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The Excessive Bail Clause of the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits excessive bail set in pre-trial detention. If a judge posts excessive bail, the defendant's lawyer may make a motion in court to lower the bail or appeal directly to a higher court.
The Eighth Amendment was adopted, as part of the Bill of Rights, in 1791.It is almost identical to a provision in the English Bill of Rights of 1689, in which Parliament declared, "as their ancestors in like cases have usually done ... that excessive bail ought not to be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted."
Under the “Excessive Bail Clause,” bail should not be higher than that which is necessary to make sure the defendant appears at trial. Timbs v. Indiana applied Excessive Fines Clause to the states
Even for bail determination based on the danger posed by the defendant to the community, critics note that the government's definition of “dangerous” defendants who may not be allowed to go on bail have a tendency not to be dangerous or avoid their hearings at all, suggesting that the definition is too wide and needs to be reformed. [81]
The U.S. Constitution explicitly prohibits the use of excessive bail. That's because bail is intended to incentivize safe return to court – it’s not a mechanism of detention for the poor.
A constitutional amendment that tells judges how to set bail in criminal cases is passing overwhelmingly as votes come in..
Excessive bail shall not be required . . . . [4] Stack v. Boyle (1951) is the only case in which the Supreme Court has held the bail imposed to have been constitutionally excessive. There, the Court found $50,000 to be excessive in relation to the flight risk for impecunious defendants charged under the Smith Act. [12] In United States v.
Bail is the amount of money required for the temporary release of someone who has been arrested and accused of a crime. ... But the U.S. Constitution protects against “excessive bail,” so ...