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Posting a Cash Bond: Who Gets the Money After a Defendant’s Case is Complete?

When a person is arrested, a law enforcement officer must take that person before a judicial official without unnecessary delay. G.S. 15A-501(2). Subject to certain statutory exceptions, defendants charged with most non-capital offenses are entitled to pretrial release. G.S. 15A-533(b).

G.S. 15A-534 requires that at least one of five conditions of pretrial release be imposed before a defendant can be released. One type of release condition a judicial official may impose on a defendant is a secured bond. A bail bond may be secured in one of three ways: a cash deposit of the full amount of the bond, a mortgage by the defendant pursuant to G.S. 58-74-5, or by at least one solvent surety.

Judicial officials frequently impose secured bonds and accept cash in satisfaction of those bonds. However, people posting those cash bonds—whether it be the defendant or a person posting on behalf of the defendant—may not always fully understand the procedure surrounding cash bonds. This post addresses the common question of who is entitled to a refund of the cash at the conclusion of the case and how a person can preserve their interest in the cash pending the outcome of the case.

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Final Report: Judicial District 2 Bail Project

In January 2020, North Carolina’s Second Judicial District (Beaufort, Hyde, Martin, Tyrrell, and Washington Counties) implemented two consensus bail reform initiatives. First, they implemented a structured decision-making tool for magistrates to use when making bail decisions. Among other things, the tool:

  • creates a presumption for conditions other than a secured bond for people charged with Class 3 misdemeanors;
  • provides screening factors to quickly identify individuals charged with intermediate-level cases (defined by local policy to include Class A1 – 2 misdemeanors and Class F – I felonies) who can be released on a condition other than a secured bond;
  • affords those charged with Class A – E felonies no special presumptions or screening; and
  • embeds within the decision-making process the statutory requirement that conditions other than a secured bond must be imposed absent a risk of non-appearance, injury to any person, or interference with the criminal proceeding.

Second, stakeholders implemented new first appearances for individuals detained on misdemeanor charges to ensure timely judicial review of bail.

These reforms were developed by a stakeholder team including judges, prosecutors, public defenders, clerks, magistrates, and law enforcement leaders. One of the team’s goals was to reduce pretrial detentions of individuals who do not pose a pretrial risk but are detained due to inability to pay bail. The UNC School of Government Criminal Justice Innovation Lab supported stakeholders in the development and implementation of reforms and, with support from local stakeholders, conducted an empirical evaluation of their implemented reforms. We recently released a final report (here) on that evaluation. This post summarizes key findings.

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