Bail Bonds
By Tabitha McBride
General Context
The practice and concept of bail and bail bonds in the United States of America directly originates from English incarceration and surety. However, the current state of bail across the country is symptomatic of pre-Civil War slave states’ response to the passing of the thirteenth Constitutional amendment.
The 13th, as it is often called, abolishes slavery but states one can be forced to work if found guilty and convicted of a crime, thus allowing enslavement. After the passing of the thirteenth amendment, numbers of arrests, particularly arrests of free Blacks, increased. Corporations and former plantation owners preyed upon men and women awaiting trial for unpaid labor. They would go to the jails, bail out the able bodied, and send them to work. This practice was called “convict leasing.” Many of those subject to this practice were found not guilty of the charges but made to work for no pay.
Later, this became illegal, but, of course, one’s right to freedom before trial remained unless a judge’s ruling decides bail is denied. Mostly, people offer property as collateral or pay money to be free before trial. This ensures the person charged will go to trial. However, some are denied bail. One could be denied bail due to judicial concerns which could solely be based on the nature of the crime at hand.
Bail money provides a vast amount of funding to government infrastructure. Louisiana receives one of the highest amounts of bail money to this day at both state and local levels.
Connection to Novel
In Of Love and Dust, Marcus gets out of jail when Marshall Herbert pays his bail. It is implied that Marcus’s family, with ties to the Herbert plantation, contacts Herbert and sees working on the plantation better than being in jail.
Now, this is interesting because Marcus awaits a murder trial. Even now, we do not commonly see those with murder charges out on bail. Those charged with murder are considered dangerous due to the nature of their alleged crime, and the potential sentence could influence flight before trial. However, with Herbert owning a remote plantation where Marcus will be held and forced to work with no resources allowing him to leave, Herbert’s offer to pay Marcus’s bail might turn a profit for the jail. This leads to speculation on how Marcus would be found not guilty before the judge.