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My question Can defendants arraigned in federal court sometimes be "out on bail" secretly with no way for the public to know about or verify the bail? asks if something is possible i.e "Can defendants sometimes X?"

As background information to demonstrate how I got to the point of asking this, and to give some insight into the level of my understanding of the topic, I cited a particular example of a defendant who's recently been arraigned on federal charges in three separate jurisdictions.

An authoritative-sounding and well-received answer (link to the as-posted version - it has since been edited by another user to fix the problem cited in item #2 below)

  1. does not address my "Can defendants sometimes X?" question.
  2. cites one of three appearance bonds from my example referring to it as "the Trump appearance bond.

To me this feels disingenuous in two ways:

  1. It does not attempt to ask the question as asked (in the title and repeated again at the end for redundancy)
  2. Uses language that falsely suggests there's only one bond agreement, not three, as if this is everything - what I refer to in comments as "My client can not possibly be a bank robber - just last week she was at a bank and she didn't rob it."

Question: Was this answer somewhat disingenuous in one or two ways? Or did it genuinely address the question as asked in good faith?

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    Maybe... try focusing on the question (i.e. the title and final paragraph) without the distraction of the confused and irrelevant back story which has led to the cited answer going off on a tangent and away from what you're trying to ask.
    – user35069
    Commented Aug 14, 2023 at 23:26
  • @Rick I re-read the post and I don't think that as-written it can be thought to be "confusing" to this community - it's logical and has a linear flow. "Here's what I know, here's what others have said, now here's my question." And the use of question marks do indicate unambiguously what the question is. This kind of background is necessary for "evidence of research" (a up/down voting thing) and it helps inform potential answer authors of my current level of understanding of the situation.
    – uhoh
    Commented Aug 15, 2023 at 2:34
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    @Rick But writing an authoritative sounding answer that simply does not answer the question as asked (those question marks again) is not what we do if we are "confused" by the question. Instead, we leave a comment and ask for clarification when we are confused. (and I get the feeling that the answer author is not the easily-confused type)
    – uhoh
    Commented Aug 15, 2023 at 2:34

2 Answers 2

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It is my opinion that the answer does not answer the question at all nor attempt to. I don't know whether this qualifies as "disingenuous"; I do think this makes it a poor answer.

Your second objection may or may not be valid; I don't feel qualified to take a stand on that one.

The question perhaps leans too heavily upon this one example (Christie's qualifications being irrelevant to the question), potentially leading the reader to conclude you wish to know about this specific case, not the general case.

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You have multiple answers across multiple sites with answers suggesting that Trump had [at the point of time of those answers] not paid any bail in order to get released. All those answers are suggesting that he has been released on the promise that he will appear in court for his trial dates.

I am not sure why you are pushing so hard for the idea that Trump is using campaign funds in order to pay for his bail on the word of a single induvial that has been attacking him for a good while.

We are talking about both a former president and someone who is actively running for president. Do you not think that the possibility of pre trial conferment for either of those two situations would not be major news?

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  • Comments have been moved to chat; please do not continue the discussion here. Before posting a comment below this one, please review the purposes of comments. Comments that do not request clarification or suggest improvements usually belong as an answer, or in Law Chat. Comments continuing discussion may be removed.
    – feetwet Mod
    Commented Aug 14, 2023 at 15:43

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