When someone close to you gets arrested, say, a family member, he may likely call you for help. What should you do? If this is your first time helping someone out of jail, the process of posting bail can be intimidating. But it doesn’t have to if you have prior knowledge of how the process works.
In this article, we will discuss what you should do following someone’s arrest. Given that the person was arrested and jailed in Summit County, here’s a step-by-step guide to getting him out of jail.
- Determine his booking status
After an arrest, your arrested family will undergo the booking process. The booking process involves taking photographs of the arrested person, fingerprinting, and some paperwork. However, he may have to wait for his booking turn depending on how busy the agency is. If this is the case, ask the arresting agency for a time estimate on how long does he have to wait.
- Find out if his case is bailable
Once the booking is done, find out if you can post bail for your arrested family. Usually, this is determined during arraignment or a court hearing. An arraignment is typically scheduled one or two days after the arrest on a weekday. If the arrest happened on the weekend, your family member would have to wait until Monday.
However, some offenses have a bail amount already set by law. If his case falls under such offenses, you can check the amount before the arraignment so you can post bail and avoid undue delay.
In some cases, an arrested person can also request to be released under his “own recognizance.” This allows the person to be freed without posting bail. Instead, he just needs to sign a citation promising that he will show up on his scheduled court trial. This is ideal for minor offenders committing first-time offenses.
- Post a bail
In Summit County, there are three categories that an arrested person can fall into:
- Bail is not permitted
- Cash-only bail
- “Bondable” bail
The first two categories are self-explanatory. But for bondable bail, this means you can call a bail bondsman to help you with the case. But what is a bail bondsman?
Sometimes, the amount of bail imposed by the law may be too high for you. This is where a bail bondsman comes in. A bail bondsman in Summit County provides the bail bond you need. However, he will charge 10% to 15% of the amount of bail in exchange for his service. Bail bonds are handy if you don’t have the money to post bail.
- Ensure he will show up on his court date
Once he is released, the last thing you need to do is to make sure he will be at his scheduled court trial. But what happens if he skipped his trial? Let’s go back to the bail you posted earlier.
Basically, a bail serves as collateral to ensure the arrested person goes back for his scheduled trial. Once he showed up, you can get the bail amount you paid back to you. However, if he skips the trial, you won’t get back the bail anymore.
With this guide, posting bail for a close family or friend won’t be as daunting anymore.
