The Byzantine World of Cut-Rate Bail Bonds

Less than 10% down, with shaky collateral: over the past two years, the news has been littered with examples of loose credit expeditions gone awry. But in the case of Maurice Clemmons, his story culminated in unusual horror last year: the murder of four Lakewood, Washington police officers.

Clemmons — a man who'd spent a decade behind bars in Arkansas — was a dubious candidate for bail release from the start. But having previously worked for a bail bond company himself, the 37-year-old knew how to work the system. Last May, he won his freedom after making only $1,700 in payment on a $40,000 bond. Later that year, when facing a $190,000 bond for a litany of felony charges, including rape, he got of jail with just $8,000 in payments (courtesy of Jail Sucks Bail Bonds). Less than a week later that November, he proceeded to whip out a gun at a local coffee shop and assassinate four uniformed police officers as they sat working at their laptops.

As a Seattle Times piece details today, bail bonds are one of the most fraught and unregulated pieces of the criminal justice system out there. Thanks to tightening competition, these days, companies are starting to charge clients much less than 10% of the bond (the norm) and allow suspects to pay by credit card or via installment plans. It requires very little to operate a bail bond operation: as the Denny Behrend of Lacey OMalley Bail Bonds tells the Seattle Times, "You can find a surety company and basically do business out of the back seat of a car [with] a cellphone."

After the coffeeshop murders (Clemmons was apprehended and killed the following month), a review by the state licensing department that Jail Sucks hadn't done anything wrong by bailing Clemmons out. Bail bond companies, after all, face almost no strictures on their operations.

Setting bail is a kind of guessing game: what amount is high enough to keep someone in jail or from committing further crimes? In Clemmons's case, after he was brought in for pelting neighboring houses with rocks and punching two cops last May, since it was a weekend, his bail was set by a formula (not by a judge). For four felony charges (assault, malicious mischief), Clemmons' booking bail was set at $40,000. His criminal history, by contrast, wasn't considered.

According to police reports, the day after Clemmons was freed with the help of Aladdin Bail (with a $1,700 payment), he sexually molested a 12-year-old relative. That summer, the judge set Clemmons's bail at $190,000, but as all of Seattle now knows, even that wasn't enough to keep him behind bars. (Later, the judge who set Clemmons's bail in that case said he wasn't even aware that defendants could negotiate with bail companies for cut-rate deals.)

Outrage over Clemmons's case has prompted a push for change — in the form of the Lakewood Law Enforcement Memorial Act. If voters accept the measure in November, judges will be granted the ability to deny suspects bail if they seem to pose a danger to the community and face life in prison. Meanwhile, advocates are continuing to push for so-called "truth in bail" — that is, requiring defendants to put down 10% of their bail and reliable collateral to cover the rest.

As one Washington judge, Stephen Warning, puts it: "A lot of [bondsmen] are just a phone number, which is problematic in and of itself...Now, when I set that $20,000 bail, I am a lot less sanguine about what that means."

Photo Credit: digitalshay