not capital, even after a final judgment and sentence, provided
an appeal has been allowed with a stay of execution.

Bail is given orally or in writing, according to the practice of
the particular State. When given orally, it is termed a
recognizance. This is entered into by the personal appearance of
those who are to assume the obligation before a proper magistrate
or clerk of court, and their due acknowledgment before him that
they do assume it. He makes a brief minute of the fact at the
time, from which at any subsequent time he can make up a full
record in due form. When bail is given in writing, the
obligation is prepared in behalf of the government and executed
by the parties to it.

Whoever gives bail as surety for another is by that very fact
given a kind of legal control over him. He can take him into
actual manual custody without any warrant, and against his will,
for the purpose of returning him to court and surrendering him to
the sheriff. This right is a common law right, arising from the
contract of suretyship, and is not bounded by State lines. If
the principal absconds from the State, the surety can have him
followed and brought back without any warrant of arrest.

The amount of the bail, should it be forfeited, is payable either
to the government or to some other representative of the public
interests, as may be prescribed by statute. If the sureties have
any equitable claim to relief by a reduction of the amount, there
is often given by statute or judicial practice a right to the
court in which the obligation was given or before which its
enforcement is sought to grant a reduction from the sum which