The common law grants broad authority to bail bondsmen to seize and surrender their principals when necessary. It has remained substantially unchanged by statute. 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. The seizure is not made by virtue of new process.
None is needed.
It is likened to the rearrest, by the sheriff, of an escaping prisoner. . . The bail have their principal on a string, and may pull the string whenever they please, and render him in their discharge. The rights of the bail in civil and criminal cases are the same. The State contends that the trial judge was not required to instruct the jury on the law regarding the right of a bail bondsman to arrest his principal, claiming the law is inapplicable to the facts of this case because it involves a third party. The bondsman's broad authority to arrest, however, is not without limitations.