This is an excerpt and overview of what is covered in the well-prepared and well-documented Amicus Brief \u00a0for the\u00a0United States Court of Appeals
For The Eleventh Circuit on the case of\u00a0MAURICE WALKER, on behalf of himself and others similarly situated,\u00a0Plaintiff-Appellee,\u00a0v.\u00a0CITY OF CALHOUN, GA,\u00a0Defendant-Appellant.<\/p>\n
\nSUMMARY OF ARGUMENT<\/p>\n
Plaintiff would have this Court effectively abolish monetary bail on the theory\u00a0that any defendant is entitled to immediate release based on an unverified assertion\u00a0of indigency. Nothing in the Constitution supports that extreme position. Instead,\u00a0the text and history of our founding charter conclusively confirm that monetary bail is constitutional.<\/p>\n
Since long before the Founding, bail has enabled communities to protect\u00a0themselves and secure a defendant\u2019s appearance for trial while allowing the accused\u00a0to avoid pretrial detention. And monetary bail facilitated by the commercial surety\u00a0industry is the single most effective and efficient way to achieve those goals.\u00a0Defendants bailed by a commercial surety are far more likely to appear in court and\u00a0far less likely, if they fail to appear, to remain at large for extended periods of time.\u00a0Moreover, by enabling defendants to post bail with only a fraction of the required\u00a0amount, the commercial bail industry allows individuals of all financial means to\u00a0leverage their social networks and community ties to obtain pretrial release.<\/p>\n
The City of Calhoun\u2019s monetary bail system is clearly constitutional. The\u00a0Constitution prohibits only excessive bail. Yet, plaintiff has not claimed that his bail\u00a0was excessive under the Eighth Amendment. Instead, he attacks the City\u2019s bail\u00a0system\u2014and monetary bail in general\u2014alleging that it discriminates against the\u00a0indigent. But it does no such thing. Under the City\u2019s bail schedule, a defendant\u2019s
bail amount is initially set to match the crime he is accused of committing. And\u00a0under the City\u2019s Standing Order, within 48 hours, each defendant is afforded an\u00a0individualized hearing where he has the opportunity to demonstrate that his bail\u00a0should be reduced or eliminated.<\/p>\nUnder the Fourteenth Amendment, distinctions based on wealth must only be\u00a0rationally related to a legitimate government purpose, and the City\u2019s bail system is\u00a0eminently rational. Its bail schedule efficiently serves the twin goals of bail by\u00a0enabling defendants to obtain pretrial release (often without having to wait for a\u00a0hearing) while protecting the community. And the City\u2019s Standing Order is\u00a0consistent with the constitutional deadline for holding a probable cause hearing\u00a0under the Supreme Court\u2019s decision in County of Riverside v. McLaughlin. No more\u00a0rapid timeline is required for assessing a claim of indigency. In fact, the Supreme\u00a0Court expressly contemplated that probable cause and bail hearings would occur in\u00a0tandem. It thus simply cannot be that any defendant arrested for any crime must be\u00a0immediately released based on a bare assertion of indigency, as plaintiff\u2019s theory\u00a0would require. The District Court\u2019s injunction should be reversed.<\/p>\n
ARGUMENT<\/p>\n
…<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
See the rest of the brief here:
http:\/\/www.bailbondscompanydirectory.com\/GA_Amicus_Brief-Walker.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This is an excerpt and overview of what is covered in the well-prepared and well-documented Amicus Brief \u00a0for the\u00a0United States Court of AppealsFor The Eleventh Circuit on the case of\u00a0MAURICE WALKER, on behalf of himself and others similarly situated,\u00a0Plaintiff-Appellee,\u00a0v.\u00a0CITY OF CALHOUN, GA,\u00a0Defendant-Appellant. SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT Plaintiff would have this Court effectively abolish monetary bail on the theory\u00a0that any defendant is\u2026 Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[103],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bailbondscompanydirectory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5121"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bailbondscompanydirectory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bailbondscompanydirectory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bailbondscompanydirectory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bailbondscompanydirectory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5121"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.bailbondscompanydirectory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5121\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5458,"href":"https:\/\/www.bailbondscompanydirectory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5121\/revisions\/5458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bailbondscompanydirectory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bailbondscompanydirectory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bailbondscompanydirectory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}