Word: bondsmen
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...Freedom. Perhaps the best argument against the commissioners is that the eight pioneering judges of the U.S. District Court of Eastern Michigan have done so well without them. Twenty years ago, the Michigan court's Detroit branch banished commissioners because they had become too chummy with bail bondsmen; worse, they often went easier on the clients of crony lawyers, while hiking bail astronomically in response to public pressure whenever grisly crimes hit the headlines...
...cases, the Detroit judges themselves took over the commissioners' jobs, a move that has notably improved and speeded up justice. In setting bail, the judges now seek to release as many defendants as possible before trial-regardless of their ability to satisfy the tough requirements of security-minded bondsmen. The practice is not only in line with the law's presumption of innocence until a guilty verdict, it also enables defendants to hire better lawyers and help prepare their own cases, to say nothing of saving taxpayers the cost of keeping them in jail...
Though the surreal James Bond would probably stand up and jeer at such criticism, he might agree with pundits who reason that, in an anxiety-ridden age, it is more fun to laugh at Spectre, Thrush, and ZOWIE than to ponder the threats posed by Mao Tse-tung. The Bondsmen seem far too giddy a crew to inflict any permanent injury on young or old, male or female. As art, the spy spoofs have little value, and they lack even true satirical purpose, or what Critic G. K. Chesterton in A Defence of Nonsense called "a kind of exuberant capering...
Some legal experts are beginning to criticize the bondsmen's role. "These powers would be abusable enough in the hands of proper and responsible police authorities," says Washington Lawyer Ronald Goldfarb, author of Ransom, a new study of bail problems. "The same powers in the hands of bondsmen are shocking and frightening." Bondsmen argue that they need their special privileges in order to prevent wholesale bond jumping and to keep their fees within the grasp of the average prisoner.* But in view of the present Supreme Court's concern for the rights of accused, the whole subject...
...average U.S. defendant pays a bondsman 10% of the value of the bail. But rates vary from place to place (5% in New York, 12% in Wisconsin) and even from defendant to defendant. Some bondsmen give lower rates to seasoned criminals on the theory that they are less likely to panic and flee...