Anticipatory Bonds for Probation Violations

“Arrest on first positive drug screen. $50,000 secured bond.” “Hold without bond for any probation violation.” May a judge sentencing a defendant to probation include instructions such as these in the judgment suspending sentence? No statute gives a judge authority to set an anticipatory bond as part of a probationary judgment. To the contrary, G.S. 15A-1345(b) says that a person arrested for a probation violation must be taken without unnecessary delay before a judicial official to have release conditions set in the same manner as provided in G.S. 15A-534. I read that provision to incorporate by reference the ordinary procedures for pretrial release for a criminal charge. Those procedures require an evaluation of the person’s dangerousness and risk of flight, based on the factors set out in G.S. 15A-534(c) (the nature of the offense, the evidence against the defendant, family ties, employment, intoxication, etc.). Most of those factors are most sensibly evaluated by the judicial official before whom the probationer appears at the time of arrest—not by the judge who sentenced him or her (which could have happened months or years earlier). I don’t know of an appellate case expressly considering the validity of an anticipatory bond (or requirement to “hold without bond”) ordered in a judgment suspending sentence. The closest appears to be State v. Hilbert, 145 N.C. App. 440 (2001), in which the defendant objected to the trial judge’s imposition of a condition stating “First positive test he is to be immediately arrested and placed under $100,000.00 cash bond [...]