Extraordinary Conditions of Release under the Bail Reform Act
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EXTRAORDINARY CONDITIONS OF RELEASE
UNDER THE BAIL REFORM ACT
JONATHAN ZWEIG*
I. INTRODUCTION
Bernard Madoff and Marc Dreier, two prominent white-collar criminal
defendants, were recently released on bail pending trial in the Southem Dis-
trict of New York.' Each remained free on bail for several months before
eventually being sent to prison.2 In both cases, the court set bail amounts in
the millions of dollars and imposed numerous additional conditions of re-
lease, including home detention enforced by security guards, twenty-four-
hour video monitoring, screening of visitors, limitations on communications,
and the requirement that the defendants or their families bear the considera-
ble expense of these conditions.' The court imposed these terms of release
* B.A., Yale University, 2007; J.D. Candidate, Harvard Law School, Class of 2010. I
would like to thank Professor Bill Stuntz for his invaluable guidance.
' United States v. Madoff, 586 F. Supp. 2d 240 (S.D.N.Y. 2009); United States v. Dreier,
596 F. Supp. 2d 831 (S.D.N.Y. 2009). After the Court granted Madoff bail, he spent three
months under home detention in his seven million-dollar penthouse. Associated Press, Madoff
Denied Bail and Ordered to Jail, LONG ISLAND Bus. NEWS, Mar. 12, 2009, available at http:/I
libn.com/blog/2009/03/12/madoff-arrives-in-court-for-plea-in-fraud-case. He then pled guilty,
admitting that he had run an enormous Ponzi scheme that destroyed assets of approximately
fifty billion dollars in value. Diana B. Henriques & Jack Healy, Madoff Goes to Jail After
Guilty Pleas, N.Y. TIMES, Mar. 12, 2009, available at http://www.nytimes.corI2009/03/13/
business/13madoff.html. He was remanded to jail pending sentencing. United States v.
Madoff, 316 Fed. Appx. 58 (2d Cir. 2009). The court ultimately sentenced Madoff to the
maximum term of 150 years. Jack Healy, Madoff Sentenced to 150 Years in Prison for Ponzi
Scheme, N.Y. TlImas, June 29, 2009, available at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/30/busi-
ness/30madoff.html?hp. Marc Dreier was accused of selling approximately $380 million in
fraudulent securities. Alison Leigh Cowan, Charles V. Bagli & William K. Rashbaum, Marc
Dreier, a Lawyer with a Lavish Lifestyle Accused of Stealing Millions, N.Y. TIMES, Dec. 13,
2008, available at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/14/nyregion/14lawyer.html. Dreier pled
guilty and remained free on bail pending sentencing. Mark Hamblett, Dreier Pleads Guilty to
Fraud Scheme, Remains Free on Bail, N.Y.L.J., May 12, 2009, available at http://www.
law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id= 1202430626494. The court then sentenced him to twenty years in
prison. Posting of Jennifer Forsyth to WSJ Law Blog, http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2009/07/13/
breaking-marc-dreier-sentenced-to-20-years-in-prison (July 13, 2009, 18:38 EST).
2 See supra note 1. The median number of days between arrest and adjudication is 127
days for defendants who are released and 45 days for defendants who are detained. THOMAS H.
COHEN & BRIAN A. REAVES, U.S. DEPTr OF JusTICE, PRETRIAL RELEASE OF FELONY DEFEND-
ANTS IN STATE COURTS 7 (2007), available at http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/prfdsc.
pdf [hereinafter 2007 DOJ REPORT].
I Dreier, 596 F. Supp. 2d at 833-34; Madoff, 586 F. Supp. 2d at 244-45. In Dreier, the
court specifically required that the security guards be armed. Dreier, 596 F. Supp. 2d at 834.
The court also required Dreier to pay in advance the costs of security guards for three months,
estimated at $210,000. Id. In Madoff's case, the video monitoring alone cost tens of thousands](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/hjl47&div=20&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Extraordinary Conditions of Release under the Bail Reform Act
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