Shifflett v. State

PER CURIAM. We granted certiorari to consider the extent of a bail bondsman’s authority to arrest his principal prior to forfeiture of the bond. I. The petitioner was charged on February 17, 1988 with alcohol-related driving offenses and a battery. She was released on a.bail bond secured by Bob’s Bail Bond.

Subsequently, the surety’s indemnitor on the bond expressed unwillingness to continue to be responsible on the bond. As a result, the bondsmen undertook to take charge of the petitioner and to surrender her in discharge of the bond. Locating the petitioner at a tavern, the bail bondsmen told her that her bail was being revoked. The petitioner resisted the bondsmen’s efforts to take her into custody.

A fight ensued and the petitioner was charged with resisting arrest and with two batteries. At the ensuing trial before a jury in the Circuit Court for Baltimore County, the petitioner claimed that the bondsmen had no authority to detain or arrest her and that, as a consequence, her subsequent actions in resisting the arrest were lawful. She maintained that the bondsmen had no greater authority to arrest her than an ordinary citizen. She pointed out that she had neither “jumped” bail, nor left the state, or failed to appear for trial.

Over her objection, the trial court instructed the jury that the bondsmen had a ²⁷⁷ contractual right in the circumstances to return the petitioner to the court’s custody and that she therefore had no right to resist the bondsmen’s efforts to gain control over her. The jury convicted the petitioner, and she was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment on the resisting arrest and battery convictions. The Court of Special Appeals affirmed the judgments. Shifflett v. State, 80 Md.App. 151 , 560 A.2d 587 (1989).

It held that the bail bondsmen’s authority under the common law to arrest the principal was broader than that of a private citizen to arrest. It quoted at length from Taylor v. Taintor, 83 U.S. (16 Wall.) 366, 371-72 , 21 L.Ed. 287 (1872), as follows: “When bail is given, the principal is regarded as delivered to the custody of his sureties. Their dominion is a continuance of the original imprisonment. Whenever they choose to do so, they may seize him and deliver him up in their discharge, and if that cannot be done at once, they may imprison him until it can be done.

They may exercise their rights in person or by agent. They may pursue him into another State,