Bail Recovery Issue

[sKiTzo]

What is the name of your state? California

I was arrested in Nov. 2003 for misdemeanor H&S charges. I posted the entire $2500 bail and was given a court date on which to appear. I appeared on the court date only to find that not only was I was not on calendar, but there was no info at all in the clerk's computer regarding the case. I was told to check back periodically to see if anything changed and I did so for the next year until the statute ran out. I figured that the bail was accepted as payment in full and the case closed. I since have been jailed 3 times on unrelated issues and was released all 3 times with no mention of any pending cases. I was also issued a valid driver's license from the DMV in March of 2007 after paying some hefty fines to clear up old tickets. This proves that no other cases were pending at that time. I was arrested recently on another unrelated issue in April 2007 and then all of a sudden this old 2003 case was filed. A judge promptly dismissed it. Well that's great because now my bail is due to be returned. Well... my girlfriend who posted the bail forgot to mention that she recieved a document in the mail back in 2004 that says I missed my court date and the bail was forfeited. The document, however, appeared bogus in some way only because the dates were all wrong (i.e. the arrest date was wrong, the date to appear was wrong, date of posting listed as Dec. 24th Christmas eve! actual date of posting was just before Thanksgiving) and the fact that a bench warrant was never issued. My public defender said I should recover the bail and I was going to have him take care of it but he got transferred to a different court. My girlfriend has gone to the clerk's office to get this bail exonerated and they are giving her the runaround. They told her she neeeds a public defender to exonerate it and she said when she approached a public defender about it they wouldn't help her because they were not court ordered to help her. I don't have money for a private attorney. Is there anything she (my girlfriend) can do on her own to force the court to cough up the money? After all, the case was dismissed because it was not filed until nearly 4 years later and that legally makes their bogus forfeiture officially bogus which means the status of bail should be "reopened" and then "exonerated". Why was this not done automatically? I believe it should have been automatic. Any advice is greatly appreciated.

 

[FlyingRon]

I was told to check back periodically to see if anything changed and I did so for the next year until the statute ran out.

What statute?

I figured that the bail was accepted as payment in full and the case closed.

Why?

It's not the girlfriend who needs to be involved here, it is you. You should have brought this up at the time the charges were dismissed. You most likely are going to have to request to be put on the docket again to argue that the forfeiture was invalid. The fact you believe that charges should be resolved "automatically" that bail money that was forfeited for "non appearance" should be automatcially restored and all sorts of other actions with no effort on your part is really wishful thinking.

 

[The Occultist]

I was told to check back periodically to see if anything changed and I did so for the next year until the statute ran out.

If this is referring to the Statute of Limitations, that doesn't apply to you as you have already been charged with the crime.

 

[sKiTzo]

Quote:
I was told to check back periodically to see if anything changed and I did so for the next year until the statute ran out.

What statute?

In California, after having been charged by the police department, the DA then has 1 year to actually file the case in court. This is what I was referring to.

Quote:
I figured that the bail was accepted as payment in full and the case closed.

Why? Because I've posted entire bails before and that had been the end of it. The only difference was that this time I had been given a court date. So, when I showed up in court and there was no case it led me to believe that the bail was simply accepted as payment in full. I realize now, of course, that this was not what happened.

It's not the girlfriend who needs to be involved here, it is you. You should have brought this up at the time the charges were dismissed. You most likely are going to have to request to be put on the docket again to argue that the forfeiture was invalid. The fact you believe that charges should be resolved "automatically" that bail money that was forfeited for "non appearance" should be automatcially restored and all sorts of other actions with no effort on your part is really wishful thinking.

The girlfriend is involved because the bail was posted under her name, just like when a bondsman recovers a bond from the court - the former defendant/bailee is out of it. Everything is said and done. I'm pretty much out of the picture. Why would I need to argue that the forfeiture was invalid when a judge has already DISMISSED the case for that very reason? The 3-years-too-late filing was invalid, therefore the bail forfeiture was invalid. If the forfeiture had been valid I would have been hung out to dry. So the charges were definitely resolved when the judge dismissed the case. There was no question as to my not appearing because the court admitted to the screw-up. I did, at the time, tell my public defender to bring it up about the bail but I was in custody and I was not present in the courtroom when he had it dismissed. He said he brought it up briefly and told me I would have to take care of it later. He told me to call him when I got released if I had any problems but since then he's been transferred to another court. My question is: If the court has had to dismiss the case because of a "missing complaint" (this was the official reason for filing the case so late - apparently the complaint had gone missing for 3 1/2 years) why would they try to keep the bail money?

 

[FlyingRon]

Just because the complaint goes stale doesn't mean it evaporates on it's own. You seem to labor under the assertion that if you ignore things they go away and automatically take care of themselves. You're seeing that this is just not true.

You can probably get the money back, but you're actually going to have to get your lazy rear up and go down and ask the court for it.

 

[sKiTzo]

Att>Flying Ron

Flying Ron,
What I'm trying to say here is that I no longer am able to go myself to litigate this issue as I have a bench warrant for not presenting myself to formal probation for an unrelated case that I got myself into but the warrant has nothing at all to do with the case regarding the bail money. All I was asking is that since my girlfriend has 100% interest in this claim and I don't, is there any option for her to claim her money in the same manner that the bondsmen do routinely every day? The bail bondsmen recover bails all the time that have been forfeited and the defendant is usually not present at those proceedings. For example, I had a friend whose bail was forfeited and when I looked up her bail status on occourts.org the case was closed, she was in custody and underneath the "forfeited" entry were 2 more entries that had been added as a result of the bondsman claiming the money. The 2 entries were - "reopened", and then - "exonerated". How did the bondsman accomplish this? What forms did the bondsman need to file?

 

[sKiTzo]

Att>Flying Ron

Flying Ron,
What I'm trying to say here is that I no longer am able to go myself to litigate this issue as I have a bench warrant for not presenting myself to formal probation for an unrelated case that I got myself into but the warrant has nothing at all to do with the case regarding the bail money. All I was asking is that since my girlfriend has 100% interest in this claim and I don't, is there any option for her to claim her money in the same manner that the bondsmen do routinely every day? The bail bondsmen recover bails all the time that have been forfeited and the defendant is usually not present at those proceedings. For example, I had a friend whose bail was forfeited and when I looked up her bail status on occourts.org the case was closed, she was in custody, and underneath the "forfeited" entry were 2 more entries that had been added as a result of the bondsman claiming the money. The 2 entries were - "reopened", and then - "exonerated". How did the bondsman accomplish this? What forms did the bondsman need to file? Many thanks , by the way, to those that hang out at this site helping people with answers to their questions.