What do you call a motion by the State that requests bail be modified? Do you also request the defendant be re-arrested?

I have a violent defendant, threatening my victim who has a protective order, a violation, and three assaultive/threatening offenses all pending against him. He has bonded out on everything without any conditions other than to appear. (and he didn't appear! but the court believed him when he claimed through his attorney that he had a setting in a different court and so didn't file an FTA).

He has been threatening my victim by phone, so I would like to re-assess his bail, and at a minimum include community and victim safety conditions, and a higher amount to ensure his appearance. We were ready for trial, but since he didn't appear, we tried a different case.

Am I asking for a Judgment Nisi in this, or is it called something else?

Anybody have any examples I could see?

You can ask the judge to forfeit a bond and issue a capias (warrant for his arrest) if the defendant fails to appear, as required by the bond. Your judge chose not to do that, so proceed with Plan B.

If you had already gotten the judge to impose conditions of release to accompany the bond (no contact with victim, for example), you could file a motion to revoke the bond. Under relatively new law, the judge could issue a capias and DENY any release for such a bond condition violation. You didn't have conditions in place, so proceed with Plan C.

You can file a motion to declare a bond insufficient. If there is good cause to believe that the bond is not enough to guarantee the defendant's appearance and keep the community safe pending trial, the judge can increase the bail required for release. So, you could call it a motion to declare bond insufficient. The judge can issue a capias but still must set a new bail (presumably higher than the original bail) and could impose conditions of release (including no contact with the victim).

If defendant makes new, higher bail and violates the conditions, then you can go back to Plan B. If he fails to appear, you can go back to Plan A. Only then would you file a judgment nisi, to begin the civil process of collecting on the bond forfeiture.

Keep us posted.

Why not just file a criminal charge on the FTA based on not showing up for court as required and arrest him on that charge? Then impose the higher bond and victim conditions on the FTA charge. This will likely cause major fireworks, so you had better be able to prove that the judge in the original case was lied to by the defendant, through his attorney. The attorney in the original case becomes your witness in the FTA. He can testify that his client was not present, that his client had notice to be in court (notice is not privileged), and to the communications about why he was not in court (waived when he talked to the judge about it) to prove the lie to the judge. Making a defense attorney testify against their client will win you no friends with the defense bar, so proceed at your own peril.

Thanks for your help. My guy had warrants from the other county where he also did not appear, so that helped the judge see the clear lack of even trying to come to court. He was arrested on those warrants the moment he stepped into our courthouse. So the judge ordered electronic monitoring and no contact conditions and a very high bond...to which the defendant said "I ain't doing that ####" according to the warrant officer. So he sits in jail for now and goes to trial next week! Thanks again....as always, this is the best place to get quick complete answers!

Does anyone have a good version of a motion to declare bond insufficient? I have a very similar situation as the original poster.

Thanks in advance.

And after filing said motion, do you have an adversarial hearing, or can you ex parte the judge?

JB and others:

My thanks as well for the detailed explanation and 'how-to.' Didn't there used to be a 'forms bank' where things like this could be made available online for those needing assistance? If it could be revived, I would be willing to redact identifying info from shared forms prior to posting. I ask many questions - would like a chance to give back

Rachel:

I have e-mailed a copy of the motion and order we use. A hearing is required before the Defendant's bond is declared insufficient.