Something that's been bothering me about the Zimmerman proceedings has been the issue of bail.
He failed to disclose how much his legal defense fund had in it, and that caused the judge to set bail too low?
Where is it written that bail must be set at a financially ruinous level?
Near as I can tell it seems to be set at 105% of your total net worth.
Why?
Leave me with nothing and I have no reason not to walk the fuck away from it. You've got to leave me enough to want to stay while also taking enough that I will be good to get it back.
That's not 105%.
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Generally, you only pay 10% to the bail bondsman, who posts the total with the court. So a $150,000 bond means $15,000 out of pocket. I believe you get that money back (minus the bail bondsman's fee) if you show up. If you use your home as collateral (which I believe the Zimmermans did) you only lose the home if you don't show up.
ReplyDeleteHowever, given his history of cooperation, I think Zimmerman's bail was set far to high from the start.
The worst part of all of this is that the court knew about the fund from the start. They asked his wife how much had been collected and she said she didn't know, but she offered to get the court in touch with the person who would have known. Yet somehow they're saying that this amounts to perjury on her part and is somehow cause for revoking his bail because he didn't spontaneously jump up in the courtroom and say "Oh, I know! I know! Ask me!"
I think it's nothing more than a strongarm tactic to get him to plead guilty ("Say, if you plead guilty to Murder 2, we'll just forget about this whole thing with your wife. Y'know, this felony charge that will make it so she can never work as a nurse anywhere, ever, and would mean her last few years of school were wasted? She could spend a year or two in jail, you know. I can make it go away if you just cooperate with us. Whaddaya say, George?").
It's just as despicable as it sounds.
I believe the 10% is what the bondsman usually keeps as his fee? Negotiable of course. It's ridiculous to think that one has to lose a sum of money like that in order to sleep in their own bed while they have not yet been proven guilty.
ReplyDeleteO'mara already said it's a $1Mil legal battle if it goes to full trial, so the bail fee isn't a huge percentage I guess.
Well given that this whole case appears to be simply a power-grab by the Attorney General who's running a Nifong-esque lynching, I think the whole motivation of this is to tie up his legal defense fund, because if he gets a good private lawyer the chances of him walking from this is very high, and that would be political disaster for Angela Corey.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile if she bankrupts him and he gets stuck with a lackluster public defender, the case can be lead by the nose with Ms. Corey's tenuous "evidence" of foul play.
Also I agree 100% with the others, he's always cooperated with the police and the court. When charges were filed he showed up when asked under his own power. Further after his bail he was allowed to leave the state (and I can only assume he had a safe house out-of-state lined up for that to be stipulated) yet when his bond was revoked, again he didn't play hard-to-get. He showed up.
Guilty or innocent, George Zimmerman WANTS his day in court, and Attorney General Corey wants a pound of flesh that she can point to as she runs for higher office.