After an emotional hearing, a judge set a $500,000 bond for the father of a high school student who allegedly killed four people during a September 2024 mass shooting at a north Georgia high school.
According to investigators, the 54-year-old man gave his son an assault-style weapon as a Christmas gift although he knew the child’s mental health had deteriorated in the weeks before the shooting. The father also was aware that his son was obsessed with school shooters and even had a shrine above his home computer for the gunman in the 2018 Parkland, Florida, school massacre, Florida, prosecutors say.
At the bail hearing, several relatives of the dead and injured spoke, with some breaking down in tears as they described the loss of their loved one. They pleaded for the father to remain jailed without bond as he awaits trial.
When announcing his order, Judge Nick Primm stated that he’s constrained by the law in deciding bond. Gray is presumed innocent and the law “does not permit me to be emotional.” Judge Primm noted the defendant would live with his sister in Cherokee County while he awaited trial.
The case, though unusual, is not completely unprecedented. In 2021, a Michigan couple were sentenced to at least 10 years in prison for not securing a firearm at home and acting indifferently to signs of their son’s deteriorating mental health before he killed four students in a similar incident.
Purpose of Bail
As mentioned in the above story, bail has two general purposes, to ensure the defendant’s appearance at trial and to ensure public safety.
The financial jail release system has been heavily criticized by many people in recent years. These critics often point to the high number of unsentenced inmates in county jails. However, these statistics are somewhat inflated. Many of these unsentenced inmates are simply waiting for their paperwork to clear.
Additionally, despite its fairness issues, financial bail has a very good track record, going back to ancient Babylon in 2750 B.C. The reason is quite simple. Many people value money above everything else, and everyone else.
Public safety is a separate matter. Usually, in the context of a bail bond, “public safety” refers to the safety of crime victims and/or witnesses. Very few people make verbal or online threats before they’re arrested. However, if a defendant makes such threats while out on bail, or s/he makes a real-world threat (e.g. carrying firearms while being in the vicinity of a witness’ home), that behavior may be grounds for bail revocation. More on that below.
To a lesser extent, “public safety” refers to the safety of people in general. That’s why bail in DUI and drug cases is usually higher, and bail is often initially unavailable in murder and other very serious felony cases.
Why is Jail Release Important?
The answer to this question is so axiomatic that, many times, we skip this question altogether. But it’s worth examining the importance of jail release to individuals and to a Marietta criminal defense lawyer.
Bail protects the health and safety of criminal defendants. They’re people too. Infectious diseases, like COVID-19, spread like wildfire in confined spaces, like jails. Furthermore, the jail inmate coronavirus death rate is over three times higher than the overall death rate. As mentioned, many jail inmates are physically weak due to substance abuse and other such issues.
As for individual health and safety, the jailhouse blues is a real condition and a real danger. Involuntary confinement raises stress hormone levels in the body. Prolonged exposure to these hormones alters brain chemistry.
Furthermore, jail release makes a big difference in a criminal case. If defendants are in jail, they often plead guilty almost immediately, to avoid the aforementioned ill effects. That’s just as well, because since a Marietta criminal defense lawyer only has limited contact with a client, a lawyer cannot mount an effective defense.
Jail release takes the time pressure off and gives a lawyer access to a full range of procedural, substantive, and affirmative defenses.
Initial Determinations
For many years, the financial bail system wasn’t a “system” at all. Instead, judges considered individual cases individually. That’s still true in some cases. However, most defendants are eligible for one of three forms of presumptive release.
- Cash Bail: Essentially, cash bail is a security deposit. If Alice puts down a $1,000 security deposit when she rents a house and leaves the house in good order, the landlord must refund most of that deposit. Similarly, if Alice is in jail and posts a $1,000 cash bond, if she fulfils all the conditions of bail, she gets most of that $1,000 back.
- Bail Bond: To many people, $1,000 might as well be $1 million. They don’t have it and cannot raise or borrow it. A bail bond is a good option in these cases. A bail bond company pays $1,000 and charges Alice about a 10 percent fee. If she skips bail, the bonding company can hire a bounty hunter to bring Alice back and get its $1,000 back.
- Pretrial Release: The newest form of jail release is a response to the aforementioned high unsentenced inmate population issue. If a defendant with a clean criminal record is charged with a nonviolent misdemeanor, the sheriff often releases the defendant if s/he promises to toe the line while released.
General jail release conditions include remaining in the county, working and/or attending school full-time, living peacefully (e.g. not making threats or committing any other criminal offenses), and appearing at all required hearings.
We should mention that most bounty hunters aren’t Boba Fett-type people. They’re usually skip tracers who use personal information, like credit card transactions, to locate defendants.
One more note about bond forfeiture. As a condition of reinstatement, a judge often adds additional conditions or requires a defendant to spend a few days in jail.
Subsequent Reviews
As mentioned, bail is initially unavailable in many serious cases, like murder. In these cases, a Marietta criminal defense lawyer requests a bail reduction hearing. At that hearing, a judge considers many factors when setting bail. Reasonable bail is a Constitutional requirement listed in the Eighth Amendment.
In the above case, $500k may seem excessive. However, the case involved safety and compliance issues. A defendant who allegedly provided firearms to a mentally unstable teen, as opposed to a person who made firearms available to a mentally unstable teen, is arguably a threat to public safety. Additionally, the defendant planned to travel outside the county. How much further would he travel? That’s an open question.
Jail release is a critical element of criminal defense. For a free consultation with an experienced Marietta criminal defense attorney, contact The Phillips Law Firm, LLC. We routinely handle matters in Cobb County and nearby jurisdictions.
