Bail bondsmen are a thing of the past in Massachusetts Cara Rintala listens at her bail hearing last month. (Dave Roback) Print By Fred Contrada | fcontrada@repub The Republican Email the author | Follow on Twitter on March 25, 2014 at 6:02 AM, updated March 25, 2014 at 6:03 AM NORTHAMPTON – When Hampshire Superior Court Judge Mary-Lou Rup agreed to set bail for Cara Rintala on Feb. 11, it appeared the defendant was finally about to walk out of jail after being in custody since October 2011 when she was indicted on the charge of murdering her wife, Annamarie Cochrane Rintala. As it turned out, Rintala welcomed in March behind bars. It wasnt until March 7 that her family, their finances depleted by legal bills, was able to come with the $150,000 set by Rup. That amount was less than the $250,000 bail Rintalas lawyers requested last year after the first of two mistrials. Rup had refused that and other bail requests until relenting last month after the second mistrial. There once was a day in Massachusetts when defendants turned to bail bondsmen to get them out of jail fast. For a non-refundable 10 percent of the required surety, which was posted by the bondsman, a defendant could walk free pending trial. That option is no longer available, however. Here in Massachusetts, the bail bondsman has gone the way of the dodo and the passenger pigeon. He has become extinct. According to Massachusetts Bail Administrator Michael J. McEneaney, the bondsman system was so problematic and ineffective that other states began outlawing them. McEneaney’s office was created in 1972 as part of the reform in this state. “It was terribly corrupt,” McEneaney said, “especially here in Boston.” In the old days, a judge would set a single amount as bond for bail, and the bondsman would put down 10 percent as surety. This essentially became the defendant’s fee, an amount the bondsman kept even when the defendant showed up for trial as scheduled. Although in theory the bondsman assumed responsibility for the defendant by posting bail, this was seldom borne out in fact, McEneaney said. “They never looked after the defendant. They just made deals with the DAs, like a payment plan. It was just not a suitable addition to the criminal justice system.” By the 1980s, Massachusetts judges had begun setting cash bail as an alternative to surety, at a tenth of the amount. For example, bail might be set at $10,000 cash and $100,000 surety. Because the cash was the same amount the defendant would have to pay the bondsman for surety, there was no longer any incentive to seek one out. “That effectively killed the bail bondsman,” said Alan Rubin, who represents indigent defendants for the Committee for Public Counsel Services. “Why pay money to a bail bondsman and never see it again? The bondsman slowly faded away.” Rubin said any criminal lawyer who has practiced long enough has had a client skip bail. Contrary to popular notion, bail is not intended as punishment but simply to ensure that the defendant appears for subsequent court dates. A judge takes into account many factors when setting bail, not least of which is whether or not the defendant is a flight risk. The defendant’s finances can dictate the amount. A judge may impose a hefty bail on someone with resources to ensure they stick around. A few hundred dollars is usually enough to keep a poor defendant from fleeing and a homeless one behind bars. In cases where the defendant might be considered dangerous, a judge will scheduled a hearing to determine whether any amount of money can ensure the public’s safety. The amount of bail is not necessarily tied to the severity of the charges, but it is not unusual, Rubin said, to hold first-degree murder defendants like Rintala without right to bail. Former District Court Judge W. Michael Ryan agreed that the reforms begun in the 1970s and reinforced by a 2001 Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruling effectively made the bail bondsman obsolete. “The risk became much too high,” Ryan said. “I haven’t heard of a bail bondsman since that decision.” The 2001 SJC ruling focused on James Ray, a Fall River man arrested for armed robbery and other crimes. When Ray was arraigned in district court, bail was set at $100,000 cash or $1 million surety. At his subsequent arraignment in superior court, however, the judge balked at setting the two amounts, saying the law did not allow this. The SJC determined otherwise and judges have routinely turned to the cash and surety alternatives ever since. Cosmo Gilberti, who retired from the business two years ago, calls himself the last bail bondsman in Massachusetts, a claim backed up by McEneaney. In a telephone interview from his home in eastern Massachusetts, Gilberti said he gave up his calling after 46 years because of the new restrictions. Nonetheless, he said, he is still in demand. “I get calls every day, but I’ve had enough,” Gilberti said. “It’s just not worth it.” According to Gilberti, six members of his family, including his father and an uncle, were in the business. Sometimes their investment requires bail bondsmen to track down recalcitrant clients and deliver them to court, he said. New Hampshire, which reimburses bondsmen for travel expenses, is a better place to ply the trade, Gilberti said, than Massachusetts, which does not. In his heyday, Gilberti ranged far and wide, sometimes coming as far as Western Massachusetts to bail out a client. He was not the top dog out here, however. That designation belonged to the late William Fiore of Springfield, who died in 2007. “Fiore was like the king out there,” said Gilberti. “He’d do whatever he wanted.” After turning 70, Gilberti decided he’d had it with his old profession. Now 72, his only thought is to escape the winter cold for Florida. “Nobody wants to do it,” he said.
Posted on: Tue, 25 Mar 2014 12:51:10 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015