Bail: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

fatal we're so used to it it has become a fixture of American life down here too short one minute you got three girls in the jacuzzi next minute somebody's in jail and you have to bail them out that's what happens down into short the other thing that happens down at the shore chlamydia just a medically astounding rate of chlamydia and it's heart America's bail system sounds pretty simple if you're charged with a crime the court might ask for an amount of money as bond and then return it to you once you show up for trial and if you have that money it's no big deal but if you don't you can be in big trouble just look at one example a man called nig well he was arrested for driving with a suspended license the court set bail at $1,000 and he had a choice pay it all await a trial in Rikers Island I don't let me well and his wife take the story from there a wooden bush Rikers on my worst enemy cuz it's rough it was hard and it's a bomb I had to try to borrow money from this person and this person and this person should try to get him out he told the judge I can't afford a thousand dollar bail so he really didn't have a choice but to plead guilty now whether he was guilty or not the fact is a non-violent offender spent time in Rikers because he didn't have a thousand dollars and this is a systemic problem increasingly bail has become a way to lock up the poor regardless of guilt because we go Nick what was a family man who posed no danger to society whatsoever and he was stuck in Rikers whereas millionaire Robert Durst who'd been accused of murder in Texas had a completely different experience at the bail system I had been told by the detective that you've been charged with murder bail has been set at 250 thousand dollars but was your intention when you put up the $250,000 to run away Oh goodbye $250,000 goodbye Jail I'm out I'm out that of course is an excerpt from robert durst children's books goodbye jail goodbye money goodbye bail I killed them all but goodbye jail of course of course the problem is the frequency and cost of bail have risen dramatically and it is disproportionately hurting the poor in fact in 2013 an analysis of New Jersey's jail population found that nearly 40% were being held solely because they couldn't meet the terms of their bail which is crazy jail is supposed to be for dangerous criminals in 40% of a group don't meet the basic criteria to be there that should change your perception of what that group is if 40% of the Girl Scouts were grown men you feel weird about buying cookies from them so so what happens if you can't make bail well much like a game of marry kill with crosby Stills and Nash there are a few terrible scenarios option one you sit in jail and again if you're poor as this defense attorney explains that has immediate consequences our clients work at jobs where if you're absent you're fired our clients live in shelters or in transitional housing places where if you're not there for the night your place is gone so there are a lot of different ways in which incarceration even for a short period of time can really destroy someone's life exactly jail can do for your actual life what being in a marching band can do for your social life even if you're just in for a little while it could destroy you destroy that many defendants who can't afford bail favor option number two simply pleading guilty even if you're not as a former public defender explains you sit in jail because you can't afford to pay your way to freedom and you're often confronted with a deal that goes like this plead guilty get out maintain your innocence and go to trial stay in and poor people are regularly choosing to admit guilt just to get out of there which isn't good the only time that's appropriate is in a Catholic confessional what what do you mean is there anything else I don't know I masturbated into a kiwi fruit is that what you're they just let me leave I have stuff to do and the problem is if you do plead guilty to a crime you didn't commit that has its own downsides because unfortunately on a job application next to the question have you ever been convicted of a crime check yes or no most don't then leave four pages of blank space to explain the social and economic inequalities inherent in the legal system and that brings us to your final option commercial bail bondsmen you know the people who make amazing ads like these ruffies bail bonds has busted out all over Middle Tennessee I ain't going out like this Oh my culprit bill balls cuz they got calling me Miriam Jesus break bail bonds for 10:00 to 9:00 to 302 that you're locked up in the frame yes well I will say it is a little weird given that Jesus pretty memorably I think was not bails out I mean he did eventually escaped custody but it was a real workaround of the system here here is how that system works no bail bondsmen promised the court to pay your bail if you fail to show up for a trial in exchange you pay them 10 to 15% of the bail amount which they then keep regardless of how your trial goes so if your bail is $5,000 and you're found innocent then you've basically just paid a 750 dollar fee to a bondsman for doing absolutely nothing wrong and paying $750 for absolutely nothing should be reserved for one thing and one thing only six-month gym memberships that's it you're not going to use it Gerald you're gonna use the treadmill twice and that's it this is learning to speak Korean all over again - and if you don't show up for your trial bail bondsman routinely hire bounty hunters to track you down and they have a frightening amount of power in all but four states the companies are legally allowed to take almost any measure necessary to capture a client including crossing state lines and breaking into homes it's a dangerous business for everyone involved with few rules and little oversight oh they're not kidding in 18 states anyone can become a bounty hunter regardless of education training or prior criminal history becoming a bounty hunter is basically a lot like becoming a social media expert all it takes is want to get bad enough and not caring about whether strangers hate you or not but but then the news that any idiot can be a bounty hunter shouldn't really be that surprising to you if you've ever turned on A&E and stumbled across at this I am along Oh God when I say they know what I'm saying [Music] the only way this guy will get away from us is if it kills himself right now and jumps into a pool of sharks okay okay I hate to be a stickler over chronology dawg but how do you kill yourself and then jump into a pool of sharks but that's the kind of attention to detail job that makes me worry about you operating as an unregulated vigilante now that show was so popular inspired pretty much every other Bale business to pitch themselves as a reality show just click around online and you will find sizzle reels for a veritable smorgasbord of similar shows we're coming to get you the natural high you got to think like I do you like that and we get quicker than that you want tough you want action meet big Benning they call it a teddy bear Denyce huntress it doesn't stop there there's also Richard the screwdriver Richard out the other Richard Alison the greco-roman wrestler Caroline the one who took up archery after watching The Hunger Games and don't forget Jennifer the arthritic alpaca in a bowler hats actually you know what I now regret making fun of that now that I'm seeing the cast I get the appeal I want to see those characters grow clearly these shows are in a competitive marketplace and the problem is when people try to stick out ideas like this happen so what do we do differently we don't just gonna hurt without this each week two new teams about waters [Music] go head-to-head welcome to the most dangerous competition on television belches okay first of all first of all the most dangerous competition on television is the Bachelorette those women have left and they've lost lovers are awarded but it's also a risk it's a risk she's put herself on the line she's there for the right reasons and second it says something about how comfortable we all are with how our bail system works that a TV show where people with guns hunt humans for sport seems legitimate because we just think well they're just doing their actual job and when you give bounty hunters this kind of power bad things happen veteran Jean Travis says he was sitting with his wife on his Bethpage front porch next thing he knows his barn is being searched and Travis has a stun gun pointed at his back the intruders mark Drummond and his wife Angela bounty hunters who police say had the wrong home clay was shot by one of the bondsman he was then transported to Ermac where he died was a bounty hunter justified in tasing a Midwest City homeowner last Saturday was another justified in shooting his dog police say the videotape they took says no yeah the video says no basic human decency says no even a magic 8-ball having seen that with saying holy I can't believe you're even asking me our current bail system makes no sense and it does a lot of harm and the frustrating thing is we've known this for a long time just watch this TV news special from 1964 yes the jails are bursting at the seams a problem of great concern to New York City Commissioner of Correction and across remaining in jail because you can't get bail is really being punished before you're even found guilty as far as I was concerned that was not just that was destroying our concept of justice that's right this problem has been obvious since it was considered okay to wear a wastebasket on your head look here's here's the good news there is a better way and it's already in use in our federal courts and in Washington DC judges in Washington are allowed to set money bail only if the defendant can afford it the results have been far fewer people spending time behind bars we are the only city in America where tonight at our Jail there is not a single man or woman who is sitting because they don't have the money to meet their money back and it's a testament it's a testament to the state of our justice system that that qualifies as bragging because that should be the norm he's like a bus driver showing up at school saying 23 kids picked up 23 kids dropped off I pitched a perfect game pretrial services works like this after you're arrested specialists assess if you if you're dangerous or a flight risk if a judge decides that you're not you can go home and they may monitor you with things like drug tests or ankle monitors they even call you to remind you of your court date it's a system built on interviews pre-arranged appearances and trusts much like Scientology marriages only in this case much more effective and pretrial service programs have succeeded around the country in places ranging from Oregon to Florida and it is a truly frightening state of affairs when Florida is a model for progressive change it shouldn't be a judicial example for anything did you know by the way that under Florida law if you possess all the 5 grams of meth you can marry it that's a fact that's a legal fact that's an actual photo that ran in a newspapers wedding section in Florida and yet and yet even counties in Florida recognized our money bail system is broken and not only is pretrial services better it's cheaper a recent assessment of one system showed it costing only 1/10 as much as keeping someone locked up which makes sense because calling someone to check in costs virtually nothing this message brought you by your mother your mother she brought you into this world and we got to your king bollocks once in a while so if pretrial services are fair up better and cheaper why aren't we all using it or maybe because thanks to reality shows we think that this is what justice looks like we're gonna hunt this gun down bad dog so so maybe we just need a new kind of reality show to get us used to the alternative you want up you want action meet Steve Carr he's one of the most respected pretrial services caseworkers in the United States so let's see okay it looks like you were ticketed with public urination no priors seems like a one-off sort of thing can we count on you to be back here in six weeks for your trial of course great we're done here no this is a routine thing statistically he's virtually guaranteed to turn oh we're done here we're done here Steve by hand grenade to the crack team of legal enforcers meet Deborah hello this is Debra from pretrial services I'm just calling to remind you about your upcoming court date this Thursday well you're welcome I feel like it I can't you know back to work and then there's Brett so all these are risk assessments this is all computerized but you know I keep a yeah a hard copy just in case that's why they call him the Annihilator and finally Gerald the guy in charge of urine tests clear if there's something in there that's illegal I will sniff it out so that's what I do I'm a piss sniffer we got one because this fall we'll be bringing you all the thrills and excitement of pretrial supervision if this elite team brings people to justice well we don't bring them to justice it's more like we make arrangements for them to bring themselves to justice ignore that this show is full of high-stakes drama pray I don't get you for Secret Santa this year Debra and interoffice romance gerald is a blood uh-huh yeah she wants me and if it were to follow their cats I would hit that I would knock the bottom out most we take you closer to the action [Music] pretrial services coming this fall to A&E it's cast effective mother [Applause] you

Channel: LastWeekTonight

Views: 8,727,287

Rating: 4.9074345 out of 5

Keywords: bail, becky ann baker, nate dern, dean winter, william stephenson

Id: IS5mwymTIJU

Length: 17min 50sec (1070 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 07 2015

Reddit Comments

[u/ThisDerpForSale]

John Oliver makes a reference to Oregon doing things differently. I'll expand on that a little bit.

Oregon is one of only four states that has no commercial bail bondsmen. We did away with them in the 70's, and a 1978 Oregon Supreme Court decision actually held that bounty hunting is considered kidnapping under Oregon law. So, we're now a lawless wasteland of fugitives running amok, right? Hardly.

In fact, very few people are held in custody pending trial. The vast majority - charged with minor misdemeanors (shoplifting, graffiti, public drunkenness, etc) or low-level felonies (drug possession, theft). are release on their own recognizance. Most jurisdictions have a pretrial services program as described in Oliver's piece. These offices, usually part of the county sheriff's office, assess the risk of the defendant, and, again, in the vast majority of cases, release the defendant on their own recognizance.

If the defendant is being held on a more serious crime, or if they have a history of failing to appear, or for other reasons, then the defendant is held on as statutory bail amount. Because we don't have commercial bail bondsmen, a defendant can pay 10% of the statutory bail amount directly to the court to be released. So, if your statutory bail amount is $5000, you pay $500, and get out. The court will take 15% for costs, and if you are assessed an indigent defense cost (for a court appointed attorney), that is paid out of bail too. If you have any fines or fees when the case is concluded, that's also paid out of the money posted. If you jump bail - if you fail to appear in court - or if you violate any of the terms of your release agreement, you may forfeit the full amount of the bail, meaning you will now owe the court the full $5000. That's fairly rare, though.

But what if you aren't released on recog, or if you can't afford your bail, either because you are indigent, or because you're charged with a crime with a high amount of statutory bail? Well then you can ask for a release hearing before a judge. And because of another Oregon Supreme Court case, the judge must assess whether the statutory bail is unconstitutional as applied to you - which means, basically, whether it is too high for you to ever have any reasonable expectation of paying it. By law, bail in Oregon cannot be set at a level calculated to keep someone in custody - they must have the ability to pay it. If you are charged with a crime or crimes that set $150,000 bail, and you couldn't possibly put down $15,000, then the judge can reduce the bail to, say , $10,000, as you have a much more reasonable chance of scrimping, begging, and borrowing $1,000.

Bottom line is this - very few people are in jail in Oregon because they can't pay bail. There are some. But it's rare. And thank goodness for that.

Edit: Thank you for the gold, /u/satmandu - you are too kind.

[u/fleaonnj4]

I'm just constantly amazed that all these commercials John finds for his show are 100% real and actually taken seriously by people. If those ads ran on an American satire show I wouldn't bat an eyelid.

[u/whatthefizzle]

This guy was in jail in Rikers for 3 years waiting for trial due to his family not being able to pay the $10,000 bail. He was arrested for allegedly stealing a backpack. Judge told him he could go free if he just admits to doing it. He refused.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJMR56H6MA0

He was finally let out around 3 years ago but developed mental issues while in there. Two days ago, he committed suicide.

http://www.ctvnews.ca/world/u-s-man-jailed-for-years-without-trial-dies-by-suicide-1.2412892

[u/social_wrkr_in_horse]

Mirror: http://mirror.ninja/hqkw

[u/Taniwha_of_DOOM]

I would just like to acknowledge him for calling them kiwifruit, rather than kiwis. Kiwis are not fruit. Kiwifruit are fruit. It's right in the name.

Knowing the difference could save your life... if you come to New Zealand.

[u/TheInvaderZim]

I have to wonder how often these "bounty hunters" end up with some new holes after they break into some man's house and the person they're after happens to have a weapon on hand. I mean, you can scream "I'm the law" all you want, but unless I see a cop car and a badge, you'd be sure I'd still be trying to defend myself.

[u/Pascalwb]

Lol is this even real? US surprises me every time I watch last week tonight. These bail ads were ridiculous and bounty hunters. Who idea was that, have bunch of idiots running around shooting people.

[u/DamnWright0]

Glad to see Grumpys get its well deserved national spotlight.

[u/kakepop]

You know... if they made a Parks and Rec-esque show about pre-trial services, I'd watch it.