Bail Us Out

Barb (00:00)
We have some exciting news. Hashtag Sisters-in-Law are going on the road to Atlanta, Georgia on May 3rd. We’ll be at the Buckhead Theater. You can get your tickets now at politicon.com slash tool.

Jill (00:15)
We have so much fun being together and we have so much fun meeting you. So please come to one of our live shows. It really is a blast. Come and join us at the Buckhead Theater on May 3rd, two days before my birthday, by the way. Tickets are available at politicon.com slash tour. Please let us see you there.

Welcome to this episode of Sisters Sidebar with Barb McQuade and me, Jill Winebanks. If you have a question for us, please email us at sistersinlaw.politicon.com or tag us on social media using hashtag Sisters in Law. But don’t just type your question. If you would, please use a voice memo because we want to hear your voice. So please ask us so that we can play your voice on the show.

Email us a voice memo using one of your notes apps and then we’ll play it on the show. Before we get started, we are delighted to share that we are doing a live show in Denver, Colorado at the Cervantes Masterpiece on April 23rd. Tickets are available at politicon.com slash tour and we can’t wait to see you there. Now let’s get started with the questions. Barb, there’s an audio question that

I want you to answer. And it comes from Abby in Tacoma, Washington.

Abby (01:46)
sisters. I am so excited that I might get heard on the show. Does bail always come with restrictions and what determines the rules and are they flexible?

Barb
Thank you so much. thanks for that question, Abby. ⁓ You know, this question about bail is a great one and it is one that is at the forefront of criminal justice reform. So different jurisdictions have different rules.

about bail in the federal system. There’s something called the Bail Reform Act. And there, the default is that someone will be released. In my district, people were asked to swear out a $10,000 unsecured bond. That was simply a promise to pay $10,000 if they failed to appear for trial. That was a very typical bond. In other jurisdictions, however, we have what’s called cash bail.

That is, a person has to put up the money to get released. And this is sometimes seen as something that has a negative disparity on people who don’t have a lot of resources. If you’re Mark Zuckerberg and your bail is $1,000, you think nothing of writing that check. For some people, $1,000 is the same thing as being detained with no bail whatsoever. But you’re right that sometimes conditions come with bail. So the judge’s goals

in setting bail is to try to make sure two things are ⁓ guaranteed. One is the safety of the public. And so if you’ve got an axe murderer who’s been charged, they’re probably not getting any bail. They’re probably going to be detained because we’re worried that this person, regardless of how much money they pay to get out on bail, is still going to pose a danger to the community. So for some people, no bail is available. But for others, the concern is that they will flee and you want to protect against this risk of flight.

that they won’t come back for trial. So you need to incentivize them or include some sort of condition that will assist. So it might be they have to surrender their passport. It might be they have to put up a certain sum of money that they will not want to forfeit that will induce them to come back. Sometimes they get an electronic ankle monitor that can track their whereabouts if we’re concerned about their flight. So these are some of the kinds of conditions that get put on bail.

but it really differs depending on what state you live in and even the county you live in, depending on the culture of the bench where you live. Jill, here’s a question for you. This comes from Krista in Cincinnati, Ohio, who says, Jill mentioned last week that the draft was banned. Why is selective service registration still a thing?

Jill (04:29)
I am so glad you asked this question because I am a big ERA supporter. And this is an issue in a lawsuit right now. The answer to your question is that the civil requirement that you register for the draft, and when I say you, not you, Krista, only men have to register. But men have to register even though there’s no draft, just in case. It’s for an emergency. And everybody today who’s registered

probably has to worry as they are drawing down huge numbers of soldiers and Marines to fight on the ground in Iran. There could be a reinstituted draft and by having the Selective Service Registration, they’re ready for this emergency. But I do want to mention that only men have to register and there is a lawsuit brought by several different groups, including a group of men saying that isn’t fair. This is a violation.

It’s discrimination on the basis of sex, and I hope that they win. And Barb, I have a question for you from Barb in Oregon. And she wants to know, does Congress have the power to regulate state voting laws? Does the president have any authority over them?

Barb (05:50)
Yeah, this is a really good question. the Constitution says that states should choose the manner and means for conducting elections. But it does also say that Congress can modify those things. And we’ve seen that happen from time to time, right? The Voting Rights Act, the Motor Voter Law, we’ve seen Congress come in from time to time. So Congress does have a role. But you know who doesn’t have a role? And that’s the president. And so his executive order that he issued last year

attempting to change the rules of engagement for elections is not ⁓ valid. However, what’s happening right now with this push toward Congress to enact the SAVE Act, that’s a law that would require people to produce ID when they’re voting, to prove their citizenship at voting, to also show that the name on their birth certificate is the same as the name on their passport. That would be an act of Congress. And if Congress were to pass that law,

it would be valid. But you know, one of the reasons we have ⁓ elections conducted in each of the 50 states is one, a recognition of ⁓ state sovereignty and the ability of states to decide the rules for themselves, but it also has a national security component. It makes it much more difficult for anyone to undermine our entire election system because it is so decentralized. So I think there’s some real wisdom in having the states set these rules.

subject to modification by Congress, but out of the hands of the president, who’s got some serious skin in the game.

Jill (07:33)
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Barb (08:09)
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Jill (11:19)
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Barb (13:23)
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Hey, Jill, here’s one for you. And it’s by audio. It’s from Suzanne.

Suzanne
Hi, sisters. My question is, what if Trump and his personal corrupt justice department somehow manages to overturn the 2020 election? Would this mean that Trump is now serving an unconstitutional third term?

Jill (14:23)
Thank you, Suzanne. We love getting audio questions, and this is a good one. Yes, when I first read your question or listened to your question, I thought, what is she talking about? How could it be serving a third term? We know that he served term one, that Biden served the next four years, and now he’s serving term two. But actually, the Constitution says no one can be elected to office.

more than two times. And he wasn’t elected to office. He was only ⁓ elected twice. Now, he says he was elected three times. So it does raise an interesting question. If he proves that he was elected, which he will never be able to do, let me just make clear, there’s no chance, there’s no evidence of that. But if some weird thing happened and he was elected,

Well, then I guess this would be a third election and would be against the Constitution. Barb, here’s another question for you from Tracy who asks, this might be silly. Hey, Tracy, no question is silly. We love all your questions. But how can digital terms and conditions be binding when almost nobody reads them? If you don’t, is that technically perjury?

Barb (15:46)
That was such a great question, Tracy. know, so often these days, especially, we get these, you know, accept cookies, accept terms. And, you know, if you sign up for a service, I’m sure you’ve seen this before, it might be a couple of pages of terms and conditions. And so often we just reflexively click the thing and move on. I don’t think anybody would be charged with perjury, but you are bound by the terms. So you blow through them at your own peril. ⁓ That is how you agree to certain things on social media, for example.

giving up your private data. ⁓ We voluntarily relinquish so much data today. In fact, one of the things that’s really changed the landscape in law enforcement is it used to be the only way law enforcement got your private data was through legal process, a search warrant, a court order. But now you know how they get it? They go to data brokers and they just buy it because it’s a lot easier. And how do they get it? It’s because we give it away. We look at those terms and conditions. We click the box because we just want the thing. We want to be able to share our silly cat videos.

And we do. And meanwhile, those social media platforms are scraping our data and they’re selling it to data brokers. So I wouldn’t worry so much about Perjury, but I would worry that they are binding. So I know most of us don’t read it. I can’t say that I always, I read every word, that’s for sure. But we are bound by them when we sign them. They’re referred to as boilerplate, but they are binding on the user. Jill, here’s one for you from Walter at Freeman61.BlueSkySocial.

If Trump or a cabinet member is impeached, what happens if they refuse to leave? Who’s going to cuff them and drag them out?

Jill (17:23)
So I’m glad you asked because this is a question where I have some personal experience. First of all, I want to say, I hope that that happens and we have to deal with this question. ⁓ I dealt with it in a slightly different context, which was how do you serve a subpoena on the President of the United States? You can’t just walk up the front walk of the White House and knock on the door and say, I’m here to serve a subpoena because you can’t get past the guards. ⁓ In that case, we worked with the lawyers

for the White House who were reasonable and accepted service on behalf of the president. This one is a little more different. What does it mean that they won’t leave? Will they be pulled out of the department they are running if they’re a cabinet officer? Will the president be pulled out of the Oval Office if it happens to be him? There’s no particular answer. I think if we had a

Democratic House, a Democratic Senate, and there was a vote that led to the conviction, not just the impeachment, but the conviction at trial in the Senate that the president would know he was done. And that like Nixon, who left voluntarily when he, even before the vote of impeachment and conviction happened, was told by the leaders of his party that he was done. He left voluntarily.

I think that no one is going to ⁓ do that. And a conviction on impeachment is the end of it.

Barb (18:59)
Have you met Donald Trump?

Jill (19:02)
I know. It’s my Pollyanna, what can I say?

Barb (19:07)
Thank you for listening to Sisters Sidebar with Jill Winebanks and me, Barb McQuade. Keep sending in more great questions for next week’s show. And if you send in a voice memo, we’ll try to play your question during our next episode. Follow Sisters Sidebar and hashtag Sisters in Law wherever you listen.

and please give us a five-star review. It really helps others find the show. Please show some love to this week’s Fast-Growing Trees and Pocket Hose. The link is in the show notes. Please support them because they make this podcast possible. Don’t forget to pick up Hashtag Sisters-in-Law merch and other goodies at politicon.com slash merch and see you every week on Wednesdays and Saturdays for new episodes of Hashtag Sisters-in-Law and Sisters Sidebar.

Barb McQuade (19:57)
Yeah, we gotta treat this like a live show.

Jill (19:59)
Let me get back to the script then, hold on a second.

Okay, it’s missing, but I’ll find it. Go ahead.