Anyone who’s ever visited a jail knows that it’s not exactly the most comfortable place
in the world.
That’s why the American judicial system has the institution of bail -- a deposit to
the court made in either cash or collateral that allows a person to purchase their freedom
while preparing for and undergoing trial.
Around 40 percent of criminal defendants are ultimately released on bail.
For defendants who can’t afford to post their own bail, there is a person called a
bail bondsman.
Bail bondsmen work for private LLC’s and front these people a portion of the money
for their bail -- which are called ‘surety bonds’ -- and typically charge a fee for
doing so.
Though the amount of the fee varies from bondsman to bondsman, the standard fee is 10 percent.
Under this system, if a defendant agrees to the terms set forth by the bail bondsman in
order to win their freedom, they are essentially handing over power of attorney for themselves
over to the bail bondsman.
This means that if they fail to appear in court on the scheduled date or try to skip
town, the bail bondsman has the right to track them down and haul them in.
But the bail bondsmen don’t undertake this task themselves: they often hire bounty hunters
-- also known as bail enforcement agents, or recovery agents -- to track the defendant
down on their behalf.
But what is it like being a bounty hunter?
What are the rules and laws that typically govern bounty hunters?
And is it as badass of a job as their job title suggests?
Bounty hunting is a vestige of British common law of the Middle Ages.
As we discussed in a previous video, “What is Bail Money Actually For?”, England was
the place in which the rule of law replaced what we now consider to be more archaic forms
of dispensing justice, like determining if your neighbor stole your garden rake by seeing
if their head resembled a pumpkin that everyone knew was haunted.
Instead of cash or collateral goods, bail often took the form of an actual person, which
meant that a friend or family member would put themselves forward as vouching for the
person accused of the crime.
Thirteenth-century courts often required the person doing the vouching to serve the punishment
of the defendant if that person skipped town, which could sometimes mean a death sentence.
Fast forward to the modern era, and bounty hunters primarily draw their legal imprimatur
from an 1872 Supreme Court decision, Taylor v. Taintor, which stated that bounty hunters
“may pursue [a fugitive] to another State; arrest him on the Sabbath; and, if necessary,
break and enter his house for that purpose.”
Bounty hunters are typically paid a commission of the total bail amount that is owed by the
fugitive.
So, for example, if a person can’t afford bail that’s set at $10,000, they would typically
pay a portion of that amount in cash or collateral, plus a fee, to the bail bondsman.
Then, the bail bondsman pays the rest of the amount, which is backed by insurance.
However, the bail bondsman only gets their money back if the person who was released
on bail actually shows up to court: if that person skips their court date or leaves town,
it’s the bail bondsman who is on the hook for the full bail amount.
If the bail bondsman winds up having to pay the full amount because the defendant hasn’t
appeared in court, that’s called a forfeiture; if the bail bondsman can produce the person
who skipped out -- a person referred to as a ‘skip’ -- then the bail bondsman is
given the entire bail amount, plus the initial fee that they charged to the skip for providing
the bail money in the first place.
In other words, if the skip is successfully apprehended and brought back to court, the
skip loses the amount that they initially put up in cash or collateral.
In those cases in which a person has skipped town, the bondsman hires a bounty hunter to
track the person down and even apprehend them.
But since bounty hunters are independent contractors and work on commission, they only get paid
if they are able to find the skip and bring them in.
There isn’t a verifiable way to count the number of bounty hunters in the United States.
No central database exists and state laws vary widely as to the legality of the practice.
Multiple states -- such as Oregon, Kentucky, and Illinois -- have banned the practice of
bounty hunting altogether; other states -- such as Wyoming -- are on the other end of the
spectrum, with few if any rules governing the practice at all.
However, according to an estimate by an industry organization called the Professional Bail
Agents of the United States, the total number of bounty hunters in the US numbers around
15,000.
That’s a lot of bounty hunting going on.
But what kinds of rules and regulations do bounty hunters have to follow?
One rule of all bounty hunting is that they are not allowed to cross country lines.
Bounty hunters who attempt to apprehend fugitives in another country face dangerous consequences,
as even a trip over the border to Canada to snatch a fugitive would violate international
law.
When it comes to the tactics bounty hunters employ to catch fugitives, it turns out that
they can get away with quite a lot.
Bounty hunters operate outside of the traditional legal constraints that govern police officers
and other agents of the state.
This is because a bail agreement between a defendant and a bail bondsman is essentially
a civil contract that it is incumbent upon the bondsman to enforce.
As a result, bounty hunters hired by bail bondsmen enjoy significant legal privileges
that everyday police officers do not.
For example, when bounty hunters are making an arrest, they are not required to read a
defendant their Miranda rights.
Bounty hunters also may enter a defendant’s home without probable cause or a search warrant,
but only if they’ve established that the fugitive is actually living there.
In other words, bounty hunters don’t have the right to enter the homes of the fugitive’s
friends or family to look for the person.
Depending on the state, bounty hunters may also not be required to obtain a license or
undergo training.
All bounty hunters really need in order to make an arrest is a copy of the ‘bail piece’,
which is a copy of the paperwork proving that the person that they’re hunting is indeed
a fugitive; some states also require that bounty hunters possess a copy of the actual
bond.
And because bounty hunters may carry firearms and handcuffs, and may even use deadly force
when attempting to apprehend fugitives, there is a great potential for things to go arigh.
That’s what happened in 2003, when a Virginia bounty hunter named James Howard Dickerson
entered the wrong house and shot dead a man named Roberto Martinez after Martinez tried
to escape.
The unfortunate case led Virginia to introduce a rush of new regulations on bounty hunters.
The potential for disaster has led many states to adopt stricter requirements for those who
wish to become bounty hunters.
For starters, many states require that applicants be above a certain age -- say, between 18
to 25 -- and complete a course or set of courses within 90 days of receiving their license.
Another common requirement is for applicants to have had no misdemeanor or felony convictions
within the past 5-10 years.
And this makes sense -- if you’re going to hire someone who enjoys extra-legal privileges
and likely carries a gun, you probably don’t want someone with a history of committing
serious or violent crimes.
When drilling down into state regulations around the bounty hunting industry, some are
more stringent than others.
Some, like North Dakota, look to protect against potential conflicts of interest: According
to the state regulations, those looking to become bounty hunters “must not hold a position
as a jailer, police officer, magistrate court judge, sheriff, sheriff’s deputy or any
other individual having arresting authority.”
This makes sense, too -- you could see confusion arising from someone justifying illegal search
and seizure as a cop by saying that they were acting in their capacity as a bounty hunter,
and it would be difficult to prove that they were acting illegally.
Mississippi has similar requirements: State law indicates that those seeking licensure
as a bail enforcement agent “may not be employed as an attorney, law enforcement agent,
or judicial official,” and “may not be employed as a correctional officer in a facility
where inmates are bailable.”
Some state laws around the industry pay particular attention to applicants’ personal behavior.
In Iowa, for example, people looking to become bounty hunters must have no history of domestic
violence or drug and alcohol abuse.
And in Georgia, in addition to its requirements around age, felony convictions, and US citizenship,
the state also requires that prospective bounty hunters be eligible to carry a firearm.
Then there is the issue of temperament.
Media depictions like the popular reality TV show ‘Dog the Bounty Hunter’ portray
an industry full of cowboy-type bounty hunters who shoot from the hip, are regularly shot
at, and engage in high-speed chases to apprehend their fugitives.
In reality, bail-bond agencies are far more likely to hire individuals who are low-key
and understated for the role of a bounty hunter.
It is, after all, a private company: If they’re known for employing people who regularly shoot
people or engage in cavalier behavior, it makes it less likely that people would want
to solicit that company’s services -- in this case, people who are already in a stressful
situation because they’re facing a court hearing.
It’s also an insurance issue -- any of the bounty hunters who injure someone or put lives
at risk could potentially be costing the company a great deal of money.
And perhaps most importantly, one of the most distinct advantages that a bounty hunter has
in his or her pursuit of a fugitive is the element of surprise.
If a bounty hunter is constantly being loud and drawing attention to himself, he is likely
to miss out on opportunities to apprehend his skip, which would make the bail-bond agencies
that much less inclined to hire him.
The issue of liability makes clear that while there are some privileges that bounty hunters
are allowed to exploit, there are still many things that bounty hunters are unequivocally
not allowed to do.
First and foremost, bounty hunters are not police officers, and any attempt by a bounty
hunter to pass themselves off as a police officer is illegal.
This appears to be a non-uncommon occurrence: A man in the Bronx was recently arrested for
being reportedly decked out in “a bulletproof vest, pepper spray, two radios, an expandable
baton, a folding knife, and a B.B. gun holstered in his nylon gun belt.”
Establishing a clear delineation between who is a cop and who is a bounty hunter is important:
When an everyday citizen is approached by a bounty hunter, they are not required to
answer his or her questions and are not allowed to be detained.
As a result, many bounty hunters refer to themselves as ‘agents’ -- as in, Bail
Enforcement Agents or Fugitive Recovery Agents.
Yet even with these boundaries in place, bounty hunters may still engage in practices that
are considered questionable or even legally troublesome by law enforcement officials.
For example, one Idaho bounty hunter was met with angry responses from law enforcement
after livestreaming his capturing of a fugitive, and for a separate incident in which he asked
the public for tips regarding a murder case.
While not technically illegal, these practices arguably infringe upon the civil liberties
of the fugitives and could endanger lives if things went wrong.
While all of this may sound frightening and make civil libertarians angry, there are reasons
why the system exists.
For starters, it’s effective: According to a book by two economists that compares
public and private law enforcement practices, the surety-bonds system has lower rates of
people skipping out on their court dates than all the other forms of pretrial release.
On top of that, bounty hunters have an astonishingly-high capture rate, which sits anywhere from 85-99
percent.
While the reasons for this rate of success may vary, it probably comes down to bounty
hunters enjoying significantly more legal leeway than regular cops, and the fact that
bounty hunters have a financial incentive to capture their man.
Another reason why the bounty-hunter model continues is because it makes people money:
The fact that around 15,000 people benefit financially from being bounty hunters gives
them an incentive to keep the system in place, regardless of whether it’s fair.
That’s not to say that there hasn’t been significant pushback on the part of activists
and concerned citizens who say that the cash-bail system is morally and legally repugnant, and
that while bounty hunters may be effective in rounding up the tiny percentage of the
population who have skipped out on their financial obligations, they represent a far greater
threat to the safety and liberty of everyday citizens..
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