No sympathy for him
Donald J.’s attorneys stated: “Defendants’ ongoing diligent efforts have proven that a bond in the judgment’s full amount is ‘a practical impossibility,’” according to NBC News, even after approaching about 30 surety companies through four separate brokers.
Wow. A supposed billionaire cannot get a bond.
First: Donald J. is a pre-eminent, consistent, 24/7 snake-oil-selling liar. Second, who cares?
Why is there not more concern and news attention given to those who cannot make bail and, thus, remain incarcerated, even though they are “innocent until proven guilty.” More than 400,000 people in the U.S. are currently being detained pretrial. Or those who are forced to return to jail because they are unable to make the onerous parole payments, such as fees for general supervision, electronic monitoring, costs incidental to residence in community center or halfway house, house arrest program, day reporting center fee, mandatory drug or alcohol testing, costs of lab tests or series, an alcohol abuse deterrent fee and a medical fee set by the court, administrative fee of $100 for felonies and $50 for misdemeanors separate and apart from supervision fees, etc.
The Council of State Governments found that 45 percent of all U.S. state prison admissions stemmed from probation and parole violations. These figures do not include people locked up for supervision violations in jails, for which there is little nationwide data. Black and brown people are both disproportionately subjected to supervision and incarcerated for violations, according to Human Rights Watch.
So send Donald J. to jail if he cannot make the bond. And for those who assert that debtors’ prisons are a thing of the past, they are not for BIPOCs and the poor. Yes Magazine reports: “The people most likely to languish behind bars are Black, Latino, Native American, and poor. It’s a legacy rooted in Jim Crow-era policies that continues in the thinly veiled racism of the war on drugs, as lawyer Michelle Alexander points out in her book ‘The New Jim Crow.’” Note: Ms. Alexander’s book is an enlightening and upsetting read.
MIKE KARCIS Fayetteville