The Bankman-Fried Bail

Is $250 million in bail for Samuel Bankman-Fried excessive? We ask because of the Eighth Amendment. It prohibits the requirement of excessive bail. We understand that Mr. Bankman-Fried didn’t personally fork over a quarter of a billion spondulix. We get that he doesn’t have to put up all of the $250 million. Yet we don’t mind saying that whether this kind of bail is excessive strikes us as a close question.It’s not that we carry a brief for Mr. Bankman-Fried. We favor an aggressive investigation and prosecution of this case. Not only against Mr. Bankman-Fried but against his confederates. We do carry a brief, though, for the Constitution and the Bill of Rights — even for the wealthiest of scoundrels. Given all the ways we have of tracking persons today, $250 million in bail just seems like an extravagant amount, even in a case of rank rascality.We understand there are precedents. In 1989, America sought bail of $250 million from Michael Milken. Robert Durst at one point faced in state court a combined bail and bond of $3 billion, though that was later reduced to $450,000 by a Texas judge, the Honorable Wanda Fowler. She clobbered the prosecution with the Eighth Amendment, saying the bail was “so excessive” that neither Durst nor his bail companies could meet the requirement.What gets us about Mr. Bankman-Fried’s case is that it comes as liberals such as he favors have been campaigning against requiring cash bail for persons arrested for all sorts of crimes. Senator Gillibrand, among others, was a sponsor of the “No Cash Bail Act.” Announcing her support for that measure next to the Reverend Al Sharpton, she intoned that the “cash bail system in our country is discriminatory and a disaster.”In New York, these sentiments gained legal force in the state’s sweeping 2019 reform that has permitted thousands to walk free after being arrested for crimes that once would have been met with stiff cash bail requirements. Yet, as far as we can tell, a quarter of a billion bail fails to impress our junior senator. Then again, too, Ms. Gillibrand took $10,800 from Mr. Bankman-Fried this election cycle, only to convey it to charity.The Judiciary Act of 1789, which created much of our legal system, ordains that “all persons shall be bailable, unless for capital offenses, where the proof shall be evident, or the presumption great.” In United States v. Matlow, the riders of the Seventh United States Appeals Circuit explained that the purpose of the Eighth Amendment is to “prevent the practical denial of bail by fixing the amount so unreasonably high that it cannot be given.”That Mr. Bankman-Fried was able to make bail will no doubt be cited by some as prima facie evidence that his bail is not excessive. To us that argument is unconvincing. In the event, Mr. Bankman-Fried, whatever else one can say about him, chose not to contest his extradition to America. He presented himself for prosecution. Even if, in the end, he makes a run for it, a quarter of a billion is — even to the most jaded editor — a tidy sum.

The Bankman-Fried Bail

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