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Posts Tagged ‘Bail’
Wednesday, December 7th, 2011
When a probationer or parolee is taken into custody due to a new arrest or a new violation, we are often asked about the status of the Gagnon I, Gagnon II, detainer hearings, and paying bail. This topic seems confusing for a bunch of folks but is actually straight forward with the proper lawyer by your side.
There are two type of potential violations of probation and parole. The first is a direct violation. This means that you have been convicted of a new crime and directly violated your probation. If you have been arrested, but not convicted of anything, this is a potential direct violation, because potentially, you could be convicted of a crime.
The second type of violation is a technical violation. This means that that you have no direct violation,but that you did not do what you were supposed to do while on probation or parole. For example, you did not complete your program, you had dirty urine, you failed to report your probation officer, etc.
The Gagnon I hearing is a very basic hearing to determine whether you should stay in custody waiting to see your back judge or if you can be released to the street with a subpoena for court to appear before your back judge. If you are in custody and having a Gagnon I hearing, it means that you have a detainer. The back judge is the judge who sentenced you. If you have only technical violations, there is a chance that you can be released. However, if you have a potential direct violation, there is little chance that you will be released at your Gagnon I hearing. Often people claim that they never received their Gagnon I hearing, but in many counties in Pennsylvania, the Gagnon I hearing is held administratively at the county prison with a trial commissioner and the defendant is not present at the hearing. The Gagnon I hearing is always held with ten days of the date that the defendant is taken into custody.
The Gagnon II hearing is when you go before the judge who originally sentenced you or a judge of concurrent jurisdiction. At the Gagnon II hearing, the judge will actually determine your fate, either to continue the probation or parole, or to revoke and resentence to additional time in jail or a new period of probation. A Gagnon II hearing must be scheduled every thirty days. If the defendant has a potential direct violation, the Gagnon II will simply be continued in advance and the person will not be brought into court and no Gagnon II hearing will take place.
Obviously, people often feel like they are stuck in limbo when they have a detainer and an open case because their back judge keeps rolling their Gagnon II hearing from month to month. The only way to attempt to get the detainer lifted is to have your lawyer file a motion to lift the detainer an get it specially scheduled before the back judge outside the purview of Gagnon II; meaning a special detainer hearing. At this time, you can have your detainer lifted.
You should never pay bail while someone has a detainer because they would never be able to receive time credit on the front case, the new case, if the bail is paid. You want to get the detainer lifted, then immediately go and pay the bail.
Tags: Bail, detainer, gagnon, gagnon I, gagnon II, parole, probation
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Wednesday, August 19th, 2009
At the local prisons in Philadelphia county, defendants want money on their books. By local I mean the CFCF, DC, HOC, PICC, Riverside, ASU, or the Cannery. The term “money on the books” is used because prisoners are not allowed to have actual cash on their person, so each inmate has an inmate account. In fact, cash is considered contraband and not allowed by the prison.
There are three ways that you can put money on the books:
1. Go to the prison with cash and have the cash put on the books of the inmates. You must have the defendat’s Police Photo Number (PP#).
2. Go to the prison with a money order from the United States Post Office. Again you must have the defendant’s PP#.
3. You can mail a money order from the Post Office, but it must contain the name and PP# of the defendant.
In addition to the above, sometimes we have clients that have money to pay their bail or to put on their books, but the bank account is only in the defendant’s name. There is a procedure for getting a power of attorney so that someone else can go to the bank and withdraw the funds to either pay bail or put money on the books. While the procedure can be somewhat complicated, we have done it successfully for several
Tags: Bail, money on books, power of attorney
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Wednesday, February 4th, 2009
If you do not appear in court, you will receive a bench warrant. This means that if you are stopped for a traffic ticket or have another arrest, the bench warrant will pop up and you will get arrested for the bench warrant. You can potentially remain in custody until such time that you have a bench warrant hearing and new bail is set in your case. You could remain in custody for several days until you are eventually released from custody.
To avoid this entire predicament, you can turn yourself in to the Criminal Justice Center at 1301 Filbert Street at 7:30 – 8:00 a.m. any weekday after about 7 calendar days have passed after the bench warrant was issued. Once you turn yourself in you will get a subpoena for 12:30 p.m. for the same day to actually get the warrant lifted and to get a new court date. By turning yourself in, the court system looks at you in a much more favorable way, like amnesty, because you voluntarily walked in to fix the problem as opposed to you getting re-arrested by the police.
Clients often ask if there is a chance that they will get locked up when they go and get the warrant lifted. People get locked up very rarely when they go to turn themselves in, however it does happen. Some example are when the warrant is very old. In this case, the system may just increase the bail. In this scenario I advise people to bring some cash with them to court, or to have a friend or family member go with them to court and be prepared to pay a new bail in the case.
The other scenario is when the type of bench warrant that was placed on them was called a judge only bench warrant. A judge only bench warrant means that the judge who issued the bench warrant is the only person who can lift the bench warrant. A judge only bench warrant is usually only issued when a person fails to appear for their felony trial date. If you get a judge only bench warrant, you usually will get locked up when you go to turn yourself in.
Often times if a person has a potentially bad situation with a bench warrant or a judge only bench warrant, appearing with an attorney can greatly lessen the blow of getting the warrant lifted.
Tags: Bail, bench warrant, criminal justice center, judge only, judge only bench warrant
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Thursday, January 22nd, 2009
There are no bail bondsmen in Philadelphia. The court system, in its own way, acts as a bondsman. An individual need only post ten percent of the total bail, and he or she will be released. (If bail is ten thousand, one thousand in cash gets you out.) Bail can be posted at the Criminal Justice Center at 1301 Filbert Street, in the basement level, twenty-four hours a day. During daytime hours, bail can also be posted at the Curran Fromhold Correctional Facility (CFCF) at 7901 State Road.
At the conclusion of the case, bail is refunded to the defendant (or whoever posts the bail, if the person who posts bail puts themselves as the guarantor). However, the City of Philadelphia keeps thirty percent of the bail money, up to a maximum of $750.00. The remainder of the bail posted is refundable, no matter if the defendant is found guilty or not-guilty.
Philadelphia accepts credit cards to post bail. However, the full amount of the bail must be posted – not just the ten percent. Real estate is also accepted as bail security, but again, the equity in the real estate must be valued at the full amount of bail – not just the ten percent.
If a defendant posts bail and then fails to appear in court or fails to abide by the conditions of bail, then all the money deposited is forfeited.
 bail bonds
Tags: Bail, bail bondsmen, bondsman, cfcf, criminal justice center, curran fromhold correctional facility, forfeited, forfeiture
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