Bail

bayl.

In old English law. To deliver, commit or intrust a thing to another; to deliver a person from arrest, or out of custody, to the keeping of other persons, on their undertaking to be responsible for his appearance at a day and place certain; to discharge a person fi-om arrest, on his finding sureties for his appearance at a certain time and place; to become bail for another.

In practice. The sureties who procure the release of a person under arrest, by becoming responsible for his appearance at the time and place designated. Those persons who become sureties for the appearance of the defendant in court. Upon those contracts of indemnity which are taken in legal proceedings as security for the performance of an obligation imposed or declared by the tribunals, and known as undertakings or recognizances, the sureties are called "bail." Civil Code Cal. § 2780. The taking of bail consists in the acceptance by a competent court, magistrate, or officer, of sufficient bail for the appearance of the defendant according to the legal effect of his undertaking, or for the payment to the state of a certain specified sum if he does not appear. Code Ala. 1886, § 4407. Bail is of various kinds, such as: Civil bail. That taken in civil actions. Special bail, being persons who undertake that if the defendant is condemned in the action he shall pay the debt or surrender himself for imprisonment. Bail in error. That given by a defendant who intends to bring error on the judgment and desires a stay of execution in the mean time. See, further, the following titles.

In Canadian law. A lease. Bail emphytéotique. A lease for years, with a right to prolong indefinitely. 5 Low. Can. 381. It is equivalent to an alienation. 6 Low. Can. 58.

[L. Fr. haU, baile, bailie; L. Lat. ballium.'] In old law. Safe keeping, or protection; {custodia, protectio, tutela,) ISpelman, voc. Ballium, Co. Litt. 61 b. See Bail, L. Fr.

In practice. A delivery into safe keeping or protection, (traditio in ballium). Spelman, ub, sup.' A delivery of a person arrested, out of the custody of the law, into the safe keeping or friendly custody of persons who become sureties for his return or appearance. Id, ibid. The sureties themselves, into whose custody the party discharged from actual arrest is supposed to be delivered. 3 Bl. Com. 200. This is the only sense in which the word bail, as a noun, is now used; the act of bailing being still expressed in the bailpiece, by these words: — " C. D. is delivered to bail, [in the old forms, traditur in ballium] on the taking of his body, to J. N. and J. S.,** &c. See Bailpiece, Bail to the thetiff. Special bail. Common bail. The radical meaning of bail is undoubtedly, a cif^Zev^y, (from Fr. bailler, to deliver); or, in its present use, a person to whom another is delivered, under certain stipulations; just as a bailee, (which is essentially the same word) in another branch of law, is a pereon to whom goods are delivered for a certain purpose. See Bailee, The sense of safe keeping, which also enters into its meaning, is derived from the old French and Italian law, in which baillie, and balio {baila, bailium, and ballium,) signified guardianship, wardship, or protection. See Baila, Balium. Bail are regarded in law as the keepers of their principal, and are sud to have him always "in a string," which they may pull whenever they please, and render him in their discharge. 6 Mod. 231. 1 Tidd's Pr, 285. Bail to the sheriff, or Bail below.

In practice. Persons who undertake that a defendant arrested upon mesne process in a civil action shall duly appear to answer the plaintiff; such undertaking being in the form of a bond given to the sheriff, termed a bail bond, (q. v.) 3 Bl. Com. 290. 1 Tidd*s Pr. 221. This kind of bail is called bail ix> the sheriff, because given to that officer, and for his security; and bail helow, because subordinate or preliminary to bail to the action or special bail, which is termed bail abot^e. Id. wid. See infra. Bail to the Action, Bail above, or