Bail and Pretrial Release: Detention, Conditions, and the Money Bail Debate

Summary. Who gets released, on what conditions, how detention is ordered, and why the answer determines the outcome of the case.

Part I: The decision that decides the case

A person arrested on Friday afternoon faces a question that will shape everything after it: will they go home, or will they wait in a cell?

The answer is usually decided in a hearing that lasts a few minutes, on a file assembled in hours, before anyone has investigated anything. And it determines far more than comfort. A detained defendant loses income and frequently the job itself, may lose housing and custody of children, cannot gather evidence or locate witnesses, meets counsel through a glass partition in twenty-minute increments, and — the empirical finding that has driven a decade of reform — pleads guilty more often and receives longer sentences than an otherwise identical released defendant.

That is the practical stake. The doctrine below should be read with it in view.

Part II: The constitutional floor

The Eighth Amendment provides that excessive bail shall not be required. It does not, on its face, guarantee bail — a distinction the Supreme Court has enforced.

Stack v. Boyle supplied the classic formulation: bail set at a figure higher than an amount reasonably calculated to assure the defendant's presence at trial is "excessive" under the Eighth Amendment. The Court emphasized that the traditional right to freedom before conviction permits the unhampered preparation of a defense and prevents the infliction of punishment before conviction — and that this right would lose its meaning if bail could be set without regard to the individual circumstances of the case.

Two things follow from Stack that are constantly ignored in practice. Bail must be individualized — a schedule that assigns a number to an offense without reference to the person is in tension with the holding. And the purpose is assuring appearance, which means an amount set to detain is an amount set for a purpose bail does not serve.

United States v. Salerno then upheld pretrial detention on dangerousness grounds. The Court held that the Bail Reform Act's detention provisions are regulatory rather than punitive, that preventing danger to the community is a legitimate regulatory goal, and that the Act's procedural protections — a hearing, counsel, presentation of evidence, cross-examination, a clear and convincing standard, written findings, and prompt appellate review — satisfy due process. On the Eighth Amendment, the Court held the Excessive Bail Clause does not categorically require release on bail; where Congress has identified a compelling interest, the Clause does not bar detention.

The practical result is a system in which detention is constitutionally permitted, on findings, after a hearing — and in which the fight is about the findings and the hearing rather than about whether detention is ever allowed.

And the timing. Gerstein v. Pugh held that a person arrested without a warrant is entitled to a prompt judicial determination of probable cause as a prerequisite to extended restraint of liberty. County of Riverside v. McLaughlin put a number on "prompt": a determination within 48 hours of arrest is generally presumed reasonable; beyond that, the burden shifts to the government to demonstrate a bona fide emergency or extraordinary circumstance. Intervening weekends and holidays do not excuse delay.

Part III: The federal structure

18 U.S.C. § 3142 sets out a graduated scheme, and its architecture has been widely copied by states.

The presumption is release. A judicial officer must order release on personal recognizance or an unsecured appearance bond unless that will not reasonably assure appearance or will endanger the safety of any other person or the community.

If release on recognizance is insufficient, the officer must impose the least restrictive condition or combination of conditions that will reasonably assure appearance and safety. The statute lists them — third-party custody, employment or education maintenance, travel restrictions, association restrictions, reporting, curfew, substance abstention and testing, treatment, weapons restrictions, and a secured or unsecured bond among many others.

A critical instruction that is regularly disregarded: the judicial officer may not impose a financial condition that results in the pretrial detention of the person. A bail amount the defendant cannot meet, imposed knowing they cannot meet it, is detention accomplished by a means the statute forbids.

Detention requires a hearing, and the standard differs by ground: clear and convincing evidence for dangerousness, and a preponderance for risk of flight in most circuits.

The factors are the nature and circumstances of the offense; the weight of the evidence; the history and characteristics of the person — including character, physical and mental condition, family ties, employment, financial resources, community ties, past conduct, history of substance abuse, criminal history, and record of appearance — and the nature and seriousness of the danger posed by release.

Rebuttable presumptions apply in defined categories, most prominently certain drug offenses carrying long maximums, firearms offenses, and offenses involving minors. In those cases a presumption arises that no condition will reasonably assure appearance and safety. The presumption shifts a burden of production to the defendant, not the burden of persuasion, which remains with the government — and even a rebutted presumption remains in the case as a factor. This is the single most misunderstood provision in federal bail practice.

Review. 18 U.S.C. § 3145 permits review of a magistrate judge's order by the district court, de novo in most circuits, and appeal to the court of appeals. This is an underused remedy, and it is available promptly.

Part IV: The money

Cash bail. The defendant or someone else deposits the full amount with the court, refundable at case conclusion if the defendant appears — sometimes less an administrative fee. Where a third party posts it, the money is at risk if the defendant does not appear.

Commercial surety. A bail bond company posts the bond in exchange for a non-refundable premium, typically around ten percent, plus collateral. The premium is gone regardless of the outcome — acquittal, dismissal, or conviction. The defendant's family is out that money permanently, which is the feature that most distinguishes commercial bail from every other form.

Deposit or percentage bond, used in several states, in which the defendant posts a percentage directly to the court and it is largely refunded on appearance, cutting the commercial surety out entirely.

Unsecured bond, in which no money is posted but the defendant is liable for the amount on non-appearance.

Personal recognizance, a promise to appear.

Property bond, secured by real estate.

Two structural observations about commercial bail. It transfers the release decision, in practical effect, to a private company that may decline any particular defendant for its own reasons. And it creates an industry with an economic interest in the volume of money bail — which is why bail reform is politically contested in a way that its empirical premises alone would not explain.

And the federal system does not use it. 18 U.S.C. § 3142 contemplates unsecured bonds and, where secured, deposits with the court. Commercial sureties are essentially a state-court phenomenon, and are prohibited outright in several states.

Part V: Pretrial services and risk assessment

Pretrial services agencies interview defendants, verify information, prepare reports and recommendations, and supervise released defendants — reminders, check-ins, testing, monitoring, and referrals.

The interview is a real decision point. It happens early, often before counsel is appointed, and covers residence, employment, family, health, substance use, and criminal history. It is not confidential, and defendants routinely say things in it that appear later. Counsel should advise on it before it happens where the timing permits; where it does not, a defendant should provide verifiable background information and decline to discuss the offense.

Risk assessment instruments score a defendant's likelihood of failure to appear and of new criminal activity, using factors such as age, current charge, prior convictions, prior failures to appear, and pending cases. The output is a risk level and often a recommended release condition set.

The genuine arguments for them: they are more consistent than unaided judgment, they make the basis of a decision visible and reviewable, and they generally recommend release far more often than the practice they replaced.

The genuine arguments against: the inputs reflect prior system contact, which is unevenly distributed; the instruments predict at the group level while the decision is individual; a "high risk" label can harden into a conclusion; and validation on one population does not transfer automatically to another.

The practical points for a lawyer: get the score and the inputs, because the inputs are frequently wrong — a dismissed case counted as a conviction, a failure to appear that was a clerical error, a pending case that resolved. And know whether the jurisdiction's policy permits an override, and what justification it requires.

Part VI: The reform debate, fairly stated

The empirical findings that drove reform are reasonably robust: pretrial detention is associated with higher conviction rates, higher guilty plea rates, and longer sentences for otherwise comparable defendants; short periods of detention are associated with job and housing loss; and money bail sorts by wealth rather than by risk, so that a wealthy person charged with a serious offense goes home while an indigent person charged with a minor one does not.

What reform jurisdictions have done: eliminated or sharply restricted money bail for many offenses; expanded release on recognizance and on non-financial conditions; created or expanded pretrial services; imposed speed requirements on hearings; required findings and, in some places, counsel at first appearance; and permitted detention on dangerousness after a hearing — the Salerno model — as the trade for eliminating detention by unaffordable bail.

The objections, taken seriously: that release decisions must account for danger and that reforms replacing money bail without a workable detention mechanism leave courts with no tool for genuinely dangerous defendants; that risk instruments encode past disparities; that supervision conditions can themselves become punitive and generate violations; and that the effects on appearance rates and on crime are contested and vary by design.

Where the evidence is clearest: court date reminders — text messages, calls, letters — substantially improve appearance rates at negligible cost, and are among the least controversial interventions in criminal justice. Where it is least clear: the crime effects of large-scale bail elimination, which depend heavily on what replaces it.

For a practitioner, the operative fact is that the law here is changing rapidly and unevenly, that the rules in a neighboring county may differ, and that the statute or court rule in force this month is the thing to read rather than a general account of "bail reform."

Part VII: Conditions, violations, and revocation

Conditions are where released cases go wrong. Typical sets include reporting, travel restrictions, no-contact orders, substance testing, treatment, curfew, electronic monitoring, employment or school maintenance, and firearms surrender.

Three practical problems recur:

Achievability. Twice-weekly in-person reporting across a county without transit, testing during work hours, or treatment the defendant cannot afford are conditions that produce violations rather than compliance. They should be contested when imposed, with a specific workable alternative offered.

Cost. Electronic monitoring, drug testing, and supervision fees are frequently charged to the defendant. A person released on conditions they cannot afford is on a schedule toward revocation, and indigency waivers exist and are rarely requested.

Scope creep. Conditions that have nothing to do with appearance or safety — and the statute requires the least restrictive conditions that reasonably assure those two things — are challengeable.

Revocation follows a violation or a new arrest, on a hearing. A defendant on release who is charged with a new offense faces both the new case and revocation, and the revocation standard is lower than the original detention standard in many schemes.

Failure to appear is separately punishable and creates a warrant. The overwhelming majority of failures to appear are not flight — they are transportation failures, childcare failures, work conflicts, notice failures, and confusion about dates. A defendant who misses a date should not wait; counsel can frequently arrange a voluntary surrender and a motion to quash, which produces a far better outcome than an arrest three months later.

And the constitutional limit on financial conditions: Bearden v. Georgia, though a probation case, supplies the principle courts increasingly apply to pretrial financial conditions — a person may not be jailed for inability to pay without an inquiry into the reasons and consideration of alternatives.

Part VIII: What actually works at the hearing

Detention hearings are decided on specifics, and the specifics are logistical.

Bring:

A verified address, and the person who lives there, present in court.
Employment verification — a letter, a pay stub, a supervisor's phone number, and confirmation the job is held.
Community ties — length of residence, family in the district, school enrollment, caregiving responsibilities.
A third-party custodian willing to accept the obligation, present and prepared to answer questions.
Treatment availability, with an accepted intake rather than a referral.
A corrected criminal history, because the record before the court is frequently wrong.
An answer to the government's specific concern. If the concern is a firearm, propose surrender and a search condition. If it is contact with a witness, propose a no-contact order and a stay-away radius. If it is flight, propose passport surrender, location monitoring, and reporting.

Do not:

Argue the merits of the case at length. The weight of the evidence is a factor, but a detention hearing is not a suppression hearing, and disclosing the defense strategy has a cost.
Let the defendant speak to the facts.
Concede detention "for now" expecting to revisit it. Reopening requires new information, and the second hearing is harder than the first.

And if detention is ordered, move promptly for review under 18 U.S.C. § 3145 or the state equivalent, and continue developing the release plan — a bed in a treatment program, a job offer, a relative who has now agreed to serve as custodian — because reopening requires new information and that is how it is generated.

Part IX: Five hearings

The Friday arrest

A man is arrested Friday at 4 p.m. on a warrantless charge. The court does not sit until Monday, and first appearance is set for Tuesday morning.

That is roughly 90 hours to a probable cause determination, and under County of Riverside it is presumptively unreasonable. The intervening weekend does not excuse it — the Court said so specifically, rejecting the argument that a jurisdiction may combine the probable cause determination with other proceedings if that produces delay past 48 hours.

What counsel does: an immediate written demand for a probable cause determination; a request for release based on the violation; and a record of the arrest time, which the jail intake documents establish.

What the remedy is, realistically: not usually suppression of everything, but release, and a record that matters if the delay produced a statement or a lineup. The violation is worth raising even when the remedy is modest, because jurisdictions that are never challenged do not change their schedules.

And for the family: the practical response is to gather the release materials over the weekend — the address, the employment letter, the custodian — so that Tuesday's hearing is not the first time anyone has thought about them.

The bail schedule

A woman is arrested on a charge carrying a scheduled bail of $25,000. She has never been arrested, has two children, works at a hospital, and has lived in the county for eleven years. Nobody asks about any of that. She cannot post $2,500 to a bondsman.

This is the central objection to schedules, and Stack v. Boyle is the argument: bail must be set at an amount reasonably calculated to assure this person's appearance, on individualized consideration. A number attached to an offense code is not that.

What counsel argues, in order:

Individualization — the Stack holding, applied to these facts.
The purpose limit — bail assures appearance; this amount is not calibrated to appearance risk, which the record shows is minimal.
The statutory limit, where the jurisdiction has adopted the federal formulation: a financial condition may not be imposed that results in detention.
Least restrictive alternative — recognizance, or an unsecured bond, or reporting.
Ability to pay — with an actual financial statement, because a court cannot apply the limit without knowing the number.

And the practical alternative to offer: a specific package. Weekly telephonic reporting, a promise to surrender a passport, an address verified by a utility bill, and her supervisor's letter confirming her shift schedule. Courts release people when someone hands them a plan.

The presumption case

A defendant is charged with a drug offense carrying a ten-year maximum. A rebuttable presumption applies.

What the presumption does, precisely: it creates a presumption that no condition or combination will reasonably assure appearance and community safety. It shifts a burden of production to the defendant — some evidence to the contrary. It does not shift the burden of persuasion, which stays with the government at clear and convincing for dangerousness. And once rebutted, it does not vanish; it remains as a factor the court weighs alongside the statutory considerations.

What rebuts it, in practice: exactly the material described above — verified residence, employment, family in the district, absence of any failure to appear history, a third-party custodian, treatment availability, and a concrete condition package addressing the specific risk.

What does not rebut it: an argument that the government's case is weak, standing alone. The weight of the evidence is one factor of four, and it is the one courts weigh least at this stage.

The most common defense error in presumption cases is treating the presumption as dispositive and not putting on a case. The burden of production is low and it is the defendant's to carry, and courts routinely release presumption defendants who carry it.

The condition nobody could meet

A defendant is released on conditions: report in person twice weekly at an office eighteen miles away, submit to random testing at a facility open only during business hours, attend outpatient treatment at $80 per session, and remain employed.

Every one of these conflicts with the last. He cannot keep the job and report twice weekly during business hours; he cannot afford the treatment on the job he has; and he has no car.

What should have been said when they were imposed:

The statute requires the least restrictive conditions that reasonably assure appearance and safety. Twice-weekly in-person reporting is not the least restrictive means of assuring appearance for a person with eleven years' residence and a job.
Propose the alternative: telephonic or app-based reporting weekly, testing at a facility on the bus line or through the treatment provider, a sliding-scale treatment slot, and employment verification monthly.
Ask about fee waivers for monitoring and testing.

What to do now, before the violation: a motion to modify, with the bus schedule, the work schedule, the provider's fee sheet, and a letter from the employer. Modification before a violation is routine; modification after one is a revocation hearing.

And if revocation is sought for non-payment of a supervision or monitoring fee, invoke the Bearden principle: no incarceration for inability to pay without an inquiry into the reasons and consideration of alternatives.

The missed court date

A defendant misses a Tuesday hearing because his shift changed and he thought the date was Thursday. A warrant issues.

The worst thing he can do is nothing. Warrants do not expire; he will be arrested eventually, at a traffic stop or at work, in circumstances that look like flight and produce a detention order.

The right sequence:

Call counsel the same day.
Counsel contacts the court and the prosecutor and arranges a voluntary surrender, frequently the next morning.
A motion to quash the warrant, supported by the reason — the shift-change documentation, the notice showing an ambiguous date, the text message from the employer.
Appear, apologize, and propose a fix: reminder calls, a calendar confirmation at each appearance, a change to a reporting condition.

Courts distinguish flight from failure, and the distinction is drawn by conduct after the miss. A defendant who surrenders voluntarily within a day is treated very differently from one arrested four months later.

And the systemic point: the overwhelming majority of missed dates are logistics — transportation, childcare, work, notice, confusion. Reminder systems are the single most cost-effective intervention in the field, and defense counsel can supply the function informally by calling clients the day before.

Part X: What detention actually costs, and to whom

The regulatory framing in Salerno — that pretrial detention is not punishment — is doctrinally coherent and experientially false, and understanding the gap is part of practicing in this area.

To the defendant:

Employment. Even a few days' absence without notice ends many hourly jobs. The loss is frequently permanent and it undermines every argument for release at the next hearing.
Housing. A missed rent payment, an abandoned unit, or a lease violation follows quickly, and in subsidized housing an arrest alone can jeopardize the tenancy.
Children. A detained sole caregiver's children enter the child welfare system, and reunification is its own multi-year process.
Health. Medication continuity in jails is unreliable; withdrawal management is uneven; and chronic conditions deteriorate.
The case itself. Counsel access through a glass partition in twenty-minute blocks is not the same as preparation. Investigation, witness location, and evidence gathering by the defendant become impossible.
The plea. The empirical finding that has driven reform: detained defendants plead guilty more often and receive longer sentences than comparable released defendants — in part because a plea to time served is the fastest way out, whatever the merits.

To the family: lost income, the non-refundable bond premium, commissary and phone charges at rates that have drawn sustained regulatory attention, transportation to a facility that may be far away, and the caregiving gap.

To the public: the direct cost of detention, and the second-order costs of job loss, housing instability, and family disruption — which is why bail reform has attracted support from constituencies that agree on very little else.

The counterweight, stated fairly: some defendants genuinely will not appear, and some genuinely pose a risk to identified people. A system with no detention mechanism at all has no answer for either, which is why the reform model has generally been to trade money bail for a Salerno-style dangerousness hearing rather than to eliminate detention.

For a lawyer, the operational conclusion is that release is worth substantial early effort — more than its position in the case sequence suggests. The hours spent assembling a release package in the first week are the highest-leverage hours in the representation, because everything else in the case is easier from the outside.

Part XI: State systems, and how they differ

The federal structure described above is a model, not a national rule. State practice varies on every axis, and a lawyer crossing a state line — or a county line — should check each of these.

Is there a right to bail by statute or constitution? Many state constitutions guarantee bail for all offenses except capital offenses where the proof is evident or the presumption great — language dating to the founding era. Several states have amended those provisions to permit denial of bail on dangerousness grounds, and the interaction between an old right-to-bail clause and a new detention statute is genuinely litigated.

Are bail schedules used? Some jurisdictions set presumptive amounts by offense for stationhouse release; others prohibit them; others use them only as a floor before an individualized hearing.

Is commercial surety permitted? It is prohibited outright in several states and unavailable in the federal system.

When is counsel appointed? The single largest practical variable. A jurisdiction that appoints counsel before first appearance produces dramatically different release outcomes than one that appoints afterward, because the release package is presented by someone whose job it is.

What is the hearing timeline? Probable cause within 48 hours is the federal constitutional floor; state rules on first appearance, detention hearings, and continuances vary widely and are frequently shorter.

What is the detention standard and who bears it? Clear and convincing for dangerousness is the federal rule; states vary, and some require findings that no condition would suffice.

Are there presumptions, and for which offenses?

Is there a pretrial services agency, and does it supervise or only report?

Is a risk assessment instrument used, which one, is it validated locally, and does policy permit overrides?

Are conditions fee-supported? Monitoring, testing, and supervision fees charged to defendants are common and are increasingly restricted.

Is there a speedy trial consequence to detention? Several states impose shorter trial deadlines for detained defendants, which is one of the more effective structural protections and is frequently waived without the client understanding what is being given up.

And the practical instruction: in a jurisdiction you do not practice in regularly, read the local rule and ask the public defender's office how first appearances actually run before the client's hearing. The written rule and the courtroom practice are frequently different documents.

Part XII: Reopening, review, and the long detention

A detention order is not the end of the question, and the mechanisms for revisiting it are underused.

Reopening. Most schemes permit a detention hearing to be reopened on information not known to the movant at the time of the hearing that has a material bearing on release. That standard is narrower than "we now have a better argument," and it is satisfied by facts that did not exist or were unavailable: a treatment program that has now accepted the defendant; an employer who has now confirmed the job is held; a relative who has now agreed to serve as third-party custodian; a co-defendant's resolution that changes the picture; a medical diagnosis; the dismissal of the count that carried the presumption.

Which is why the release plan should keep being built after detention is ordered. The material that reopens the hearing does not exist yet on the day it is denied.

Review. 18 U.S.C. § 3145 — and its state analogues — permit prompt review of a magistrate's order by the district court, generally de novo, and appeal beyond that. This is fast relief that is frequently not sought, sometimes because counsel assumes the reviewing judge will defer. Many do not.

Changed circumstances during a long pretrial detention:

Duration itself. Extended pretrial detention raises due process concerns independent of the original findings, and the longer it runs the stronger the argument that conditions short of detention have become adequate.
Case developments. Suppression of key evidence, dismissal of counts, a co-defendant's cooperation collapsing, or a superseding indictment that narrows exposure.
Health. Serious medical needs the facility cannot meet.
Speedy trial. Where the jurisdiction imposes shorter deadlines for detained defendants, the expiration is itself a lever — and counsel should be extremely careful about waiving those deadlines for a detained client.

And the practical habit: put a calendar entry every thirty days on any detained case, to ask what has changed and whether anything now supports reopening. Detained clients drop out of a busy practice's attention precisely because they cannot call as easily, and the case that has been pending for nine months is usually the one where something has changed and nobody looked.

Part XIII: The vocabulary, decoded

Bail practice runs on terms used loosely everywhere else, and misusing them at a hearing signals inexperience.

Bail vs. bond. Bail is the release of a person on conditions; a bond is the instrument securing it. "Making bail" and "posting bond" are used interchangeably in practice.

Recognizance (ROR). Release on a written promise to appear, with no financial condition.

Unsecured bond. No money posted; the defendant is liable for the stated amount on non-appearance. This is a financial condition that does not detain, and it is the most underused release mechanism there is.

Secured bond. Money or property posted up front.

Cash bail. The full amount deposited with the court, generally refundable on appearance.

Deposit or percentage bond. A percentage posted to the court, largely refunded on appearance — the mechanism that makes commercial sureties unnecessary.

Commercial surety. A bail bond company posts the bond for a non-refundable premium plus collateral.

Bail schedule. A list assigning presumptive amounts by offense, used for stationhouse or pre-appearance release.

First appearance / initial appearance / arraignment. Terminology varies; the functions are advising of charges, appointing counsel, taking a plea, and setting release conditions — sometimes in one proceeding, sometimes across two.

Gerstein hearing. The probable cause determination required for a warrantless arrest, presumptively within 48 hours.

Detention hearing. The adversarial proceeding at which detention is sought and decided on findings.

Rebuttable presumption. In defined offense categories, a presumption against release that shifts a burden of production to the defendant.

Third-party custodian. A person who agrees to supervise the defendant and to report violations — an obligation with real consequences, which anyone volunteering should understand before agreeing.

Pretrial services. The agency that interviews, verifies, recommends, and supervises.

Failure to appear (FTA). Missing a required appearance; distinct from bail jumping, which requires willfulness in most schemes.

Revocation. Termination of release for violation or new offense.

Forfeiture and remission. Forfeiture is the loss of the bond on non-appearance; remission is the court's power to return some or all of it where the defendant is produced or the failure is excused — a remedy the surety and the family frequently do not know exists.

Part XIV: Six things worth remembering

The presumption is release. Under the federal scheme and most state analogues, release on recognizance or an unsecured bond is the default, and every step away from it requires a reason on the record.
A financial condition may not be imposed that results in detention. Where the jurisdiction has adopted that language, an unaffordable bail amount is not a compromise between release and detention — it is detention by a prohibited means, and it should be objected to in those words.
Stack v. Boyle requires individualization. Bail set by schedule, without reference to this person's circumstances, is in tension with the holding that has governed since 1951.
Rebuttable presumptions shift production, not persuasion — and even once rebutted, remain a factor. Defendants in presumption cases are released routinely when counsel puts on a case.
The hearing is decided on logistics. An address, a job letter, a custodian in the room, an accepted treatment intake, and a condition package addressing the government's specific concern. Not eloquence.
Release is worth front-loading. It affects the plea, the sentence, the job, the housing, and the children. The hours spent on it in the first week are the highest-leverage hours in the case.

And one for the person who has been arrested: say nothing about the facts, to anyone, including on a recorded jail line; ask for a lawyer; and have your family start gathering the address verification, the employment letter, and the person willing to stand up in court and say they will make sure you are there. That package, not an argument, is what gets people released.

Frequently asked questions

Is there a right to bail? Not categorically. The Eighth Amendment forbids excessive bail; Salerno held that detention on findings after a hearing is constitutional.

How quickly must I see a judge? A probable cause determination within 48 hours of a warrantless arrest is presumptively reasonable under County of Riverside. Weekends do not excuse delay.

Can bail be set at an amount I cannot pay? Under the federal statute, a financial condition may not be imposed that results in detention. Many states now have similar provisions. It happens anyway, and it should be objected to on the record.

What does a bail bondsman's fee buy? Nothing refundable. The premium — typically around ten percent — is gone regardless of the outcome.

What is a rebuttable presumption? In defined offense categories, a presumption that no condition will assure appearance and safety. It shifts a burden of production to the defendant; the burden of persuasion stays with the government, and the presumption remains a factor even once rebutted.

I missed a court date. What now? Contact counsel immediately. A voluntary surrender with a motion to quash the warrant produces a far better result than being arrested later.