5 ms·

$250 million bail secured by a $1.8 million house and that's the weird part?

by ksherlock 4y ago

NotYourLawyer 4y ago
There’s actually nothing at all weird about that.
- SilasX 4y ago
  Only because federal courts are consistently weird about it! :-p From an objective, outside perspective, it's definitely weird to say, "Put up $X to assure us you'll actually appear for trial. Oh, you're putting up .01X? Okay, we're cool." Like, even accepting the validity/logic of the cash bail system, they should just be honest and call it .01X bail. The full X is never actually used for anything beyond "look at us, we're a serious court, taking this flight risk seriously". (To pre-empt a thoroughly well-tread response from the previous threads: Yes, I know, in SBF's case, the parents are on the hook for the rest of the X, so X is, in a sense, "used". But their net worth is nowhere near X -- more like .04X -- so that just pushes the farce ratio down to .96X, which, while better than .99X, is still pretty darn close to X.) My earlier comments about this absurdity: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34810830 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34810830 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34599868 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34599868
  - NotYourLawyer 4y ago
    It’s a silly game they play, but the fact that it’s common means there’s nothing weird about it happening here.
    - SilasX 4y ago
      That's exactly the distinction I was making in the first two paragraphs, about "weird" relative to existing practice vs "weird" relative to the outside world's standards for reasonable behavior.
  - dragonwriter 4y ago
    > From an objective, outside perspective, it's definitely weird to say, "Put up $X to assure us you'll actually appear for trial. Oh, you're putting up .01X? Okay, we're cool." What is historically weird in the history of money-involved bail is the practice of having a penalty plus either full-value security or arms-length employment of a government-licensed agent as surety with a government-set fee schedule; penalty, surety, and security are three separate levers to acheive compliance. What’s weird from a system outside of money bail world is...money bail. The federal system of the courts having freedom to adjust the compliance levers independently to acheive what they feel is necessary sufficiently acheive compliance is weird only from the perspective of the system that has evolved away from that in state practice (and the even more divergent image of that state practice that has been advanced by popular media portrayals and misunderstandings.) > Like, even accepting the validity/logic of the cash bail system, they should just be honest and call it .01X bail Would you view a $100,000 non-dischargeable, non-expiring debt to the federal government when you have $100,000 in current assets as equivalent to $10 million non-dischargeable, non-expiring debt to the federal government when you have $100,000 in current assets?
    - SilasX 4y ago
      I wasn't criticizing additional means to achieve compliance -- I don't know what you think you were addressing there. >Would you view a $100,000 non-dischargeable, non-expiring debt to the federal government when you have $100,000 in current assets as equivalent to $10 million non-dischargeable, non-expiring debt to the federal government when you have $100,000 in current assets? Would you view the $10 million as anything other than a number that attempts to sound big but will not have any meaningful impact? I can see $100k vs $200k as being a meaningful distinction, but not $100k vs $10 million (re-read the farce-ratio part). >What’s weird from a system outside of money bail world is...money bail. Did you miss this part? >>Like, even accepting the validity/logic of the cash bail system,
      - dragonwriter 4y ago
        > Did you miss this part? Well, I addressed: (1) What was weird within the history of money-involved bail, and (2) What was weird outside that context, and (3) Why the federal system was not #1, and (4) What context the federal system was weird in. So…no? Did you miss…my entire post?

$250 million bail secured by a $1.8 million house and that's the weird part?

NotYourLawyer 4y ago

There’s actually nothing at all weird about that.

SilasX 4y ago
Only because federal courts are consistently weird about it! :-p From an objective, outside perspective, it's definitely weird to say, "Put up $X to assure us you'll actually appear for trial. Oh, you're putting up .01X? Okay, we're cool." Like, even accepting the validity/logic of the cash bail system, they should just be honest and call it .01X bail. The full X is never actually used for anything beyond "look at us, we're a serious court, taking this flight risk seriously". (To pre-empt a thoroughly well-tread response from the previous threads: Yes, I know, in SBF's case, the parents are on the hook for the rest of the X, so X is, in a sense, "used". But their net worth is nowhere near X -- more like .04X -- so that just pushes the farce ratio down to .96X, which, while better than .99X, is still pretty darn close to X.) My earlier comments about this absurdity: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34810830 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34810830 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34599868 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34599868
- NotYourLawyer 4y ago
  It’s a silly game they play, but the fact that it’s common means there’s nothing weird about it happening here.
  - SilasX 4y ago
    That's exactly the distinction I was making in the first two paragraphs, about "weird" relative to existing practice vs "weird" relative to the outside world's standards for reasonable behavior.
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  > From an objective, outside perspective, it's definitely weird to say, "Put up $X to assure us you'll actually appear for trial. Oh, you're putting up .01X? Okay, we're cool." What is historically weird in the history of money-involved bail is the practice of having a penalty plus either full-value security or arms-length employment of a government-licensed agent as surety with a government-set fee schedule; penalty, surety, and security are three separate levers to acheive compliance. What’s weird from a system outside of money bail world is...money bail. The federal system of the courts having freedom to adjust the compliance levers independently to acheive what they feel is necessary sufficiently acheive compliance is weird only from the perspective of the system that has evolved away from that in state practice (and the even more divergent image of that state practice that has been advanced by popular media portrayals and misunderstandings.) > Like, even accepting the validity/logic of the cash bail system, they should just be honest and call it .01X bail Would you view a $100,000 non-dischargeable, non-expiring debt to the federal government when you have $100,000 in current assets as equivalent to $10 million non-dischargeable, non-expiring debt to the federal government when you have $100,000 in current assets?
  - SilasX 4y ago
    I wasn't criticizing additional means to achieve compliance -- I don't know what you think you were addressing there. >Would you view a $100,000 non-dischargeable, non-expiring debt to the federal government when you have $100,000 in current assets as equivalent to $10 million non-dischargeable, non-expiring debt to the federal government when you have $100,000 in current assets? Would you view the $10 million as anything other than a number that attempts to sound big but will not have any meaningful impact? I can see $100k vs $200k as being a meaningful distinction, but not $100k vs $10 million (re-read the farce-ratio part). >What’s weird from a system outside of money bail world is...money bail. Did you miss this part? >>Like, even accepting the validity/logic of the cash bail system,
    - dragonwriter 4y ago
      > Did you miss this part? Well, I addressed: (1) What was weird within the history of money-involved bail, and (2) What was weird outside that context, and (3) Why the federal system was not #1, and (4) What context the federal system was weird in. So…no? Did you miss…my entire post?