Chapter 2 Review of Related Literature This chapter will present the history and the beginning of bounty hunters in America in pursuit of criminal justice, particularly during the lawlessness era of the Wild Wild West where outlaws, fugitives, criminals tries to hide from the state and federal agencies for their crimes. Here we trace back the time when new breed of gutsy men embarked on a kind of new endeavor to help authorities round up fugitives and criminals, citing a examples of prominent trackers and bounty hunters working under detective agencies that comes closest to what we known today as bail enforcement agents. Further, there will be a jump to the present state of bounty hunting in 21st century America. The bounty hunters will be stripped of its myths and legends mostly perpetrated by movies and television. Though no doubt the image, myth and the adrenalin-rushed action life led by bounty hunters have stuck and ingrained deeply in the American national psyche. Subsequently, there will be a redefinition on the role of bounty hunters now known also as bail enforcer agent, as what those involve in the profession want to call them to bring professionalism and feel of reality and seriousness in their discipline. There will be a full discussion on the outright misconduct and abuses of bounty hunters particularly the event that happened in 1997 where a couple was shot to death and ensued a clamor for regulations and restrictions for bounty hunters who act with immunity against state and federal laws. The difficulty in creating a new set of regulations and challenges of lawmakers to put order on the acts of bounty hunters will also be tackled. Then after that the measures taken by different states and the Congress itself to put bounty hunters where they should stand will be given space. The point of view of bounty hunters according to two respectable bail enforcer agents themselves will be highlighted to get into the real world of tracking down fugitives and also on their actions to put integrity into their ranks to work with the other pillars of the criminal justice.
And from there, there will be a distinction whether bounty hunters is a help or hindrance to law enforcement.
Introduction
Most of the population probably get their idea of what a bounty hunter is according to what the media – the televisions and movies – has portrayed them to the public viewers. From Steve McQueen’s in “The Hunter” or Robert DeNiro in “Midnight Run,” Bounty hunters have been mythologized in Westerns era.
But what can expert, real life bounty hunters could say is that there are many myths, legends and misconceptions about the profession. Though one of the more realistic films was, in fact, The Hunter. But certainly not “Renegade” or “Midnight Run.”
To start off, a routine life of a bounty hunter, according to an interview to Gary Haney on World of Bounty Hunters (The World of Bounty Hunters, 1997) says his life as a bounty hunter is boring in many ways: it consists of cold coffee, hard doughnuts, standing on corners, waiting for hours, and definitely that would not be sold on any television shows. Bounty hunters are not precisely the Rambos media has portrayed them to the public, since modern bounty hunter’s organization don’t like their ranks be riddled by this kind of men.
Since bounty hunters are known to be fearless, gutsy people with stubborn persistence to track down bail jumpers with indefatigable spirit, they are also known to regularly pounce on everybody’s homes with impunity and somehow picture them as barbarians and outlaws themselves masquerading as law enforcers that only results in abuses and misconduct.
Is there indeed a need for stricter regulation on this “state actors,” or the urgent need to abolish the profession altogether since they are becoming not as what they should be in the first place as important assistance to law enforcement, but rather rouge and outlaws out to exploit that special privileges put on them to bring headache and trouble to the populace?
Short History of The Bounty Hunters
Going back to the Old Wide West, most criminals go scot-free with crimes. Local Sheriffs were busy and short of personnel to bring these fugitives back into the fold of law. Judges acted slowly on criminal cases with the defendant nowhere to be found. Outlaws were playing hide in seek with authorities and the ranchers, businessmen, banks, money making establishment and the people were scared. That was the picture of the old West and South. Criminals could hide from the eyes of law with just putting a bail and disappearing into another state out of reach of the town sheriffs and law enforcers.
Bounties were too many to mention then to help catch a criminal so “wanted” notices were posted everywhere where there were people.
Here then began the existence of a class of men and women who would dampen the enthusiasm and wily ways of would-be criminals according to Trackers, Trailers and Bounty Hunters in America’s Past (Trackers, Trailers and Bounty Hunters in America’s Past, n.d.). These men and women were the closest thing for being full time bounty hunters. They were possessed by single-mindedness, steadfastness and a creative imagination to stay on the tracks of criminals for years and eventually bring them into the hands of laws with a huge sum of money for their dedicated pursuit of their discipline. They were then hired by the powers that had the resources worth protecting their money and had the means to pay for such an expensive kind of service.
Then these old bounty hunters were under the care of such prominent detective agencies who had had history of success in bringing outlaws, bandits and criminals out of their hiding nests.
One popular group of bounty hunters that also took the birth of detectives operated under the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, which stands out for providing the cream of fugitive trackers in 19th century and beyond.
Allan Pinkerton, a Scottish emigrant known for his boldness and being an adventurer who wanted real hard actions, formed the agency in 1850. His sons William and Robert carried the management of his agency after his time. Allan Pinkerton’s story of rags to riches through his enterprising skill, imagination and guts is told best by Richard Wilmer Rowan in his book, PINKERTONS; A Detective Dynasty, 1931.
The Pinkertons were the ones who were sought by authorities when Rangers, in-house detectives and the law had failed to conclude a chase or mystery. Eventually Allan Pinkerton was the first Chief of Chicago’s Police Department. The Pinkertons logo, an open eye, is the root of the term ‘Private Eye’.
It had offices in New York, Philadelphia, Denver, and Los Angeles. Their detectives were responsible for ending the criminal exploits of Western frontier bandits, East coast spies and head-rolling gangsters. Men like the Reno Brothers, the James Brothers, Nathan Maroney, the ‘Invincible’ Piper, Jack Canter, H.H. Holmes and several Mollies of the Molly Maguires all were track and chased through the years without tiredness by the Pinkertons. One of the Pinkertons most cunning and gifted agents, Charles Siringo who had relentlessly trailed Billy the Kid until the end, actually published a book in 1912 titled, A Cowboy Detective.
Another trackers and bounty hunters were the group the Wells Fargo detectives. Wells Fargo took crime and its eradication seriously. Their private detectives would search as long and hard for the embezzler with dedication similar to the thousand-dollar bandit. Their standard payout for information leading to arrest was 0, thought by many to be quite chintzy.
Wells Fargo’s most memorable case revolves around the tracking down and eventual capture of bandit, Charles Boles, alias Black Bart. A top and talented Wells Fargo bounty hunter James B. Hume enlisted the help of Harry Morse and between the two they pieced together the trail that led to Boles.
Wells Fargo also cunningly and successfully utilized the services of Apache trackers in their manhunts through the mountains of Arizona and New Mexico. Native American trackers were perhaps the most skilled and most under-documented of the wild West’s bounty hunters.
Present Day Bounty Hunters
In the present day setting, the term bounty hunters is now being changed into a professional sounding term such as bail enforcer agent. Well-known bail enforcer agent and writer Burton (1990) stated that the title “Bounty Hunter” is old and colorful title full of myths and legends something that old movies created and imbedded on the psyche of the people.
It is indeed true. When most people hear the term, they quickly equate this men to the era of the “old West” when there were lots of lawlessness that authorities had to seek the services of these people called “Bounty Hunters” to bring to the fold of Law those fugitives on the loose.
The notion still stick to the mind even during this modern era. No doubt the image of toughness and being a hard-boiled persists since even modern day bounty hunters as summed up in part by trouble-shooter, for the Hunter’s Guild, Black (n.d.) the distinction between bounty hunters and that of common mercenaries and assassins can seem blurred at times, but ultimately bounty hunter are a superior breed. Mercenaries are soldiers-for-hire, pure and simple. Assassins are usually lone individuals hired to terminate the life of a target. Bounty hunters too will often be called upon to fight and kill for money, but that is where the similarity ends.
Burton compared the past and the present about bounty hunters challenges and their numbers. Burton said that then there was lack of communication that posed a major obstacle on the goal of the bounty hunter to be successful as well as the slowness of travel that added another saddle for the hunters. Bail bondsmen then were a rare breed in the small towns of the nineteenth-century West and South according to Burton.
Burton added that the fact is that there are many more bounty hunters today than yesteryears due to modern communication, quickness of travel and a more systematic method of exchanging information. Recovery work is now a more viable business, according to Burton.
There were very few bounty hunters in the Old West. Most were in the East. They were Sam O’Donnell in Boston in the 1890s or Charles Sampson, a black bounty hunter in New York City in the 1910′s and 20′s. The big bonding corporations were located in the cities of the east. Bounty hunters as we know it today began in the 1920s, according to Burton.
The Role of Modern Bounty Hunters or Bail Enforcement Agents
It is a fact that bounty hunters have operated under the virtually the same rules for more than a century since its birth as stated by Carlile (1997). This is when an 1873 United States Supreme Court ruling gives bounty hunters broad rights when pursuing criminals who skipped bail.
Editorials on the bail bond industry have demanded bounty hunter reform according to Bounty Hunters: Unfettered Danger (1997) and A Throwback to the Wild West (1997). These editorials suggested that constitutional restraints offer the only logical solution to bounty hunter misconduct and abuses.
Many critics say that it was high time for states to rein in what many consider the least regulated arm of law enforcement.
The problems in putting regulations on bounty hunters proved to be tough and difficult. First, there should be an overturning of Supreme Court 1873 ruling, or better yet an action by Congress as suggested by pundits on law. There is also uniqueness in the nature of the job – chasing down and tracking people who have reneged on a promise to show up in court – is the reason seen as to why bounty hunters have so much freedom.
One more constrain is the Constitutional protections are applicable only against the government and “state actors” according to Patrick (1999). Since the beginning bounty hunters have long been recognized by the courts as private actor that make them immune from constitutional restraints. What more is that they are free from the strictures of the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments, as well as the relevant sections of the U.S. Code.
Though there for years, some critics according to Bounty Hunters are Lethal Throwback to Frontier Justice (1997) and Sanera (1997) of the bail bond industry lobbing to restrict, if not altogether abolish, the practice of bounty hunting. Proponents and supporters of these measures rely on the now-familiar stories of bounty hunter misconduct and abuses — anecdotes involving an unlicensed renegade, himself a convicted felon, battering and humiliating an innocent party just to name a few. Such reports are appalling on the perspective of these sectors.
Though there are several actions done in an attempt to pacify public outrage and curtail misconduct in the bail bond industry, a few states have enacted regulations aimed specifically towards bounty hunters. To date, the effort to regulate bounty hunters has been still regrettably lax. As of September 1997, only six states mandated bounty hunter licensing according to Drimmer (1997). Many states still have no regulations.
Furthermore, Congress has not acted to curtail or amend the broad rights conferred on bounty hunters by the Supreme Court specifically the Supreme Court 1873 ruling. Moreover, the regulations that do exist do not compel or require bounty hunters to act in contravention of constitutional principles.
The state of Florida’s code requires bounty hunters to obtain a license from the state. Such licenses are not issued unless the applicant receives twenty hours of training, undergoes a background check, and submits fingerprints to the government. The state has not required, compelled, or coerced the bounty hunter to seek fugitives, or to commit tortuous acts against innocent third parties.
Thus, under this strand of state action analysis, the activity challenged in bounty hunter misconduct cases cannot fairly be attributed to the government.
In the State of Delaware, stated in the Delaware State Law (Delaware State Laws, n.d.) a proposed House Bill No. 226 will likely become Delaware law regarding bail enforcement agents. The House Bill No. 226 has these statutes suggested for law making:
1. Requires bail enforcement agents, commonly known as bounty hunters,
to be licensed by the Department of Public Safety; requires bail agents searching for a person to notify the State Police and a municipality’s chief law enforcement officer prior to searching or apprehending a person within the municipality’s jurisdiction.
- 2. “Bounty hunter” or “bail enforcement agent” as used within this chapter shall mean any person, or cooperative of persons, whose services or actions are performed for the purpose of capturing a fugitive, and including, but not limited to, any person who engages in the apprehension and return of persons who are released on bail and who have failed to appear at any stage of the proceedings to answer the charge before the court in which they may be prosecuted
3. The Secretary of the Department of Public Safety is authorized to adopt regulations regarding the licensure and registration of bounty hunters and bail enforcement agents, which may include the term of a license or registration, and may charge a fee not to exceed 0 for each application and each renewal of an existing license. At a minimum, an applicant for a license to serve as a bail enforcement agent or bounty hunter must affirmatively show that:
· The applicant is at least 21 years of age and is of good moral character;
· The applicant has never been convicted in this State or elsewhere of a felony or a crime of violence involving physical injury to another, whether or not armed with or having in possession any weapon during the commission of such felony or crime of violence;
· The applicant has never been committed for a mental disorder to any hospital, mental institution or sanitarium, unless the person possesses a certificate of a medical doctor or psychiatrist licensed in this State that the person is no longer suffering from a mental disorder which interferes or handicaps the person from handling deadly weapons;
· The applicant has never been convicted for the unlawful use, possession or sale of a narcotic, dangerous drug or central nervous system depressant or stimulant as those terms were defined prior to the effective date of the Uniform Controlled Substances Act in June, 1973, or of any narcotic, drug or controlled substance as defined in Chapter 47 of Title 16.
One noteworthy provision in the bill is that no person, other than a certified law enforcement officer, shall apprehend, detain, or arrest a suspected fugitive on behalf of another person, including a principal on a bond, wherever issued, unless that person is licensed by the Secretary of the Department of Public Safety.
The issuance of license, first and foremost, is critical according to Patrick (1999). Legislation ought to restrict entry into the profession of bounty hunting. As compared with any skilled labor, minimum requirements ensure competency and reduce the incidence of mistake and misconduct in the field, which is a very good prevention. More importantly, and unlike constitutional measures, threshold criteria are proactive. Such regulations do more than redress bounty hunter misconduct; they prevent it Patrick added.
Another one is every bail enforcement agent or bounty hunter now who enters the State of Delaware or any political subdivision thereof in pursuit of, and for the purpose of, capturing a fugitive shall, prior to taking any action in his or her capacity as a bail agent or bounty hunter in this State or any political subdivision thereof, notify the Superintendent of the State Police and the Chief of Police of the political subdivision in which the surveillance and/or apprehension is to take place.
Notification necessary for action of the bounty hunter shall be by registration on a form provided by the Superintendent of the State Police and by the local police department. A bounty hunter or bail enforcement agent must also present proof that he or she possesses a valid license issued by the Department of Public Safety.
So far, these are some of the adjustment different states have been implementing to safeguards their population against abuses and misconduct coming from bounty hunters.
State to State Regulation a Better Prescription Against Bounty Hunter’s Misconduct
Looking over the issue of bounty hunter’s misconduct as Patrick (1999) suggests that given the improbability of state action in bounty hunter cases and the lack of meaningful proscriptions found in the Constitution and the U.S. Code, he advised that bounty hunter regulation is best undertaken by the states themselves.
As long been recognized by judges and scholars there are advantages of legislative as opposed to federal constitutional remedies on this issue. Legislation allows discrete geographical regions to initiate solutions specific to their particular needs. In the process, it encourages experimentation, trial and error, and the ultimate distillation of the optimal approach to the issue at hand.
In the case of bounty hunter misconduct, the advantages of a legislative approach are compounded by the inapplicability and inefficacy of constitutional restraints. It must be remembered that bounty hunters are private actors, and thus immune from the strictures of the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments. But even if these proscriptions were applicable, these are not foolproof effective deterrent or remedy against bounty hunter misconduct.
A growing number of states have enacted laws regulating the bail bond industry in return. These steps are laudable as Patrick noted, however, legislatures should be wary that adequate regulation would require a multi-layered approach.
The Point of View of Bounty Hunters
Since there are for years some critics of bounty hunters according to Bounty Hunters are Lethal Throwback to Frontier Justice (1997) and Sanera (1997) lobbing to restrict, if not altogether abolish, the practice of bounty hunting due to growing knowledge on the part of the population on general on bounty hunters misconduct: anecdotes that runs from battering, violent arrest, kidnapping and other usurpation of an innocent citizen’s rights.
The question now is whether bounty hunters or bail enforcer agents are a bane or boon to the pursuit of enforcement of the law?
The Phoenix incident in 1997 that ended with the death of innocent couple in the hands of bounty hunters sprang forth the doubts whether there is a necessity on bounty hunter’s existence in the enforcement of law. There were already clamors for restriction on this breed of law enforcers that many feared could be a monster in the making if not put in its proper place with regulation. Bounty hunters are seen as Rambos, rogue and thugs on the loose way above the rules of law.
According to the World of Bounty Hunters (The World of Bounty Hunters, 1997) Bob Burton, writer, bail enforcer agent and president of the National Institute of Bail Enforcement, and Gary Haney, Director of Training for the National Association of Bail Enforcement Agents, clarified some issues regarding the nature of the job of bounty hunters, licensing, regulations, and the misconception of the public regarding the image that surrounds the profession.
Bob Burton said that without standards and licensing anybody can call himself anything. But within the profession of bounty hunting, one has the necessity to have a particular documents to validate the title of being a Bounty Hunter. His organization has issued credentials for the last 14 years attesting to this.
Though there have been some states that require licensing for bounty hunters for a long time now, organizations like National Association of Bail Agents believe in licensing, training, credentials of all kind, mainly because states have different laws and regulations and people need to be trained properly so they provide training and credentials in the field of law enforcement.
But the question now is why not have bounty hunters just locate the fugitives, then call a policemen to make an arrest. In this procedure the person being taken into custody is read his rights.
Basically the bounty hunter is implementing a civil contract between the bondsman and his customer. Many times the police don’t have the authority to do it, out of their jurisdiction or whatever. Bounty hunters do it better. More often, a bounty hunter may take a case where someone is in another state. The law enforcement officials may not want to go through the formal procedure of extradition so they have a bounty hunter go and find this person to avoid formal procedure.
And often, time is of the essence and the extradition process can get bogged down. Bounty hunters are efficient in making an arrest because the fugitive has waived his rights by reneging on the contract.
In relationship to the number of people that bail enforcement picks up to the number of complaints filed with the police department, Gary Haney said, they fulfill their role proficiently due to all the training they give the bounty hunters under their organization. Most complaints come from those people who do not belong to an association, nor have they received any training and just proclaim themselves bounty hunters.
According to Bob Burton, most complaints around 65-70% are caused by the bail bondsmen themselves making the arrest, and not professional bounty hunters.
Bounty hunters, again coming from Bob Burton, arrest 87% percent of everybody that jumps bail. The police will pickup about 10% in routine traffic stops. The other 3% get lose. Therefore, 87% are unable to commit more crimes because somebody found them and returned them to jail. As bounty hunters in Bob Burton’s association, they have the highest fugitive recovery rate in the country or the maybe the world.
But many people have asked why it should be that just because the police cannot do the job of rounding up all the fugitives in the US, that there are a group of people who are not part of the government, who can break into people’s homes.
Seen on this perspective by the different sectors of society, bounty hunters are still regarded by police as vital and important aids in the enforcement of law.
First off, bounty hunters need to be trained to do their job. It does come with its rules of conduct and everyone needs to be trained according to their state in which they’re in. Bounty hunters can’t just break in. They better have good reason to do so. Although they have certain powers beyond that of regular law enforcement officials, they must use them with a great deal of thought. Most of the time, when things go wrong out, it is due to a lack of training on the part of the bounty hunter.
National Institute of Bail Enforcement have our their own Internal Affairs and believes in training and give licenses when that is completed. It is self-policing; removing 3 to 5 bounty hunters a year.
Proper training and licensing is the worth the trouble in the art that is called bounty hunting. More states are going to regulate more and more, though are not taking away the power of the bounty hunters, they are simply saying you better know what you’re doing.
In time, there will be stronger relations between the different systems– law enforcement, judicial etc.– and bounty hunters alike can all better serve the same cause.
Conclusion
Bounty hunters have existed in the criminal justice of American history for more than a century now. Beginning in the era of full-blown lawlessness in the old West and from then on regarded by town sheriffs and judicial system and now the police in the modern times as a vital and important aid in the enforcement of law.
Since their role is vital in the setting of federal system of government of America where many states have their own regulations and laws against fugitives, bounty hunters or what the practitioner of the profession would like to call themselves as bail enforcement agents, their existence speeds up the recovery of bail jumpers and fugitives so they can be tried and face the consequence of their criminal acts.
Though there is no doubt that bounty hunters have brought back into the fold of law countless criminals on the loose in the territory of America, the question still lingers as to up to what extent they are immune to state and federal law in cases of bogged raids and misdemeanors.
Since the tragic case of Phoenix raid in 1997 that caused two innocent deaths, what the states and federal government can do is to apply more regulation and guidance to these “state actors.”
There is the idea of licensing and strict requirements for one to be a bounty hunter. That is a good move. Regulations also like requiring local police authorities be given notice as to raids and apprehension of fugitives in a state gives more safety measures to prevent abuses and misconduct of bounty hunters. But for now, abolition of the profession seems a knee-jerk reaction to the issue since bounty hunter’s role is very vital and important aid for the police to do their jobs.
There is also existing institutions and organization of bounty hunters that ensure that those in their ranks act accordingly through intensive training and orientation to the different state rules and regulation. This is a good help in self-policing like what other sectors of the society do to ensure that what they do is in accordance with the interest of the public they swore to protect.
Though there is no doubt that bounty hunters from time to time go beyond what their roles should be, they still remain as an important part of the criminal justice in America.
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