Category: Bail

If you ask most lawyers about bail, they will tell you to call a bail bondsman. Many will even suggest you call one that they know and regularly do business with. This is probably not the answer you want to hear when you or someone you love is in custody and has questions about bail. What you want to hear is how your lawyer can help explain how bail works, what the options are for the client or the client’s family and how recent changes in the law may dramatically reduce the cost of bail. Bail Reduction First, when a client …

How to Avoid Posting Bail Not everyone has to post bail in order to secure their pre-trial release from custody. Just yesterday I walked a woman into court after a warrant was issued for her arrest. She was charged with DUI with a prior, a special allegation of having a blood alcohol concentration over .20, one out of time prior (over 10 years old) and she was the cause of a three car traffic accident. The amount of the warrant was $60,000. The client wanted to walk into the nearest police station and post bail. That would have cost her …

One of the common questions in my business is: Should I bail him/her out? My answer is always the same – It depends. There are some basic rules of thumb I employ when deciding to advise bailing out a client. Now is the right time to post bail when: The client will be deported if he/she is not bailed immediately. The client will earn more money while out on bail than the cost of the bailbond. The client will lose a good job that he will be able to keep if he bails out. The client has children or dependants …

If I Google the word “bail” or “jail” or “arrested”, I get thousands of returns for bail bondsmen throughout the state of California and across the country. Very quickly I can figure out that if I need to post bail, the most common way to do it is to call a bail bondsman. I pay them a fee of about 10% (sometimes less) for them to post the bond and I secure my freedom. I liken this to buying an insurance policy. We buy insurance in case there is some sort of big trouble in the future and if such …

I hope you all had a happy Halloween. This weekend, not one but two friends called to say that their children had been arrested. One was a juvenile and was released with a notice that they would be contacted in the future to appear in court. The other was a young adult arrested in Los Angeles County for DUI causing injury or felony DUI. In LA, the bail schedule says if you are arrested for DUI causing injury your bail will be set at $100,000.00. This means that if you want to post bail, it will cost you or your family between $7,000 …

Kevin Hogrefe is Out on $500,00 Bail and Using the Public Defender Kevin Hogrefe posted bail of $500,000.00 and appeared at his arraignment out of custody yesterday in Ventura Superior Court. He was ordered as a condition of bail to wear and GPS tracking device and a skin monitor for alcohol. He appeared in court with a Ventura County Deputy Public Defender, Justin Tuttle. I happen to be a fan of the Ventura County Public Defender’s Office. I think the vast majority of these lawyers are hard working, well trained defense attorney who are practicing their trade in a very tough county. …

Innocent Unless and Until Proven Guilty Beyond a Reasonable Doubt Being arrested can be a terrible experience. You can deprived of your liberty, you could be embarrassed, it cost money to post bail to get out of jail and in the case of certain famous athletes, you could lose your job. The NHL or the NFL can do what they like with their players or do what they wish to their players. Each organization has rules in place to deal with situations that occur. Should a player get arrested, the organization has a policy about how to deal with the player. Just …

Understanding Your Rights When the Cops Show Up “I was completely cooperative with the cops…Won’t that help me?” “Don’t I have to answer their [cops] questions?” “I told them [cops] the truth, how can they use that against me?” These are three very common statements at my office. I hear them all the time and I have been hearing the same questions for decades. My answers are still the same, no, no and absolutely. Do you know your Miranda Rights? “Well, yes” is usually the answer. Anything you say can and will be used against you in court. We have …

A 32 year old (former) father was arrested yesterday after his one year old infant died at a local hospital as a result of head and neck injuries. Authorities have David Vasquez in custody in lieu of one million dollars bail. He is thought to be charged with murder. The one year old victim had been the apparent victim of abuse in the past as police were called out to the same location some months ago to find the infant with leg injuries which were not adequately explainable. Happy Father’s Day. If you have questions about child abuse, murder or …

If you or one were not one of the 65 people on the list of those just pardoned by Governor last week, you should call me. One of the people who was pardoned Robert Phillip Brown who was convicted of murder in 1977. Brown spent a decade and a half behind bars before his release from custody. After leading an honest life and “exhibiting good moral character” he petitioned the court for a certificate of rehabilitation. The certificate of rehabiliatation, often referred to as an indirect pardon, is a court document which recommends to the Governor that the subject has …

The Los Angeles County Tax Assessor who was arrested months ago on charges of corruption and fraud was finally able to post bail with the help of friends, a competent bail bondsman and a a great deal of patience. John Noguez was in custody after a judge set bail at over 1million dollars. This means that Noguez would need to put up one million dollars to secure his release or he could pay a bail bondsman a fee of ten percent and the bondsman would post the million dollar bond to secure Noguez’ release. Not so fast said a Los Angeles …

I’ve never heard of Katt Williams, but after reading about his situation, I thought I would write a fews words. It seems that Mr. Williams is a comedian who lives in Los Angeles and has had several issues with the law in recent months. He has lost custody of his children, has been arrested for guns and drugs and most recently missed a court date in Sacramento, California for a serious offense. Katt was out of $105,000 bail for felony evading arrest (Vehicle Code Section 2800.2) and misdemeanor reckless driving (VC 23103). Evading arrest is punishable by a mandatory minimum …

Los Angeles County Assessor John Noguez was arrested about 6 days ago after authorities suspected he was taking bribes in exchange for lowering peoples property taxes. In total he was alleged to have cost the County of Los Angeles $1.16 million in lost property taxes based upon his actions. Superior Court Judge Shelly Torrealba would not reduce Noquez’ bail when requested by his attorney. Typically base is set by “schedule” here in California. For every crime there is a corresponding bail amount. In certain cases like theft or fraud the bail schedule provides for setting bail at the same amount …

In a bid for attention, a Pennsylvania woman admitted to poisoning her boyfriend with Visine eye drops. Vickie Jo Mills, 33 was arrested Thursday and charged with 10 counts of aggravated assault, 10 counts of simple assault and 10 counts of reckless endangerment. She admitted to police that over the past 3 years, she had laced her boyfriend, Therman Edgar Nesbitt III’s drinking water with Visine eye drops 10-12 times. She claims she was not trying to kill him. Mills and Nesbitt have a child together. Nesbitt had been feeling ill and saw his doctor after experiencing nasea, vomiting and breathing …

The California Senate just signed a bill that will restrict state law enforcement agents from detaining illegal immigrants unless the immigrant has a prior conviction for a serious or violent felony. The bill is going to the State Assembly soon where it is expected to pass. The new law may lead to some conflicts between federal and state law. It sounds like law enforcement officers are going to have to think on their feet after they contact an immigrant while on duty. Police will have to make a determination whether or not the immigrant has a significant enough criminal history …

George Zimmerman was just released after he posted a one million dollar bail bond. His release surprised me because that is a high bond amount. Apparently Mr. Zimmerman has a lot of “friends” who helped fund this undertaking. Posting a million dollar bond normally costs the defendant 10 percent or $100,000.00. This fee is earned by the bond company as soon as the defendant is released from jail. In addition, and more important to the bond company is securing the bond should the defendant fail to appear in court as ordered. If the defendant does not go to court, the …

A three judge panel in the 4th District (Riverside) Court of Appeal of the State of California just ruled that cities and counties are free to ban medical marijuana dispensaries in their jursidictions. This case followed another case in Long Beach where the 9th Circuit Court of Appeal ruled that Long Beach could not make laws specifically authorizing medical marijuana dispensaries because the drug still remains illegal under federal law. Taken together the new ruling are very damaging for the medical marijuana community. At least in so far as it pertains to dispensaries. While these new laws will have little effect on …

The Lancaster City Counsel just approved a spy plane to conduct aerial surveillance over Lancaster ten hours per day and seven days per week. The images captured by the occupied plane will supposedly be transferred directly to the Sheriff’s Department and viewed by assigned deputies in the station. Comments regarding the surveillance plane are mixed at best. Some residents, including the City Mayor, R. Rex Parris are happy about the crime fighting potential the plane may have. The ACLU has other concerns. Why should honest people who are not breaking the law be subjected to surveillance by the cops and …

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Kelvin Filer overturned the murder conviction of Obie Anthony and ordered that he be immediately released from jail. Anthony, age 37, spend 17 years in custody after his conviction for killing a man outside a South Los Angeles brother. The judge was very critical towards prosecutors in the case because they failed to disclose to the jury that they made a deal with their main witness. The witness, John Jones agreed to testify in order to get a lighter sentence on his charges of pimping and pandering. Jones also testified against a co-defendant, Reggie Cole, …

As a criminal defense attorney I am constantly trying to stay up to date on new criminal case law and legislation as well as the state of the justice system in California and the United States. One of the ways I do this is by getting emails from organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Anti-Defamation League and even the National Rifle Association’s Institute for Legislative Action. As anyone who reads my blog likely knows, I have fairly conservative views and I rarely jump on any liberal bandwagons. I recently got …

In a landmark case, the Federal Court just ruled that immigrants are entitled to a hearing and potential bail before any prolonged detention. The Court said that failure to do so is unconstitutional The ruling which came down in the Third Federal Circuit effects immigration detainees in NewJersey and Pennsylvania. The case was brought by a detainee from the country of Senegal who was detained for nearly three years in immigration custody without the opportunity for a bail hearing. Cheikh Diop was not given a hearing to determine whether or not his detention was necessary for this three year period. …

The Supreme Court rules that when police take a child out of school for the purpose of questioning them about a crime, Miranda warnings are required. In a 5 to 4 ruling, Justice Sotomayor clearly indicated that children deserve a higher level of protection from potential police abuse than adults. Prior to this ruling, police could remove a child from his classroom and ask the child questions which intended to gain incriminating responses. Police were allowed to do this without an adult present and without Mirandizing the child. In what seems to me to be a very well reasoned opinion …

If you are reading this then you already know the question, so what is the answer? With the average bail in Los Angeles County set at over $20,000, it will cost you or someone close to you a lot of money to secure your freedom. Bail is set by law in California and regulated by the State Department of Insurance. Bail fees are set at ten percent for most cases and can be eight percent in certain circumstances. This means that if your bail is set at $20,000, your cost to post a bail bond will be around $2,000.00. Before …

In recent the case of McDonald v. Chicago, the United States Supreme Court voted 5 to 4 saying that the Second Amendment does in fact protect our right to keep and bear arms.  The Court was overturning the City of Chicago’s laws restricting one’s right to own certain guns and banning the possession of all handguns. This decision went much further than the two year old case of District of Columbia v. Heller, which never came out and used the words of the Second Amendment.  You can view the new opinion on the Supreme Court website. For opinions or explanations about the …

The dreaded event occurs…you or someone you love is arrested. Police take him to the station ask him a few identifying questions and take his picture and fingerprints. One of two things will normally happen next. Police can either give him a ticket and tell him when to show up for court or they can set bail and let him sit in jail until bail gets “posted”. For minor violations like a DUI, or where the bail amount is low, an arrestee may just get released after signing a promise to return to court when told. However, if your loved …