American Men in Prison: America's Real Fatherhood Crisis

American Fathers in Prison:  America’s Real Parenting Crisis

There are a lot of social commentary in this country every day about the crisis of American fatherhood.  We hear all the time about how terrible it is that so many homes in the U.S. do not have a full-time dad in them.  Blame is placed on the individual man, and the woman who bore his child, instead of looking at the societal factors that take fathers out of the home. One of these is America’s over use of incarceration to punish drug use and other minor, non violent crimes. 

In America today, there are over two million children with a father in jail or prison.  Over ninety percent of parents in prison are fathers.  The number of children with a father in prison has grown 79% since 1991. 

This is terribly adverse on children.  Children with a father incarcerated are likely to experience the criminal justice system and incarceration themselves.  These homes face economic barriers because of a parent being incarcerated and unable to support their children. 

Incarceration for delinquent child support is a feel-good solution that actually prevents men from staying employed and able to pay the delinquent child support. 

What should we do to support fathers and their children who are at risk of experiencing the criminal justice system:

1.        Make job training and education available in more neighborhoods and to more young men;

2.       Make sex education comprehensive and realistic to help more men plan fatherhood;

3.       Make drug rehabilitation and mental health services available and free;

4.       Stop using incarceration to punish low level crimes and non-violent crimes;

5.       Abolish the money bail system to allow more criminal defendants to be released on bond. 

6.       Decriminalize low level drug possession.

7.       Stop incarceration for delinquent child support.

We need to help fathers stay in the home.  Part of this is stopping the cycle of incarceration and allowing men to stay out of jail and at home with their children.

Happy Fathers’ Day!

Personal Bond in Travis County

Personal bond in Travis County:

A personal bond in Travis County is given to defendants whom judges feel they can rely on to return to court to answer the criminal allegations pending and do not pose a grave danger to the public. It requires no deposit. It requires a judge’s approval. Often conditions are imposed on the defendant as a condition of personal bond.

I will talk about release on personal bond here.

If you are arrested in Travis County, in most instances you will automatically be screened for a personal bond by a department in Travis County called Pretrial Services. An officer with Pretrial will come see you in the downtown jail within a few hours of your arrest. They will ask you a series of questions to see if you are a good candidate for personal bond. These include questions about identifying information, address, and employment. They will also ask for references for people they can call to verify the information you can give.

If you are approved by the officers in Pretrial Services for the personal bond, a magistrate judge will sign the bond and you will be released. People without a verified address, people with pending cases, people with extensive criminal history, and people with serious allegations of violence will usually not be approved by Pretrial Services for a personal bond.

You should not refuse the interview with Pretrial Services. You do not have to answer questions about the offense, but you should provide your address, employment, and references. Even if you are not approved for a personal bond by Pretrial, answering the questions and getting the bond process started makes it easier for your lawyer to intervene later.

If you are not approved for a personal bond by Pretrial Services, you may still have a chance to be released on personal bond. To effectuate this, you will need to hire an attorney. Please note: the fee you pay to the attorney to secure your release on personal bond is kept by the attorney. It is not “posted” to the Sheriff’s Department as a cash bond. It is a fee that is charged by the attorney, and usually serves as a down payment for representation on the charge for which you were arrested, to negotiate your release on personal bond. It is not refundable at the end of the case.

Once you hire an attorney, the attorney will get the personal bond paperwork from Pretrial Services. If you have refused the interview, the attorney will have to interview you on an approved bond form. This adds time to the process, which is why you should do the interview with Pretrial Services.

The attorney, with bond paperwork in hand, will then approach a judge to ask the judge to sign the bond, approving you for release on personal bond. There are many judges in Travis County who can sign a bond. If it’s a felony, and it is unindicted, it can go to any criminal district judge or sitting magistrate judge. If it’s a misdemeanor, it can go to any criminal judge in Travis County.

If you are hiring an attorney between 5:00 pm on Friday through the weekend, realize that there is only one duty magistrate who can sign bonds every eight hours. If that judge does not approve the bond, you are going to be waiting until the next judge comes on duty. Often times, you may wait the entire weekend until the regular sitting judges come back on Monday morning.

A judge usually wants to hear several things when deciding whether or not to approve release on a personal bond. The most important things are that you do not pose an ongoing danger to a particular individual or society as a whole and that you will come back to court. A history of bond forfeiture or a long history of violent accusations will heavily weigh against release on personal bond.

A judge who has concerns about the facts of the case or the danger you pose to society may impose conditions on your release. For a DWI, this may include things like ordering you to install an ignition interlock device and to take an alcohol education class. For more serious, violent felony cases, the judge may order you to be on house arrest with an ankle monitor. You have to decide if you are going to agree to these conditions in exchange for release from jail. If you are released from jail with conditions imposed, you must abide by these conditions or risk having your personal bond “revoked” or “motioned off” – ie cancelled – and going back to jail until the case is resolved.

Please note: there is NO SUCH THING as an “attorney signature bond”. No matter how much other inmates may assure you of the existence of such a thing, it is simply not true. Some attorneys can write their own surety bonds, which do not need to be approved by a criminal judge, but the majority of attorneys will only be able to negotiate your release on personal bond by getting it approved by a judge. Therefore, you should understand that hiring an attorney is not a guarantee of release on personal bond. If the accusation or the history is just too bad, you may not get a release on personal bond regardless of your hiring of representation.

The great thing about hiring an attorney to approach a judge to sign a personal bond is that usually the payment you make to an attorney to do this hires the attorney to continue representation on the case after your release. If you already have an attorney, and you want to keep that attorney, do not hire another attorney to “just” do a personal bond. That attorney will be considered by Travis County to be the new attorney on the entire case. You cannot keep an appointed attorney and also hire one to “just” do a personal bond.

Travis County charges a fee to people released on personal bond. Without any devices such as IID or electronic monitor imposed as conditions, the fee is $40 per case. It is a good idea to pay this $40, but your bond will not be revoked if you simply do not have the money to pay it.

I am available to take jail release cases in Travis County. If you have any questions or have a loved one in Travis County jail, call me to see what your options are. My number is also a free call from the jail, and it goes to my cell phone, so if you need jail release at any time I am available to help.

#jail #prbond #pr #personalbond #bond #atx #traviscounty #texas#criminalcase #crime #criminaldefense

Why Its Important to Go To Court on Class A and Class B misdemeanors

Why it is important to go to court on your court dates:  part two --- Class A and B misdemeanors

In this article I am going to run down what happens if you miss a court date on a Class A or Class B misdemeanor.  I will talk about Travis County specifically and then in general terms about possibilities throughout the state of Texas.

None of the consequences of missing a court date on a Class A or Class B misdemeanor are good and they should be avoided at all costs.  If you are facing emergency circumstances, you should contact your lawyer if you have one or the court you are supposed to report to if you do not have a lawyer and explain the circumstances.  Simply not showing up will result in things that can lead to you spending more time in jail than necessary.

Bail Jumping and Failure to Appear:  If you have been charged with a Class B or Class A misdemeanor and miss a court date, you could very well be charged with an additional Class A misdemeanor of Bail Jumping and Failure to Appear.  The court staff has to go through a procedure to ensure you are indeed not present in order to charge you with this, but regardless of whether or not you are technically guilty, being charged with this will complicate your life.  You will have a warrant out on the new charge of Bail Jumping and Failure to Appear and probably on the underlying original charge as well, and you are risking arrest on both.  If you are arrested on both charges, even in Travis County it will be very unlikely you will get a personal bond.  You will have to use a bail bondsman to post a surety bond on both cases, which costs you much more money than just bonding out on the original charge. 

Being charged with Bail Jumping and Failure to Appear is not likely in Travis County except in one instance.  This is only charged when you are given a cite and release – explained in other articles, this is when you are given a citation on a Class B or Class A misdemeanor instead of going to jail and given a court date to report in a Justice of the Peace court – and you do not show up.  In this instance, the County Attorney will file a Bail Jumping and Failure to Appear charge and you will be expected to post bond on this and the original charge in order to bond out if arrested. 

Bond Forfeiture: If you are out on bond for a Class A or Class B misdemeanor – either personal or surety bond – and you fail to appear for court, your posted bond will be “forfeited”.  This means you no longer have a good bond.  A warrant will be issued for your arrest. 

In Travis County, the County Attorney will file a civil suit against you if you are out on personal bond for the full amount of the bond set when you were originally magistrated.  You may get a default judgment against you if you do not file an answer to this civil suit.  It may go to collections or be placed on your credit report.  It is easy to settle these suits for much less than the full amount but you will still have to pay something.  You may not be able to get the warrant withdrawn and get back on the court’s docket in good standing with a good bond if there is a civil suit.  It is up to the court.  Some will expect you to settle the civil suit first. If you are out on surety bond, the civil suit will be filed against your bail bondsman and in turn, your bail bondsman will seek to get the money they pay to settle it from you. 

If you have a bond forfeiture and are arrested on the warrant that was issued, a new and higher bond will be set and you will not be eligible for personal bond.  No judge except the no one presiding over your case will be inclined to release you except in rare circumstances – so if you are arrested on a weekend you will be there until Monday when the judges come back.  You will have to hire an attorney except in rare circumstances to ask the judge to do a bond forfeiture set aside, reinstate your bond, release you on the reinstated bond, and put you back on the docket with another court date. 

In some places around Texas, both a new Bail Jumping/Failure to Appear charge will be filed and a bond forfeiture will be entered.  It is very complicated to sort this out and you may not have a method of being released except posting a new surety bond. 

The moral of the story is:  don’t miss court and if you do, tell the court your circumstances – which have to be an emergency – prior to not showing up.  Don’t just throw your hands up and hope for the best.  You will not like what happens.

If you have a bond forfeiture or warrants out on an original charge and Bail Jumping/Failure to Appear – call me today.  I’m happy to help.