Understanding Bond in Criminal Cases
So you’re facing criminal charges and you’re having to figure out a bond. My name is Carl Birkhead. I’m an attorney with Wirth Law Office in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I’ve been practicing criminal law for roughly seven years now, and I want to help you make law easy by talking a little bit about what bail is, what the different types are, cash bond versus hiring a bondsman, or maybe in the situations where you might be able to even get a PR or an OR bond.
What is Bail?
Bail is a monetary promise that you are going to return to court after you’ve been arrested in a criminal case. Usually nine times out of 10, it’s going to be a situation where something happened, you got arrested, charges were filed, and the judge set bail at an amount that’s supposed to be relatively reasonable compared to the charges. I mean, you’re not going to have a petty larceny charge with a $5 million bond, but at the same time, you’re not also going to be able to commit multiple homicides and have a $5,000 bond limit either.
Sometimes in some situations, especially if it’s an ongoing criminal case and you’ve missed court a few times and your bail has been revoked, the court will set it as a cash-only bond. What that means is that you cannot hire a bondsman, you have to put up the entire amount on your own. So if it’s a $5,000 amount, you got to come up with $5,000. If it’s higher, obviously higher.
Options for Posting Bail
If you’re not in that situation though, and it’s maybe like a first time that you’re having bail set or first offense, something like that, the court’s going to set bail at a relatively reasonable amount and you’re going to be able to hire a bondsman more often than not. Most bondsmen, if you’re looking that route, they’re only going to charge you 10% of what the bail is. So if you’re on a $10,000 bond, $1,000 to the bondsman, hires them, they post the rest, you get out.
Then you have to make sure that you stay in contact with your bondsman, and make sure that you make all of your court hearings. So that way they can say, hey, they’re doing well. They’re checking in. We can keep them out. We can keep them out of custody based on that monetary promise. Now, at the end of the criminal case, you’ll sometimes hear a judge say, the bond is exonerated. Insurance is just discharged. What that means is if you posted a cash bail or a cash bond, that money comes back to you. If you hired a bondsman though, that money’s going to the bondsman. It’s not coming back to you.
Understanding PR and OR Bonds
In some situations, you can negotiate what’s called a PR bond or an OR bond. Where I’ve seen this happen is if I’ve had clients who we think charges are coming, like I’ll have clients that’ll call me and say, hey, I’m under investigation or the cops are talking to me. I think I might be facing criminal charges and I need help. In those situations, sometimes, and not always, it does depend on what type of charge it is and how bad the charge is.
But sometimes I’ll be able to get with the prosecutor, get with law enforcement, and say, hey, listen, my clients hired me to represent them while you guys are determining whether or not you’re going to file charges. If you decide to file charges, please call us. We won’t make you chase them down and find them hiding somewhere and yank them into court. We will voluntarily surrender for you. Will you please, in exchange for that, agree to an OR bond or a PR bond?
What that means is that you would be released on your recognizance or personal recognizance. You would likely need to still do a walkthrough at the jail. You would need to be booked in, do the mugshots, all of that. But without having to put any money out of your pocket, the court would be saying, hey, since you’re working with us since you’re voluntarily surrendering, we’re going to just credit you for X amount of dollars for what your bond would be.
Importance of Making Court Appearances
If you don’t follow through on that, though, let’s say you get a $5,000 PR bond and then you don’t show up to court after that, the court can revoke that and then add that $5,000 onto your court costs on the back end of it. So it’s very, very important that after you’ve made bond one way or the other, you make your court appearances. If you have questions or anticipate charges, contact an experienced criminal law attorney at Wirth Law Office to discuss your options.
