The Bail Reform Act of 1984 and the Presumption for Release on Bond
By: Houston Criminal Defense Attorney John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair
On June 18, 2009, a federal grand jury returned a 21-count indictment against Houston businessman and chairman of the Board of Directors of Stanford International Bank, Robert Allen Stanford (also known as “Sir Allen Stanford”). The indictment charged that Stanford conspired with others associated with his business enterprise, the Stanford Financial Group, to commit wire fraud, mail fraud, and obstruction of a Securities Exchange Commission investigation. The indictment essentially charged that Stanford and his co-conspirators were responsible for the loss or theft of nearly $1.1 billion investors had deposited through Certificates of Deposit into the Stanford International Bank.
Stanford’s case has repeatedly been linked in the news media to New York’s billionaire fraud investor Bernard Madoff who was sentenced by a federal judge on June 29, 2009 to a maximum term of 150 years in prison for embezzling as much as $50 billion from investors who trusted their money—and sometimes life-savings—with him. Stanford and his attorneys, however, have repeatedly denied any criminal wrongdoing and accused the government of going after him in the wake of the Madoff scandal because he was not considered a full time American citizen and was an easy target for federal prosecutors to use to deflect public criticism in late 2008 that the federal government had been “asleep at the wheel” while Wall Street investors like Madoff raped the nation’s financial institutions over the past decade.
Whatever the Government’s motives for launching its SEC investigation against him last year, it served to demonize him in the public eye, especially in Texas. Still, on June 25, 2009, U.S. Magistrate Frances Stacy, sitting in Houston, conducted a detention hearing to determine whether or not Stanford should be released on bail. After hearing the testimony of witnesses and reviewing the evidence against the man Forbes Magazine once estimated to be worth $2 billion, Magistrate Stacy granted Stanford a bond of $500,000 with a $100,000 cash deposit even though he posed a “risk of flight.”
The Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides that “[e[xcessive bail shall not be required.” While this constitutional provision prohibits excessive bail, it does not create a right to bail. 1/ The Supreme Court has held that bail is excessive when a court sets it higher than that which is reasonably necessary to ensure a defendant’s presence at trial or to promote some other compelling governmental interest. 2/ (more…)
