then afterwards, maybe if you win the case, you walk away. If you lose, maybe there's jail, maybe there's not, or maybe there's prison, or maybe there's nothing. Um, so we're gonna. What does bond mean? So, first things first. The judge will, or the magistrate that you're appearing in front of will consider a number of things. Um, how serious is the offense? What, uh, is your prior criminal record? If, in other words, if you've been in trouble forever, uh, your entire life, and you're 50 years old, and you got a million felonies on your record, well, that's not gonna look good. Worse yet is if you've got a history of not showing up in court. So anybody who's ever been to these kind of proceedings and just watched in the peanut gallery, by the way, you can show up and watch this stuff if you have any interest, uh, you're going to hear the judge say, all right, prior history or prior criminal record. And somebody over the side usually reads it out, and they talk about failures to appear. In other words, you were charged with maybe even a traffic ticket, and didn't show up in court, or you had an assault case, a misdemeanor, years ago, and didn't show up in court, or there was a warrant issued for arrest for failing to appear for some other. Whatever the reason was, that doesn't look good, because that is the prime factor, at least when I argue these things.

What is my client's likelihood of showing up for trial on a bond

What is my client's likelihood of showing up for trial? Uh, so we've got, like, serious seriousness of the offense? Well, if it's. The more serious it is, the more likely, in theory, that the defendant will run away, not to face the charges because he's scared of what will happen to him at the end. Um, ties to the community. Uh, we hear that all the Time. What does it tie to the community? Well, if you grew up in the location where the case is, if you're in that jurisdiction your entire life, if you've got a job, if you've got a family, if you've got your friends, everything is, uh, everything in your life is here in this jurisdiction. What makes you less likely that you're going to run away and not show up at trial? Uh, and these are all factors that go into the milkshake of the bond. Uh, you hear often people held without bond. Typically, that's because the case is so serious, like an aggravated murder or maybe a death penalty type murder, the system's not going to take any chances. You're just going to be held or you're going to hear a really high bond number. So let's turn to that. Well, how much is bond and how does it work? There are categories of types of bonds. The first is you be held with no bond, so you don't get out. You're just stuck. You're sitting in jail. On the very bottom of that, you get out on your own recognizance, which is fancy talk, to say, I'm going to sign a document, I'm going to promise on my own to show up in court. And by the way, if you don't, it's a felony crime not to show up on a recognizance bond. In between there, we have different levels. You could be forced to post a surety bond. So if you hear, uh, or a cash bond, rather, so you hear 100,000 cash bond, you got to come up with 100 grand, deposit that money with the court, and then you get out. The good news is, typically at the end of the case, if you do show up, that 100 grand will get returned to whoever deposited it. Um, you might hear 100 grand, $100,000 cash or surety. Now, you go to a bondsman, and a bondsman is going to say, look, I'm going to sell you this insurance policy for $100,000. The premium on the insurance policy is typically 10%. So you pay the bondsman ten grand. He goes to court and says, I'm going to insure this guy's appearance for the sum of $100,000. And sometimes, every now and then, I had a case recently where my client didn't show up and the bondsman had to go chase him down. This is where you get like the old Colt Sievers fall guy, skip tracer chasing him down. Because the bond company is now on the hook for 100 grandd. Um, theres other types of bonds that use different names, but generally they work this way. They call them 10% bonds. Sometimes, uh, here in Ohio we call, or in Franklin county anyway, we call them appearance bonds, where you pay 10% of the total amount. So lets say the total amount again is $100,000. Uh, but its a 10% bond. The defendant would have to post 10% of 100,000, which is $10,000. And generally at the end here in Franklin county on these appearance bonds, uh, you show up in court, you get all but 10% of that back. So you would get $9,000 and maybe a little less for some fees and costs back to you. Uh, so those are generally how they work. Now, there's other ways you can postpone. So if a cash bond is, uh, 100,000, you can ask the court to post or to consider your property. So they go and cumber property. I had a case recently in one of the southern counties in Ohio. It was a really high bond. My client owned property down there. Uh, we went and executed all the paperwork and he basically, uh, put up his land and said, my land's worth x dollars, that will satisfy the bond. The court approved it and my client was able to get out pending trial and fortunately got all his property back because, uh, he got, uh, he was acquitted. He was found not guilty. Um, now, what happens if you don't show up? Uh, so if you post your bond and you don't show up first, we already talked about the colt sievers, skip tracers, the bondsman. Well, they'll go. If they have to forfeit their bond because you didn't show up, they're going to go track you down. Um, um, they're going to go find you one way or another and drag you into court. And they've got all sorts of privileges that let them do this. Um, um, it's a whole other case. I have had cases involving this before. We can talk about sometime later. Uh, uh. If you've posted a 10% bond, you don't show up. In theory, you can forfeit your bond and get arrested and go to jail. And by jail, I mean pending trial. While your case is pending, you go to jail. Uh, uh, other things you can do to screw up your bond is if a lot of times you're going to hear like, all right, you have a recognizance bond, but one of the conditions is you're not allowed to go see the alleged victim. So if you've got a domestic violence case, this happens all the Time. You're not allowed to go. You're not allowed contact with your wife or husband if you're the one charged. Um, or if it's an assault case, you can't have contact with the victim. If it's a stalking case, uh, or even, let's say it's a theft case or a shoplifting case, you're not allowed to go to walmart as a condition of bond. And they catch you at Walmart, they catch you with your spouse, they catch you doing something. The judge, in theory, can revoke your bond, throw you in jail until the case is resolved. Uh, all these things happen. Uh, there are no, I guess back to the p. Diddy question. There are no hard, fast rules about when a person gets bonded, when a person doesn't get bond. Um, and generally we see this often in federal cases. Federal courts, uh, do a complete background workup by pretrial services and they give a report to the judge saying, look, here's what we think needs to be done in order to assure, uh, this defendant's appearance in court. And sometimes that means like giving up your passport. It means, uh, regular reporting. It means putting on an electronic monitoring device or GPS ankle, uh, bracelet, uh, so the court knows where you are. That's a, that's a very common condition these days of bond in both federal and State courts. Um, so it's really all over the board. The more money you have, uh, in theory, the more likely you can post a high bond. But also, say in the p. Diddy case, the more likely you have the means and resources to run to some foreign jurisdiction and hide. Uh, and that happens all the Time. So all the conditions sort of vary depending upon the individual. And we wouldn't want it any other way, right?

Judge should take account of individual conditions when setting bond, lawyer says

I mean, there's got to be standards. But, uh, every case, every person, every situation is a little bit unique. So the judges should and mostly do take account of, uh, those individual conditions as they set a bond. So I hope this answers the question. Uh, if it doesn't, well, then just follow up, obviously, for more, uh, where we are, Lawyer Talk coming at you with Q and A and other stuff, too. By the way. We're going to do some breakdowns. Uh, they don't teach you that in Law School series. All sorts of cool stuff coming out week in and week out. So check it out, lawyertalkpodcast.com for the website where we are coming at you each and every week, at least until now.