Makes no damn sense to me. No damn sense at all.

After confessing to his $50 billion Ponzi scheme scam, Bernie Madoff was released on $10 million bail, secured by various family homes held in his wife’s name. Apparently, the court felt that when a man has embezzled $50 billion from investors, and nobody knows where the money went, a $10 million bail is sufficient to compel him not to run off into the sunset (laughing all the way to offshore banks, no doubt).

But that’s not what I want to focus on.

The court had also placed additional restrictions on Madoff as a condition of bail. These included an asset freeze. Madoff was prohibited from liquidating or distributing any of his assets. And he was caught red-handed mailing “roughly $1 million in expensive watches and jewelry to family and friends on Christmas Eve.”

A very clear violation of his bail. So prosecutors went to court, asking Magistrate Judge Ronald L. Ellis to revoke Madoff’s bail.

Judge Ellis produced a classic “The law is an ass” judgement:

“For the government’s detention application to succeed,” Judge Ellis wrote, “the court would have to find that the government has met its burden of showing — by clear and convincing evidence, that no condition or combination of conditions will reasonably assure the safety of any other person and the community; or by a preponderance of the evidence, that there is no condition or combination of conditions that would reasonably assure the ‘presence of the defendant at trial if released.’ ”

“The court finds that the government has failed to meet its burden to either ground,” the ruling said.

As far as I can tell, the plain English version of that is:
Doesn’t matter if he violated a condition of his bail. His bail can still be revoked only if the prosecution can show that it is not possible to come up with more conditions that will reasonably assure “the safety of any other person and the community” and the “presence of the defendant at trial if released”. And the prosecution could not show that.

So Judge Ellis not only refused to revoke Madoff’s bail, Judge Ellis went on to “place additional restrictions on the bail requirements”.

Conditions and restrictions that Madoff now knows all too well he can violate with impunity. Since clear violations of conditions and restrictions cannot lead to revoking his bail. Not as long as it is possible for a judge to come up with even more conditions for him to violate.

Isn’t the law just awesome?