Court Opinion

ID: 9661822
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 22:52:03.201336+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:34.112795
License: Public Domain

CONCURRING OPINION
JIM SHARP, Justice.
While I concur in the Court’s judgments reducing Golden’s two bonds, I write to address the directive nature of article 17.15(4):
The ability to make bail is to be regarded, and proof may be taken upon this point.
Tex.Code Crim. Proc. Ann. art. 17.15(4) (Vernon 5005) (emphasis added).
The statute requires the trial court to consider and evaluate the defendant’s ability to make bail. See Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 1911 (Philip Babcock Gove ed.1961) (defining “regard”). In the absence of proof being offered by the defendant, the statute requires the tidal court — sitting in its capacity as a magistrate — to elicit testimony on the defendant’s “ability to make bail.”
Here, Golden, proceeding pro se, offered no evidence to the trial court of his ability to make bail. While there was testimony that a bondsman was willing to post a $5,000 bond, that is only evidence of what the bondsman was willing to risk, not evidence of Golden’s ability to make bond. Without regarding Golden’s ability to make bail, the trial court set bail at $200,000 in each case in an evidentiary vacuum. By failing to elicit evidence from Golden, a pro se defendant, regarding his ability to make bail, the trial court failed to *522perform the duty imposed by article 17.15(4).