Outraged, again

A few weeks ago a man was arrested, posted $200,000 bail, and appeared in court as required. He came to my office, and we made arrangements to work together on his rather serious case. Last night I got a frantic call from his sister, who told me that he had just been arrested, again. Our local sheriff's deputies traveled through two counties to go to my client's home and bring him back to jail in our town. New case? Virtually the same case, same set of facts (different day), same "victim." The big NEW thing: different date, or simply additional charges on same case. Now, it's not necessarily a bad thing that charges can be amended, and new charges filed. It's my opinion that the DA's office has a moral duty to call the lawyer for the client, me, since they knew he was represented, by me, and they know me, and they should give me a chance to bring my client in for processing.

Then, insult to injury, new bail is now set at $750,000. No basis for this, no judge with any sense of decency would allow this bail to stay at this level. But, waiting to get to court, my client sits in jail, hopeless before a system that presumes guilt.

Tomorrow, we'll go to court, and prevail upon the judge to set a "reasonable" bail amount. Hopefully he willl; hopefully the bail bondsman will be right at hand to set the bail. All the while, I fully expect the DA to be jumping up and down about why we need a million dollar bail.

We'll see. Right now the State has the People running scared. The tactic seems to be to deprive the accused of his family, his home, his attorney, and his money. This is an attempt to weaken the Defendant, to cause him to crater.

This morning, I couldn't take care of a case where I had an agreement with the DA regarding an issue, because the judge had to confirm the agreement with the DA's office. We, the defense bar, are assumed to be liars and cheats; the DA's office is presumed to be honest and forthright. What a crock.

The system is badly broken.