d for a misdemeanor case could, at common law, insist on being released on bail if he found sufficient sureties. Writing in the mid-1700's, Blackstone described the arrest-bail procedure his day in the following passage: "When a delinquent is arrested...he ought regularly to be carried before a justice of the peace...If upon...inquiry it manifestly appears that either no such crime was committed or that the suspicion entertained of the prisoner as wholly groundless, in such cases only it is lawful totally to discharge him. Otherwise he must be committed to prison or give bail; that is, put in his securities for his appearance to answer the charge against him. This commitment, therefore, being only for safe custody, wherever bail will answer the same intention it ought to be taken...Bail is...a delivery or bailment of a person to his sureties, upon their giving (together with himself) sufficient security for his appearance; he being supposed to continue in their friendly custody, instead of going to goal." The notion of bail pending trial was not changed over the centuries. For instance, Mr. Justice Robert H. Jackson of the Supreme Court in discussing its purpose said, "The practice of admission to bail, as it evolved in Anglo-American law, is not a device for keeping persons in jail upon mere accusation until it is found convenient to give them a trial. On the contrary, the spirit of the procedure is to enable them to stay out of jail until a trial has found them guilty. Without this conditional privilege, even those wrongfully accused are punished by a period of imprisonment while awaiting trial and are handicapped in consulting counsel, searching for evidence and witnesses, and preparing a defense, Admission to bail always involves a risk that the accused will take flight. That is a calculated risk which the law takes as the price of our system of justice The possibility that the accused might flee or hide must, of course, be squared ...
