Bounty Hunters
Last month, five armed
bounty hunters forced their way into a Phoenix home, shooting and killing two
occupants. In another recent case, Kansas City, Mo., bounty hunters broke into
the wrong home and put three bullets in an innocent man. These stories portray
bounty hunters as thugs who are beyond the law. What is a bounty hunter? What
legal powers do bounty hunters have? Whence do they derive those powers?
Bounty
hunters work for bail-bondsmen . They are dispatched to capture defendants
in criminal cases who have skipped bail posted by bail-bondsmen. About 40
percent of all criminal defendants are released on bail , a cash deposit
that is forfeited to the court if the defendant fails to appear before the
judge as promised. Defendants who can't afford bail often hire the services of
a private bail-bond agency to front the cash. The bondsman's fee is usually 10
percent of the bail, with defendants putting up collateral for the
remainder.
Last year, more than 33,000 defendants posted bail
and then skipped their court date . Most bail-jumpers face charges on
drug-related crimes, violent offenses, or theft. The most popular bail-jumper
destinations are warm-weather spots (Southern California and south Florida) and
big cities (Chicago and New York City). Most skips stay within the United
States--avoiding passport-control agents, who are trained to spot them.
In most
states, a bondsman must return the skip within a year of the missed
court date to recover his deposit. Few bail-bondsmen keep bounty hunters on the
payroll for liability reasons, choosing instead to pay the bounty hunters the
standard fee of 10 percent of the bond. Bounty hunters (who prefer to call
themselves "recovery agents") are paid only after the skip is returned to
custody and the bail-bondsman gets his deposit back from the court. In most
states bounty hunters are unregulated . (Bail-bondsmen, on the other
hand, are licensed and regulated by all states, and in many jurisdictions must
carry liability and general operating insurance.)
The powers of bounty hunters are
immense . When arresting a skip, bounty hunters need not read them their
Miranda rights . They do not need a warrant to search the residence of a
skip, even a hotel room. Nor are they required to announce themselves before
entering private property, as police officers must. Evidence obtained illegally
by bounty hunters can be submitted in court. Like police officers, bounty
hunters are authorized to use "all reasonable force " to apprehend skips.
This means they can shoot to kill if shot at. Also, they can transport skips
across state lines without enduring extradition proceedings. (Bounty hunter
cliché: Extradition proceedings take place in the trunk of a car.)
Bounty
hunters derive their powers from the 1872 Supreme Court case
Taylor
vs. Taintor
. In the eyes of the law, a defendant voluntarily places
himself in the custody of the bail-bondsman and, by extension, the bounty
hunter, when he signs the bail contract. The court decided that bondsmen and
bounty hunters are proxies for the state, and therefore deserve police powers
when taking "custody" of the accused. However, the usual constitutional
protections enjoyed by suspects don't apply to skips pursued by bounty hunters
because, the court decided, the bounty hunters work for the bondsmen, not the
government. (Private debt collectors--"repo men"--face more legal
fetters than bounty hunters. They can't use violence or search private property
without the owners' consent. And unlike bounty hunters, they can be arrested
for trespassing on private property.)
Bounty hunters' privileges are a vestige of British
common law . Since the Middle Ages, courts have appointed custodians for
defendants awaiting trial. Usually, the custodian was the defendant's friend.
In the 13 th century, courts commonly required custodians to serve
defendants' punishments in their stead when their wards skipped, even if this
meant standing in for a hanging.
Bounty
hunters are more efficient at returning criminals than police are. The
National Association of Bail Enforcement Agents says that 88 percent of all
bail jumpers are returned to authorities by bounty hunters. Law enforcement
officers return 10 percent of skips, but catch most of them at routine traffic
stops and at border crossings. Only 2 percent of skips remain at large.
Criminal justice experts credit bounty hunters' success rates to two things:
They face less red tape than do police and, unlike police, bounty hunters have
an economic incentive to get their men.
Last year, U.S. News &
World Report proclaimed bounty hunting one of the hottest job tracks in its
"Best Jobs for the Future" issue. No persuasive evidence substantiates this
claim. According to the NABEA, there are only 200 to 300 full-time bounty
hunters in the United States, and they earn an average income of about
$36,000. More than 1,700 people bounty hunt part time. Most of them are former
or off-duty cops or private investigators.
Few bounty hunter training
programs exist--the most frequently attended programs are 20-hour
courses that cover only basic legal constraints. Several states have bills
pending that would require bounty hunters to register with police, take more
extensive training courses, and obey procedural constraints that apply to
police, such as announcing themselves before entering a private home.
Instances of bounty
hunters abusing their power abound. In the Phoenix case, the bounty hunters
claimed that they were pursuing a skip but accidentally raided the wrong
address. The authorities believe that the bounty hunters used their profession
as a cover for armed robbery. Increasingly, civil courts hold bounty hunters
liable for their mistakes . Last year, one court awarded $1.2 million to a
New York woman who was mistakenly kidnapped and transported to Alabama by
bounty hunters.
