Understanding Bail: A Crucial Part of the Legal Process
Let’s talk about bail. How is it set? My name is Carl Birkhead. I’m a Tulsa criminal defense attorney with Wirth Law Office in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I’ve been practicing family law for eight years now, and I want to help you make law easy to understand by discussing bail, the factors that go into setting it, and whether it can be reduced at all.
So, I’ll answer the second question first. Yes, bail can be reduced at any time. Can it? Yes. Will it be? It depends. It depends on the judge. It depends on the prosecutor. It depends on the nature of the case. It depends on, you know, it depends a lot on the same factors that go into play when bail is set.
Factors Influencing Bail Amounts
You know, what are you charged with? How severe is the crime? Are we talking about jaywalking, or are we talking about murder? Are we talking about a public intoxication, or are we talking about molestation? Are we talking like bank fraud, or are we talking like you hit someone with your car? All of those factors go into play in determining what to set the bail at, first of all, and secondly, what to, you know, whether or not the bail should be reduced.
If the bail’s gonna be reduced and you’re talking about filing a bond reduction motion, there are a couple of other factors that come into play. Your ties to the community, any family and friend connections that you have in the community, because ultimately what you’re looking at both in setting the bail and if you’re gonna reduce the bail, you’re looking at how can we protect society from a re-offense and how can we ensure that you’re going to appear in court again?
Ensuring Community Safety and Court Appearance
Protecting society from re-offense is obvious. You don’t want to let someone out free if they’re just going to commit or potentially commit more crimes. A lot of times in cases that involve assault and battery, if there’s going to be a bail set, there’s gonna be a condition of the bail that you cannot have contact with the alleged victim in that case. Ultimately, the law wants to make sure that you are going to be kept away from the person that you allegedly assaulted and battered.
They want to ensure that the person, specifically, and also society in general, are going to be safe from you if they need to be protected from you. If you’re innocent, it’s a whole different ballgame. But the problem with these cases is when you’re dealing with bonds, specifically, when you’re dealing with setting bail or a bail reduction, this is the only time in the criminal proceeding where you’re presumed guilty unless proven innocent.
Navigating the Complexity of Bail Settings
If the court’s gonna be figuring out your bail or considering dropping your bail, the court has to look at the worst-case scenario. The court has to consider, if you’re guilty, how likely it is that you’re going to re-offend in this situation? This is why these types of cases can get a little complicated. They can be very frustrating because I’ve got plenty of clients who are good people, they’re good upstanding citizens. Maybe they’ve had a bad day. More likely, they probably just were in the wrong place, wrong time.
Now they’re looking at bond amounts in 10, 20, 30, $100,000 amounts when they don’t need to be that high. So definitely talk to me. If your bail amount is something that’s a concern, if it’s something that you wanna get dropped, if you’re not sure why it was set that high, let’s sit down, let’s have a chat, let’s go over the facts of your case and figure out what factors are helping you and what factors are hurting you.
Schedule Your Strategy Session Today
My name is Carl Birkhead. I’m an Oklahoma felony defense attorney with Wirth Law Office, and I wanna help you make law easy. If you have any questions or need assistance with bail, call us at 918-879-1681. Let’s find the right solution for you with an affordable initial strategy session.
