The District Attorney's Office would accept charges and set a recommended bail amount according to a written “bail schedule.” The bail schedule, which was written by the judges, set recommended bail amounts based almost entirely on the level of misdemeanor or felony the person was charged with and the person's criminal ...
$5,0001. Bail Bondsman Fees. If you go to a bail bondsman, you will typically be charged a 10% fee to bail your loved one out of jail. That means if bail is set for $50,000, you would have to pay a bondsman a fee of $5,000 as his premium.
"Surety Bonds" are bonds posted through approved Harris County bonding companies that charge a fee for their services. Once bail is posted, the defendant will receive a future court date and be released from jail.
A PR bond, or Personal Recognizance, is reserved when a court judge determines that you are not a flight risk. A judge will typically make this call when they see that the defendant has no prior criminal record, has family in the city, is not a threat to the community, has ties to the community, and other factors.
Bail is the money a defendant must pay in order to get out of jail. A bond is posted on a defendant's behalf, usually by a bail bond company, to secure his or her release. Defendants with pending warrants are usually not eligible for bail.
In the event the suspect fails to return to court, the bail will be forfeited. It will only be returned if the suspect was able to comply with the required appearances. Regardless of whether the person is found guilty or not guilty, the bail money will be returned at the end of the trial.
The Harris County Bail Bond Board approved a proposal late Wednesday requiring bonding companies to collect a minimum of 10% of bail set by judges before people are released on bond. The new rule is intended to prevent people accused of violent offenses from being released on low bond amounts and reoffending.
It depends on the jurisdiction. A person can technically and legally be held for up to 72 hours for investigative purposes, but charges in Harris County are usually filed within 8-12 hours from time of arrest. It could be longer in complex cases.
Bonds can be posted at the Harris County Joint Processing Center, 700 N. San Jacinto St., (Municipal Courts Jail Bonding Window), Houston, TX 77002. Jail Bonding is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, including holidays.
How do bail bonds work? Bail bonds work by allowing a defendant to post bail that he or she would not have otherwise been able to afford. The bail bondsman posts the full amount on the defendant's behalf. The defendant pays the bail bondsman a percentage of the bail amount – usually 10 percent.
There, the officer may require a drug or alcohol test from you. For Harris County, most Pretrial Monitoring will be conducted at the criminal courthouse, 1201 Franklin, 12th Floor, Houston, TX 77002. Once your case is disposed of, the conditions of bail are terminated.
How is a PR Bond Obtained?Whether the judge believes the individual poses a threat to the community or is a flight risk (ex. employed, a student, community leader, etc.)The type of case: violent or non-violent.Defendant's criminal history.Motion for Personal Recognizance Bond or Motion for Bond Reduction.
Bail is the money a defendant must pay in order to get out of jail. A bond is posted on a defendant’s behalf, usually by a bail bond company, to secure his or her release. Such a surety bond is like a security deposit.
Loose regulations set the stage for variations in how bail companies collect money, according to several professors who study bail. And changes in the market are usually the cause.
A magistrate set bail for Zacchaeus Gaston at $50,000 in February 2020 on a drug possession charge. The general assumption is that Gaston, his loved ones or another benefactor would pay 10 percent, or $5,000, to a bail agent to get him out of jail ahead of trial.
Bail bonds agents in Harris County opposed misdemeanor bail reform, filing to intervene in federal court. Although their efforts were futile, they heralded the idea that cash bond keeps the public safe by motivataing defendants to return to court since their money or their family’s money is on the line.
The bail bond industry is thought to be a $2 billion enterprise in the U.S., one of only two countries — the Philippines is the other — that use private bail companies for a pretrial release system.
Now roughly 85 percent of misdemeanor arrestees are automatically released without paying, and the county is beginning to grapple with another bail lawsuit focused on felony cases. Under the new judges in the county’s juvenile courts, the number of Houston-area children sent to juvenile prisons has fallen drastically, from 149 in 2018 to 62 in 2019.
In 2019, more than 3,200 cases were dismissed due to a lack of probable cause, a more than 70 percent increase ...
Conservatives, law enforcement officials and the bail bonds industry have attacked those changes, but have not been able to reverse them. The shift in Harris County is part of a broader rethinking of criminal justice across the U.S.
HOUSTON, Texas — Beto O’Rourke lost Texas in 2018. But his unsuccessful Senate bid led to a big change in the state’s largest city: a major overhaul of the criminal-justice system.