Quote:
By the 1980s, Massachusetts judges had begun setting cash bail as an alternative to surety, at a tenth of the amount. For example, bail might be set at $10,000 cash and $100,000 surety. Because the cash was the same amount the defendant would have to pay the bondsman for surety, there was no longer any incentive to seek one out.<<>>“That effectively killed the bail bondsman,” said Alan Rubin, who represents indigent defendants for the Committee for Public Counsel Services. “Why pay money to a bail bondsman and never see it again? The bondsman slowly faded away.”
Let me tell you why, in Virginia, you still may want to use a bondsman rather than pay money to the courts... first of all... there is no 10% to the court here... you have 3 options in Virginia... Cash, property or bond... period... there is actually a third option that many bondsmen do not tell you about... but I do.. cause it has put money in my pocket and solidified the financial liability of the bond.... and that is... splitting the bond between... property of the indemnitor and premium of me... the bondsman... in other words... say a 50,000 bond where the indemnitor puts up his house covering $25,000 and I write the other $25,000... putting $2500 in my pocket and saving the indemnitor $2500... and my bond is pretty much secure since there is now a house with equity in it that is standing for half the bond.... I will write these all day long... it helps me and it helps the defendant and all involved...
If you put up cash or property and the defendant FTA's or worse, decides to run and not show up at all... you forfeit all the cash or get a lien put on your property or worse still, the courts can force the sale if they really want to get tough... if you have a bondsman in the mix.. you have someone in the middle, between the court and the judge... yes, the bond fee is not refundable but you at least have someone that will look for the defendant and in most, not all, but most cases will find the defendant since the bondsman stands to lose the bail... in addition, when the case is finished, any monies due are taken out of the money the court holds and in the case of an indemnitor putting up the money... they will end up losing a portion or all of the money they put up and in some cases... the indemnitor ends up paying the fines for the defendant... as result that is not always what is desirable to the indemnitor...
... so.... I have in many cases, written bail when the parties involved actually have the full cash to put up on the bond because they just don't want to take a chance on losing all or some of the money and they would rather just give me the 10% and at least know that if the defendant runs... they may have to pay for the search but it will in all probability be less than the full amount.
