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[Rolan7]

And I know this isn't the same thing, technically, but Republicans were more than happy to make certain bail funds illegal.  Because grifting is fine, but supporting protests is anti-American.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/01/georgia-senate-restricts-cash-bail-protestors-jail-overcrowding

[Maximum Spin]

I hope some next court case wil declare Trump to be a criminal organisation, so donating money to him becomes a crime too.

That wouldn't be legally possible in the US.

So it is totally okay to donate a billion dollars to IS?

No, but that has nothing to do with anything, because ISIS is not an American citizen running for office.

[anewaname]

And I know this isn't the same thing, technically, but Republicans were more than happy to make certain bail funds illegal.  Because grifting is fine, but supporting protests is anti-American.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/01/georgia-senate-restricts-cash-bail-protestors-jail-overcrowding

Three important bits in that article:
- "The bill removes the discretion of a judge to allow a prisoner to be released on their own recognizance ahead of trial on the listed charges." Georgia has non-partisan judge elections, so their judicial system is more 'd'emocratic; and removing that discretion of the judge will cut into power those judges wield.
- "Some amount, even if it is nominal, must be paid as a bond to secure release." This puts additional "who-knows-who tracking" information into the hands of the para-police groups.
- "... charitable organizations will no longer be allowed to bail out more than three people a year." This increases profit and control for bailbond organizations, by closing off the market from "free" alternatives.

This bill will increase the power of para-police groups within Georgia (who operate outside of the police departments' social and legal obligations, and often use illegal methods of data collection and tracking, and why wouldn't they also sell their data to those who simply want to "find a friend of theirs..."?).

[Maximum Spin]

The concept of bail is premised on the theory that the incentive of having the cash payment returned will encourage someone responsible to make sure the accused actually shows up for trial. It seems self-evident that bail cannot work if a charitable organization is handing out bail for purely sentimental reasons as a kind of jubilee, like described in the article. Charitable organizations by definition do not expect a return and so cannot respond to incentives. If a state cannot restrict the ability to post bail to those who meet some basic standard of expected responsibility, the most likely alternative would be ending the practice of offering bail altogether and forcing more people to stay in prison, or at least bails becoming much higher to discourage this sort of thing.

Now, there are better viable possibilities, like a system where random people and organizations are allowed to post bail, but are then held directly responsible for that pledge with possible criminal charges for failure. But it's stupid to pretend bail is just some arbitrary thing we do for no reason, or a punishment in and of itself that is discharged by paying it like a fine. The same thing applies to the question of judges RORing people with no possible responsibility; it's fair to say that that should be an issue for judges' election campaigns, but it's perfectly reasonable for the state lege to place a floor on it, since everyone statewide can be affected by the bad decisions of a judge in a particular jurisdiction, not just the voters there.

Given that not everyone is responsible enough to be able to take responsibility for making sure a defendant appears in court, the alternative to state-trusted para-police groups doing it is the actual police going out to arrest people and... throw them in jail awaiting trial. You can't have a trial system without one of these options.

[EuchreJack]

Bail as an incentive for a person to return for their own money only applies when people post their own bail.

When bail is posted by someone else, the argument is that other person or entity will make sure to get the person back to Court in order to get their money back.

Charities, just like everyone else, have limited funds and thus are incentivized to get the person to Court.

Also: Telling charities that they can only post bail for 3 people a year is a joke.  A charity is a group of individuals: If the Organization is limited to 3 a year, they can just split the load among their members. Literally nobody ever asks from where the money is coming.  And if they do...pay cash.

That being said, I live in a blue state. So I have to say: Recent bail jumpers should always be held.  Yes, it seems obvious that person that completely failed to appear when out on bail should not qualify for bail and instead be held.  But...blue state.

[Maximum Spin]

Charities, just like everyone else, have limited funds and thus are incentivized to get the person to Court.

According to the news articles I've read about this, they haven't been; and besides, how are they realistically going to accomplish that?
To be sure, it would be great if a charity had the resources and will to assign a handler to each bail case to personally ensure that person appears for trial. As I understand it, in a large proportion of bail jumping cases, the actual problem is that people who commit petty crimes often tend to be kind of screwups in their life and need help with things like remembering when to appear at court and not being on a bender at that time, without any specific intent to miss the date involved. But at that point, you've... formed a bail bond company. Realistically, no charity is going to have the resources to do that on any kind of scale - if anything, limiting it to 3 people might actually mean there will be enough volunteers available (proportionally) to do it responsibly, although somehow I doubt it.

Also: Telling charities that they can only post bail for 3 people a year is a joke.  A charity is a group of individuals: If the Organization is limited to 3 a year, they can just split the load among their members. Literally nobody ever asks from where the money is coming.  And if they do...pay cash.

Sure, 3 is perfectly arbitrary and can easily be worked around, but you're missing the underlying point... if they do that, and continue undermining the bail system, to any significant degree, the legislature is going to have to take away the option to post cash bail altogether (or at least raise it higher than the charities can functionally afford). Which would be worse. Reportedly, the charities have been behaving irresponsibly, and there is no system in place to make them responsible except those state-trusted bail bond companies; so, purely as a practical matter, regardless of what would be nice to have happen, either they shape up, or they get stopped.

[scriver]

A verdict has been reached in Trump’s hush money trial.

Guilty on all 34 counts

Congratulations, america!

[Maximum™]

Guess who has two thumbs and wasn't convicted of 34 felonies?

*points thumbs at self*

THIS GUY!

[anewaname]

So.. more about para-police organizations and how it feeds into Georgia's politics. Because Georgia is a sea of red with some blue blobs. Those blue blobs are constantly working to keep corruption and grift out of their policing organizations, and GOP control out of their city. They expel officers who cause them problems. They try to hire only locally for racial representation and community empathy. Some even hold elections to determine who'll run a police precinct. But in Texas, the "red" has created a solution for dealing with the blue-ness of cities. They send in "red" police.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Some excellent local reporting about Coffee City, Texas, a tiny town of about 250 people, with expletive 50 officers... The video is 20 minutes but covers months of the investigations during 2023 and has no fluff to it.

- About 25 of those officers had been forced from other police departments for different reasons, 12 had been criminally charged during that.
- the town sits an hour east of Dallas and two hours north of Houston
- in 2022 they issued 5000 tickets and received $1 million.
- being on the books as "full-time" officers allowed them to be legally eligible for other "off-duty police" work, and that is where the money was, doing this work in the cities.
- The Coffee City police chief himself did "off-duty police" work in Houston, 200 miles away. One of his phone calls was caught on doorcam (all covered in the video...). The local news investigation and that phone call led to the Coffee City guys who worked their Houston branch to get shutdown by the Houston locals. Later, the chief was suspended by the Coffee City council. Later, the Coffee City council fired the police chief and deactivated their entire police force. There were more charges filed against them after the events covered by the video.

When you look at the Texas map through the political lenses, where the cities are blue blobs in the middle of a lot of red, you have these guys operating as "red" para-police in "blue" cities. This Coffee City police department was a for-profit para-police organization, providing mercenaries for businesses in blue cities, and adding corruption to those blue-city police departments by interacting with them as "fellow officers".

Georgia's cop-city is not just for training... Like all things "red" and suppressive, the Coffee City model has siblings hiding in other states, and training together is a good way to find out who'll accept the under-the-table offers, all to improve the profit-stream.

@Maximum Spin
- For a $10k bail requirement, both the charitable group and the bailbond business have to put forward the entire $10k in cash or bond, and the individual is not released unless the court accepts that bond or cash. A bailbond business wants a fee for their services, and that fee is the only difference. For a bailbond business, a client is just a guy who wants to borrow money and offers to pay 25% APR, and those charitable groups are threatening the profit model because their APR is 0%. Furthermore, the charitable groups will get better at choosing which clients to reject, leaving that probably-worse client for the bailbond business to take a risk on. Any news article you've read about "how awful it is that charitable groups are throwing their money out the window because of all those bail-jumpers" is the fake news spun by those who are worried their bailbond business will lose 50% of their profits.

- The people who proposed/passed that bill are running businesses. They have a three step plan that has been making them money...
      step 1) get arrestee arrested.
      step 2) if arrestee makes bail, the bailbond business will get a cut. If arrestee jumps bail, the hunters will get a cut.
      step 3) if arrestee doesn't make bail, the service providers who man, maintain, and supply the prison, will get a cut.
   These steps make arresting people profitable, regardless of if the trial's outcome. The benefit of being invested in all stages of the arrest-to-prison cycle is profit and political power. Any threat to this system is a threat that will be attacked. I would bet there are Coffee-City-clones working in Atlanta.

@EuchreJack
I expect that Georgia limiting charitable organizations has a secondary intent of disorganizing the charitable-bail system, to expose donors so they can be made to feel fear or such. When organized, the charitable groups may be able to hide who their financial backers are, but what happens if enough laws and regulations change around Georgia's bail bond system that the donor names get into the public records, and the coercions start?

[EuchreJack]

@EuchreJack
I expect that Georgia limiting charitable organizations has a secondary intent of disorganizing the charitable-bail system, to expose donors so they can be made to feel fear or such. When organized, the charitable groups may be able to hide who their financial backers are, but what happens if enough laws and regulations change around Georgia's bail bond system that the donor names get into the public records, and the coercions start?

That is a problem, although like always the people with the money just have to give the money to passionate advocates who don't care that their names become public, and those passionate advocates post the funds instead.

Georgia is probably using the argument that charitable organizations are acting as fronts to criminal enterprises, as forming a charitable organization is a time-honored method of money laundering.  "Charitable organization" covers a lot more than just churches, which should probably be exempt.
If Nonprofits Were Honest | Honest Ads

[EuchreJack]

Justice Alito and his wife recorded speaking with folks at a Conservative event. Justice Alito discusses limits of Supreme Court to investigate the leak of his decision, and his wife is unrepentant about flying controversial flags.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Ok, on further reflection, they both probably knew that they were being recorded by a liberal, as they come off too well and on script. Like seriously, I am fairly sure Alito leaked it himself, and using your wife to espouse your views is the oldest trick in the Judge's manual.

[hector13]

I don’t think they would’ve been aware of the liberal leanings or that they were being recorded, but at least he seems to be fairly measured.

His wife sounds like a bit of a zealot though.

[McTraveller]

So Hunter was also found guilty.

I wonder what we'll see in the media...

[EuchreJack]

Personally, I think Hunter has a much greater chance of successfully completing probation than Trump...

[anewaname]

Alito has his actions and point of view justified in his mind, he probably could talk about it for a long time without introducing batshit into his discourse. He is the farmer looking at the pig and deciding it is time for the harvest.