What are the different types of bonds? How do they work? (Madeline Porter)

So first of all I just want to clarify that if you hear the word bond or the word bail they mean the same thing in the criminal context. So they can be used interchangeably so I’m going to use them interchangeably. There are a bunch of different types of bonds but I’m going to focus on the most three or the three that are the most common. The first one is a cash bond. So before you can understand the differences between the types of bonds you need to understand just the basic premise behind bonds and why we have them. So lets say that I am arrested for driving while intoxicated and I have a one thousand dollar bond. The bond is set because we want to make sure that I actually come to court. Some people might be inclined to, you know after they’re arrested, to kind of try to hide out but we don’t want that to happen so the purpose of bond or bail is to assure a person’s presence in court later. So, if I have a one thousand dollar bond, I can either put up the full one thousand dollars myself and that will that’s a cash bond. I pay the full amount and it’s held by the court until my case is done. It doesn’t matter what the outcome is, but when my case is completed, if I come to court on time every time I’ve been supposed to go to court, then that money is returned to me, the full amount is returned. But, it can be a problem to, you know, get that much money together on a one thousand dollar bond, but especially on much higher bonds like a one hundred thousand dollar bond. So, to address that, that hardship, we have a thing called charity bonds. What those are is you go through a bondsman, a bail bond company, again, different ways of referring to the same thing, and you make an agreement with them. Typically it’s going to be ten percent so on my one thousand dollar bond I’d pay them ten percent or a hundred dollars, and then they basically they’re the surety and then they basically put up the rest of the money, and assuming I go to court like I’m supposed to do and I’m not late then the money is returned to them, but I guess it’s a fee for that service, I don’t get my ten percent back. And that’s going to be the most common bond that people use. There’s another kind of bond, it’s a personal recognizant bond, we call it a PR bond for short because personal recognizant bond is kind of a mouth full. It’s also called a signature bond or release because of delay and what that is, is if the DA’s office has not filed in your case or indicted you within a certain time period then you get out basically for free. You just sign your name, and you’re released. For a class B misdemeanor that time period is fifteen days. For a class A misdemeanor that time period is thirty days, and for a felony offense, that time period is ninety days. I hope that helped you understand the three most common types of bonds that we see. If you have any questions about that give us a call and we’d be happy to help.