Anonymous 'Good Samaritan' Pays Justin Carter's $500k Bail After 4 Months In Jail For Online Trashtalk

from the that's-quite-a-good-samaritan dept

Thu, Jul 11th 2013 1:27pm — Mike Masnick

We've written a few times about Justin Carter, the teenager in Texas who has been held in jail (at times, in solitary confinement) since March because of an obviously sarcastic trash-talking joke he made on Facebook, which a woman in another country saw and reported to the police as a "terroristic threat." As of today, it appears that Carter is finally out of jail, thanks to someone anonymously donating the money for his $500,000 bail:

Justin Carter's attorney has confirmed that Carter is out on bail as of Thursday, July 11. An "anonymous good Samaritan" donated $500,000 to the Carter family so they could make bail for Justin, said defense attorney Don Flanary.

First of all, that's an impressive "good Samaritan." Second, this whole thing is a travesty. He clearly never should have been arrested, never should have been held in jail for months, and should have been released and had everything dropped the second anyone with more than half a dozen brain cells looked at what he actually said and the context of it. The fact that he's been in jail all of this time, and that bail was set at an outrageous $500k -- and, of course, the fact that he's still facing charges of making a "terroristic threat" -- are complete travesties, showing a justice system that is out of control.

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Filed Under: bail, good samaritan, justin carter, sarcasm, terroristic threats

26 Comments

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GMacGuffin (profile), 11 Jul 2013 @ 1:23pm

Well well well. Something to make one feel good about people in the face of horrific travesty is most welcome.
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Anonymous Coward, 11 Jul 2013 @ 1:39pm

like law enforcement agencies, the courts themselves are behaving in a way that really pisses people off rather than getting respect. whoever the judge was that did this needs to be the one on the receiving end of a night or two in solitary and bail of that amount set. perhaps he/she would learn to be more of a person representing justice than a person who can dish out whatever sentence felt like on the day, or perhaps, encouraged to dish out. whoever the prosecutor in the case could do with similar treatment. perhaps that person would learn that it isn't always the best course of action to do something just because he/she can!
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Anonymous Coward, 11 Jul 2013 @ 1:42pm

Four months in jail without a trial doesn't seem too speedy to me. If I missed four months of work, I'd not only lose my job, I'd lose everything I own.
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Coogan (profile), 11 Jul 2013 @ 2:08pm

Unfortunately that'll probably add another aspect of the government screw-job the family is already getting - TAXES. I'm no CPA, but I'm fairly certain that you can't just give another person a truckload of money without paying a dime to the IRS as a tax except in very specific circumstances.

Remember, this is the same IRS that asks you on your tax form, on your own honor, if any of your income was obtained illegally. Because if so, you owe Uncle Sam a piece of the action.
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Zos (profile), 11 Jul 2013 @ 2:18pm

cash bail is normally only ten percent. so did the family actually get 50k, or were there some abnormal circumstances that required the full bond?
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John Fenderson (profile), 11 Jul 2013 @ 2:33pm

Re:
There are almost no speedy trials in the US. If it only took four months to reach a trial, that would have been amazingly quick.
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Myr, 11 Jul 2013 @ 2:36pm

You only have to put up 10%, but in that case the 10% is sacrificed as a fee to the bondsman who puts up the rest I believe.
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Baldaur Regis (profile), 11 Jul 2013 @ 2:46pm

"If he wasn't a terrorist, he is now."
- From some movie I pirated
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illuminaut (profile), 11 Jul 2013 @ 2:51pm

I just hope that when this is all over and he finally gets acquitted he sues the crap out of the DA's office or whoever else is responsible for this travesty.
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Ox, 11 Jul 2013 @ 4:26pm

Wow. My sis's ex husband was charged with 1st degree murder, assault and false imprisonment and was given only 50k bail. The sticker here tho is that he admitted to doing it!
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akp (profile), 11 Jul 2013 @ 5:04pm

I'm glad someone had the means to do that which I could not. I also hope that such an amazing good deed has the ability to pull the poor kid out of depression.
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Anonymous Coward, 11 Jul 2013 @ 8:30pm

You do it too much honor by even calling it a 'justice system'. It hasn't deserved such a distinguishment for a long, long time.
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Anonymous Coward, 11 Jul 2013 @ 10:24pm

The 'Authorities' have managed to make a business out of being a 'police state'. They 'the Authorities' even have their own private sector spy industry.

Just spy'n on citizens and raking in the dough!
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G Thompson (profile), 11 Jul 2013 @ 11:54pm

Re:
That doesn't matter if the money was given as a gift for a specific purpose from someone who is NOT a citizen of the USA and actually resides in another country.. Your IRS can only tax US citizens thankfully.

Though whether the anonymous gifter was an American or not is really a hypothetical in this instance, though if the USG tries to find out and out the gifter then this case becomes more than just a total debacle about your so called terrorist threat laws and more about revenge, ego and powerplays of LEOs and the USG
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Ninja (profile), 12 Jul 2013 @ 3:38am

Money to the crooks despite the good intentions... At least the man is out of jail.

Where are the Americans protesting against this? Your kids may be next in line...
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Anonymous Howard (profile), 12 Jul 2013 @ 7:06am

Re:
Maybe I'm wearing my tinfoil hat again, but couldn't this "good samaritan" bullshit be a subtle way to revert the obnoxious bail, now that it caused public(?) uproar(?)?

We'll see if the charges dropped, or servers got magically wiped - wait, that's another story..
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horse with no name, 12 Jul 2013 @ 7:32am

bail
You do understand unless the bail was specifically $500,000 cash only, it's likely that the amount was obtained from a bail bonds place for about 10% of the face value. So it's not quite as much of a gift as you thought.

Another piece of the legal system explained.
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Jul 2013 @ 9:27am

I wish that good samarattin would help me out. I could use 500K
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Jul 2013 @ 9:29am

that is really good!
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John Fenderson (profile), 12 Jul 2013 @ 11:10am

Re:
It's part of an Orwellian naming theme we have had going for a long, long time -- like how we call our war department the "department of defense".
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Mike Masnick (profile), 12 Jul 2013 @ 11:19am

Re:
cash bail is normally only ten percent. so did the family actually get 50k, or were there some abnormal circumstances that required the full bond?

Almost certainly $50k. But that's still an astounding amount for someone to donate, don't you think?
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Jul 2013 @ 11:21am

Re: bail
Giving $50,000 to a complete stranger is still one hell of a kind gesture.
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horse with no name, 12 Jul 2013 @ 6:45pm

Re: Re:
It's also not a donation. Bail bonds, if the accused shows up at the right time and all, are RETURNED... and the total cost for the bond is something like a couple of thousand total. All that this guy did is put up an amount of money as risk, not really GIVING it to anyone... he's on the hook if the dude doesn't go to court, but otherwise he gets almost all of his money back.

Perhaps a little education in the field might help you to understand why it's not that big of a deal, really...
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Adam, 13 Aug 2013 @ 8:12am

One 'Good Samaritan'
Jailed for months because of a Facebook comment? This is getting so ridiculous. Saying something doesn't make it true, acting on it does. Glad there are people with cash out there willing to help others.
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Chris, 13 Jun 2014 @ 12:07am

Good Samaritan
It's so sad that this happened with just a simple fb post. Now I wonder who that Good Samaritan was. Great job whoever he/she was.
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Nov 2016 @ 5:09am

Status?
Does anyone have an update as to what happened as this went through the Court system?
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