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Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Ind. Courts - "New rule on St. Joseph Superior Court bonds likely to be permanent"

Updating several earlier ILB entries, the most recent posted yesterday, this story today in the South Bend Tribune by Alicia Gallegos reports:

SOUTH BEND — A new rule that requires more scrutiny of second-time offenders before they can post bond will likely become permanent, judges say, and might mean that more cases are reviewed on Saturdays.

The rule, signed last week by St. Joseph Superior Court judges, means that people with a pending case who are arrested on a second misdemeanor count can no longer bond out.

Instead, the offenders must remain in jail until a hearing before a judge, which may result in more than the presumptive bond.

Chief Judge Michael P. Scopelitis said the issue had been discussed for some time — especially as it relates to repeat drunken drivers and domestic violence offenders — but came to a head amid the recent premeditated arrest announcements by anti-abortion activists at the University of Notre Dame.

Scopelitis also said that the fact that some protesters' cases were reviewed over the weekend was not out of the ordinary.

A person arrested without a warrant is entitled to a "prompt hearing," Scopelitis said, which is a term that could be debated, but could be between 24, 48 or 72 hours. In many jurisdictions, he added, people who are arrested late Friday commonly don't see a judge until Monday.

In St. Joseph County, judges have been on a rotation for years, Scopelitis said, with one judge working on Saturday to review probable cause cases. The number of cases evaluated depends on the number of people arrested.

With the new rule in place until Dec. 31 — and then "probably" becoming permanent, Scopelitis said — the hope is that late cases are evaluated by the weekend.

"We're hoping if a person is arrested on Friday and has a case pending, we can have the paperwork ready by Saturday morning," he said.

Indiana counties differ on presumptive bond schedules, and some Indiana courts have no presumptive bond, meaning a person always must go before a judge before bond is set.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on May 20, 2009 08:29 AM
Posted to Indiana Courts