Walk It Through: The Bond Hearing
A magistrate within 48 hours, bail that is not oppression, and expunction when no charge comes.
After a shoving match outside a bar, a person is arrested and held overnight.
Two things a person in this spot might do. Picking one shows what the law says about it.
One night and one charge. Orders of nondisclosure, the examining trial, and the assault charge itself are not worked through here.
A practice walkthrough, not a prediction of how any real one will go. Legal information, not legal advice.
Words this turns on
Terms with a legal meaning that is narrower than the everyday one. Each links to the definition and the authority behind it.
- BailThe bond and its conditions, set to give reasonable assurance the person will appear. The person's ability to make it is considered, along with the offense, safety and criminal history.
- MagistrateThe judicial officer an arrested person goes before without unnecessary delay and no later than 48 hours after the arrest, who tells the person the accusation and the rights that follow, among them the right to counsel and the right to remain silent.
- Probable causeWhat a magistrate has to be satisfied exists, on sufficient facts set out in a sworn affidavit, before any search warrant may issue.
- Search warrantA written order issued by a magistrate to a peace officer. None may issue unless sufficient facts first satisfy the magistrate that probable cause exists, on a sworn affidavit, and most search warrants are executed within three whole days.
- Class C misdemeanorThe lowest offense level, for which the Penal Code sets a fine of up to $500.
- ExpunctionThe order reaching the records and files of an arrest. A person tried and acquitted is entitled to it, and so, in the cases the chapter lists, is a person released whose charge did not end in a final conviction and is no longer pending.
- Limitations periodHow long after a cause of action accrues a suit may be brought: four years for a debt, and two years for personal injury, property damage, conversion and eviction suits.
- Breach of the peaceThe one condition on a secured party that takes collateral back without judicial process, such as a car bought on credit. It may do that only if it proceeds without breach of the peace.
- Family violenceAn act by a member of a family or household against another member intended to result in physical harm, bodily injury, assault or sexual assault, or a threat that reasonably places the member in fear of it. It also includes child abuse and dating violence.
- Protective orderThe order a court renders after finding that family violence has occurred, effective for the period it states, up to two years.