William O. Douglas

“ The costs of administering the bail system occur, by definition, only during the course of criminal prosecutions. They are as much an element of the costs of conducting criminal cases as the prosecutor's salary, the fee for docketing an appeal, or the per diem paid to jurors. Nor does the rubric 'administrative' require a contrary result. If this were the talisman through which a State could impose its costs upon acquitted defendants, I could see no stopping point and we might be left with a system in which an acquittal might be nearly as ruinous to the defendant as a conviction. ”

“ Cost of administration is only one item for comparison. The lessened burden on the State accruing from the few convictions and the resultant jail term sentences is a factor that a State may take into consideration. Certainly if the Illinois experience parallels the Manhattan experience, we would be hard put to say that Illinois shows an invidious discrimination against those who can only make bail as compared with those who are qualified to be released on personal recognizance. ”

“ Some costs are the unavoidable consequences of a system of government which is required to proceed against its citizens in a public trial in an adversary proceeding. Yet I see no basis for saying that an accused must bear the costs incurred by the Government in its unsuccessful prosecution of him. Imposition of costs upon individuals who have been acquitted has long been eschewed by our courts. ”