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4 Panel 1 (1926)

handle is hein.journals/panelmbu4 and id is 1 raw text is: THE PANEL MONTHLY BULLETIN OF THE AsSOCIATION OF GRAND JURORS, NEW YORK COUNTY. Vol. 4 JANUARY, 1926 No. 1. BAIL EVILS AND SUGGESTED CURES By the HONORABLE ALFRED J. TALLEY, Late Court of General Sessions, New York County. I have had no hesitation in refusing bail to men with criminal records. Bail in felony cases is a matter of discretionary power with the Court. Bail in misdemeanor cases is a matter of right. If all ex-convicts were held pending trial rather than liberated on bail the necessity of keeping the population of the City Prison moving would have the result of bringing about speedier trials of previous offenders, and the advantages of this are obvious. I should like to see the day when, so far as the time of trial is concern- ed, there will be no distinction between pris- on cases and bail cases. I should like to see indictments tried in the order of their filing, irrespe'tive of whether or not the de- fendant is in jail or on bail. A very great evil in connection with the bail question generally is one that is not generally referred to, and that is the right assumed by the Judges of the Supreme Court to reduce bail fixed by the Judges of the Court of General Sessions. I have al- ways been of the opinion that a Supreme Court Judge has no right to sit as a court of review upon a Judge of General Sessions in the matter of bail, and if the Judges of the Supreme Court as a body could not be induced, as I think they might be if the matter were properly presented to them, to refrain from reducing bail, I think the mat- ter should be speedily tested and the adjudi- cation of the Court of Appeals sought. The Grand Jurors' Association has made a careful study, as evidenced by a recent re- port of their committee, upon this bail ques- tion, and I think it would be an eminently proper thing for the Association to present this matter of the reduction of bail by the Supreme Court Judges to the Supreme Court itself. I am convinced that a ma- jority 'of the judges would be in accord with the desirability of leaving this import- ant matter in the hands of the Judges of General Sessions. About three years ago I met the execu- tives of the four principal surety companies writing bail bonds, and urged upon them the necessity of their refraining from writing the bonds of professional criminals. The seriousness of the thing had never been be- fore presented to them, and with admirable promptness they agreed that they would stop writing this character of bond despite the fact that such an agreement meant a very considerable loss of business to them. But since that time about three other and small- er surety companies have entered the field and are now taking advantage of the very decent action on the part of the larger surety companies and write bonds with little or no discrimination. One of these com- panies, I was recently informed, had as many as fifty agents in the field seeking this type of business. As is well known, the profes- sional criminal has facilities at his command which would seem to make bail easier for him to procure than for the occasional of- fender. The entire idea of surety companies writ- ing bail bonds is contrary to the ancient and original idea of bail itself. Formerly the idea wJas that an individual would take upon himself the responsibility of gu4ranteeing the appearance of a defendant and pledging his property as his assurance that the of- fender was produced for trial. Many years ago when the professional bondsman de- veloped the evils attendant upon that line of business it became so apparent that a hue

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