Today’s blog will be brief. You should not set the bail for a crime for any reasons other than to make sure the suspect appears in court, and to prevent further heinous acts.<\/p>\n
Please follow me on Twitter<\/a>, and “Like” the Facebook author page<\/a>. Don’t forget to subscribe (the box is on the right side of the page) to be eligible for free e-books and other benefits! <\/p>\n I’m speaking about the woman who ran down the crowd at the homecoming parade. She is being hit with bail in the millions (so far.) Is she a flight risk? No. Is she a menace behind the wheel? Yes. Is she seriously mentally ill? Apparently.<\/p>\n The proper solution is not to set a high bail for her, but to commit her to a mental institution for diagnosis\/treatment. She’s not likely to charter a jet and grab her passport to flee to Belize. She might drive again. That’s bad. But that’s what speedy trials are for, not bail. If she did something, throw the book, lock her up after conviction, and be done with it for a long time.<\/p>\n Bail is often abused in this country. It is a surety to make sure you show up in court. The example of police officers arrested for manslaughter in the death of a prisoner is a great example. In Baltimore they made the bail much higher for those officers than required to “send a message.” Normally, people with jobs, families, and a stake in clearing their reputation would be given minimal bail or remanded on their own recognizance. Punitive bail is abuse of the system.<\/p>\n I don’t advocate ramming your car into a crowd for a drunken moment. But I’m equally sure that I don’t approve of political bail. Banana republics do that to keep their political enemies imprisoned. <\/p>\n That is all. <\/p>\n Drop by on the 29th (yes, this week!) for a guest blogger’s fine work. You won’t regret it. I have a favor to ask of my readers: would you kindly share this blog with your friends, family, and colleagues? We hit a million views in 2014, and while the readership continues a nice growth trend, it could be a lot better. Just hit the Facebook like button, share it on your timeline, tweet the blog with a link, and tell that person at the next desk that there’s this lunatic who writes about all sorts of stuff that they might like. <\/p>\n I appreciate your help. When we hit 2,000,000 readers I will give away something cool to a drawing from the subscribers (that’s the box on the right toward the top) who have helped promote this mess. No used sheets, probably not honey, more likely gift cards. Be a part of it. I’ll update from time to time where we’re at in the count. Thanks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Today’s blog will be brief. You should not set the bail for a crime for any reasons other than to make sure the suspect appears in court, and to prevent further heinous acts. Please follow me on Twitter, and “Like” …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3220,1],"tags":[4630,4633,4632,167,4631,162],"class_list":["post-8803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-law-enforcement","category-uncategorized","tag-bail","tag-baltimore-police","tag-banana-republic","tag-commotion-in-the-pews","tag-homecoming-parade","tag-joseph-courtemanche"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/commotioninthepews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/commotioninthepews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/commotioninthepews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commotioninthepews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commotioninthepews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8803"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/commotioninthepews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8803\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8805,"href":"https:\/\/commotioninthepews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8803\/revisions\/8805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/commotioninthepews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commotioninthepews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commotioninthepews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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