It's the whole psychology of getting to court.
Any legal matter that eventually gets into court begins as a major negative event of come kind in the actor/litigant's life. Civil litigation, criminal charges, even SLAP or harassment litigation had some sort of negative beginning.
People go to lawyers to resolve a perceived problem or to answer litigation from someone else’s perceived problem. After the first blowup, most people are pretty reasonable.
But then it escalates. What was a settle-able matter becomes hardened positions after months and years of depositions, delays, BS (always from “the other side.”)
By the time they get to a court date, the original matter is often largely pushed into the background by the huge (often lawyer generated) personal animosity between the parties.
They stop looking at the facts. They refuse to look at the weaknesses in their own case. They even stand up in church and ask fellow parishioners in their church to pray for a favorable verdict or death for the other side!
You have no idea how strong this induced lunacy can become. I have seen simple civil cases escalate to the point that otherwise sane people very guardedly, ever so slightly, ask their lawyer if they know a ‘nonjudicial way’ to settle this and ‘get those bastards.’ In other words, do you know a hitman I can hire?
They don't just know they are right! They know, by God, they are right and want to destroy the other side, no matter what it takes.
I've seen people spend $400,000 to get a $500 verdict, and that is by no means unusual.
Can you imagine how much insanity and hate is running through their heads at that point.... especially if it was some "injustice' done to the wife (who never stops bitching and tells him he not a man if he does not "win" this), or some dirty, rotten cop who dared to accuse their perfect child of DWI after he blew a .2 and killed 4 people in a 2:15 AM (just after the bars close) traffic accident.
Murders in these cases are not uncommon.
And if you think part of this is some lawyers running up your fees, you are totally right!
If any party to a civil or criminal matter has enough sense to stop believing in the meritoriousness of their own case, and their case alone, they go to a mediator, or take the offered deal, but that happens all too rarely.
#2: By the nature of the charge, all the charging documents had to be the same. They were all charged with being participants in an ongoing criminal enterprise, all together, all cooperating in the conduct of one criminal enterprize.
Stop and think for a moment, all the docs had to be the same, if they all were accused of doing the same thing.
All Defs had the problem of possible “Murder in Consort” charges, too.
ALL THAT SAID:
The charging docs were very typical in matters such as this, and had to be.
The bond amounts were LEGAL at the time they were imposed.
The bound amounts were EXCEPTIONALLY STUPID and should be easily lowered on appeal. Why Defs have not moved to move entire matter to appeals level amazes me. Perhaps they are all depending on same incompetent Public Defender
Remember, a; legal and b; smart, and c; right are very often 3 different things, as they are in this case. .
Finally, this is going to be a big federal class action lawsuit. What JP did was LEGAL, but STUPID, and juries hate highbrow stupid. It will be big settlements, 'cause State of Texas never wants this to go to trial.
If everything the government did was legal, constitutional, etc., then there is no viable claim for deprivation of rights.
-- Why Defs have not moved to move entire matter to appeals level amazes me. --
I don't know exactly what you mean by "appeals level," but most of the accused did have excessive bail and lack of probable cause claims heard in a court that is superior to the JP's court. As for moving the entire matter to appeals level, Texas procedure has timelines and threshold conditions that must necessarily exist before an appeal is taken. Conditions precedent to appeal of a trial court decision don't yet exist.
-- If any party to a civil or criminal matter has enough sense to stop believing in the meritoriousness of their own case, and their case alone, they go to a mediator, or take the offered deal, but that happens all too rarely. --
Something on the order of 90-95% of civil claims are settled before trial. Most parties are well aware of the weaknesses in their case, and most know that the decisions at trial are arbitrary. I've had opponents who knew they had a losing hand on the law and merits go to trial, "rolling the dice." They have a non-trivial probability of getting a decision in their favor.