Opinion ID: 2368807
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Colonial and State Constitutional Bail Rights

Text: Appellant contends that, notwithstanding the narrow language and limited purpose of the excessive bail clause in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the practice in the colonies established the right to bail as a fundamental right which perforce was implicitly guaranteed by the Eighth Amendment. This argument is not supported by history. First, a fundamental right to bail was not universal among the colonies or among the early states; several states made the right to bail a statutory rather than a constitutional right. See Duker, supra note 10, at 77-83; Meyer, supra note 10, at 1191. Second, the language of several state constitutions explicitly limiting the power of the judiciary to set excessive bail negates any suggestion that the excessive bail clause was intended to restrict the definition of bailable offenses by the legislature. See Duker, supra note 10, at 81-83. Third, the early state constitutions that specifically granted a right to bail also contained an excessive bail clause, suggesting a recognition of the distinction between the two. See Meyer, supra note 10, at 1191. The English common law and statutory provisions regulating bail procedures were simplified to some extent in various colonial charters. The earliest colonial provision concerning bail is found in section eighteen of the Massachusetts Body of Liberties of 1641. [12] This enactment deviated sharply from the English tradition by granting an affirmative, though limited, right to bail. Excluded were capital crimes, contempts of court, and other cases to be expressly designated by the legislature. The Massachusetts provision influenced article XI of the Pennsylvania Charter of Liberty (1682), [13] which granted a constitutional right to bail in a form that was later adopted by Pennsylvania and North Carolina in their constitutions in 1776, and was widely copied in 19th century state constitutions: That all persons shall be bailable by sufficient sureties, unless for capital offences, when the proof is evident, or presumption great. [14] Many other colonial charters, however, simply guaranteed that the subjects of the colony would enjoy the same liberties as Englishmen, [15] which, as we have seen, only encompassed a right to bail as defined by Parliament. When the colonies asserted their independence in 1776, they largely adopted the bail provisions from their colonial charters into their state constitutions. The Massachusetts Constitution of 1780 included an excessive bail clause, but the right to bail itself was relegated to statutory status. This excessive bail clause makes clear that it was intended as a limitation on the judiciary and not the legislature: [16] No magistrate or court of law shall demand excessive bail or sureties .... [17] The New Hampshire Constitution of 1784 used identical language, [18] while the Maryland Constitution of 1776 stated [t]hat excessive bail ought not to be required ... by the courts of law. [19] This explicit language refutes appellant's contention that the early excessive bail clause, standing alone, was generally intended to embody a limitation on the legislature by granting a right to bail as well as a protection against judicial abuse. Finally, the state constitutions of North Carolina and Pennsylvania, which were the only state constitutions of those adopted before the Bill of Rights to include an express right to bail in noncapital cases, also contained a distinct excessive bail clause. [20] The inclusion of two separate provisions regulating the bail system suggests a recognition of their differing language and purposes.