Source: https://www.tdcaa.com/journal/forfeiting-bail-bonds/
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 04:00:06+00:00

Document:
These are words that no defense attorney wants to hear. They also indicate a great deal of time and preparation on prosecutors’ part are about to go to waste. Sometimes, there’s a legitimate reason for the defendant’s failure to appear, such as a car accident en route to court or a child who had to go to the emergency room. Far more often, however, the defendant is starring in his own lousy remake of The Fugitive, minus the Tommy Lee Jones and Harrison Ford star power. So, what happens when the defendant demands his day in court and then skips it?
Before we go about dealing with our absentee defendant, we need to back up to the event that set this chain of events in motion: the defendant’s release from custody. The right to have bail set is enshrined in Article I, §11 of the Texas Constitution. Bail, as defined by Art. 17.01 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, is “the security given by the accused that he will appear and answer before the proper court the accusation brought against him, and includes a bail bond or personal bond.” Art. 17.02 tells us that a bail bond is the written agreement by the defendant and his sureties that the defendant will appear in court. In lieu of sureties, a defendant has the right to deposit his bail in cash with the court in which his prosecution is pending. Under Art. 17.03, a personal bond (sometimes wrongly called a “personal recognizance” or “PR bond”)1 is a bond without any sureties or security. For most purposes, surety bonds, cash bonds, and personal bonds are treated identically.2 CCP Chapter 17 in general sets out the requirements for a bond, as well as various procedures related to bond conditions, holding bonds insufficient, and surrender of bonds.
At this point, it is critical to identify the proper parties to be included. The defendant is a necessary party and, if he executed a cash or personal bond, the only party. To determine the proper surety, however, you have to know a little bit about the bondsman’s business structure.
Any citation issued is required to include a copy of the judgment nisi, a copy of the forfeited bond, and (if an insurance bondsman) a copy of any power of attorney attached to the forfeited bond. The citation must also instruct the defendant and sureties to “appear and show cause why the judgment of forfeiture should not be made final.”17 Failure to include that specific language in the citation or failure to attach any required copies may be fatal to the forfeiture.18 Return of service for the sureties is the same as in civil cases;19 however, because mailing the defendant’s notice doesn’t necessarily create a record of that mailing, it is frequently useful to have the clerk sending the notice complete a certificate of mailing for the court’s file to document that fact and head off an appellate issue.
The fourth ground for exoneration is the failure to present an information or indictment at the first term of court after the defendant posted the bond.30 Terms of court are set by statute for district courts31 and by the commissioners court for the constitutional32 and most statutory county courts.33 This effectively sets an “indict by” date for bond forfeiture purposes.
Finally, the fifth ground for exoneration is that the defendant was incarcerated anywhere in the United States within 180 days of his failure to appear on a misdemeanor or 270 days on a felony.34 The defendant does not have to have actually been returned to the county for this defense to apply.35 A surety exonerated under this defense will still have some financial liability, although less than the full amount of the bond36 (more on that later).
Once we’ve successfully run through the gauntlet of requirements to get to a final judgment, the question is, “How much of the bond does the county get?” The bond obligates the defendant and sureties for the amount of the bond, as well as all necessary and reasonable expenses incurred to re-arrest the defendant.41 The sureties are also liable for court costs for the forfeiture proceeding.42 If the surety has been exonerated because of the defendant’s re-arrest, the surety still has to pay court costs and expenses, plus interest accrued on the bond from the date of the judgment nisi through the date of re-arrest.43 Caselaw is remarkably scarce on what expenses are reasonable. For a defendant who is re-arrested locally, expenses directly related to the re-arrest may be nonexistent. On the other hand, for a defendant apprehended out of state, the sheriff may have to pay for deputies to travel and bring the defendant back. In some counties, transport service may be contracted out.
If the defendant had a bondsman, receiving payment on the judgment is often a fairly simple matter of the bondsman writing a check.44 In a county regulated by a bail bond board where a bondsman has security deposited with the county, after 30 days an unpaid judgment shall be paid out of his deposit.45 Bondsmen try to avoid that whenever possible because their bonding limits are a multiple of their deposits; less money on deposit means they can write fewer bonds. If the defendant posted a cash bond, an order directing the money paid out of the court registry should accompany the final judgment. Although the custodian of funds of the “court in which the prosecution is pending”46 is the proper custodian for cash bonds, it is not unusual for the sheriff to fail to transfer them to the proper court and instead maintain custody for the duration of the prosecution.47 In such a case, an order to the sheriff to relinquish the bond should suffice.
Finally, if the defendant posted a personal bond, good luck with that. Personal bonds are frequently the result of a defendant too indigent to post any other type of bond. Even when not the result of indigence, locating assets subject to execution can be a Herculean undertaking that costs more in time and effort than will ever be recovered.
So far, we’ve discussed only how to pursue forfeiture of the defendant’s bond. However, his failure to appear probably constitutes the criminal offense of bail jumping. While related to the civil forfeiture proceeding, a bail jumping prosecution follows the same course as any other criminal case. We’ll cover how to put together a bail jumping trial, including what we can use from the forfeiture proceeding, in a future article.
Until then, good luck recovering those personal bonds!
1 Release on personal recognizance technically means release without a bond, whereas a personal bond is a bond, and some form of bond is almost always required for release in Texas.
2 For purposes of this article, “bond” means any of the three types of bond unless otherwise specified.
3 Tex. Code Crim. Proc. Art. 17.08.
4 648 S.W.2d 700 (Tex. Crim. App. 1983).
5 Tex. Code Crim. Proc. Art. 22.01.
6 Tex. Code Crim. Proc. Art. 22.02.
7 Aspilla v. State, 952 S.W.2d 610 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 1997, no pet.).
8 A judgment nisi is a conditional judgment that will become final if a specified condition is or is not met.
9 Tex. Code Crim. Proc. Art. 22.02.
10 For purposes of this article, we will use “defendant” only to refer to our original criminal defendant.
11 If the county is regulated by a bail bond board; in counties without a board, the sheriff is responsible for verifying security.
14 Tex. Atty. Gen. Op’n. LO-96-019.
15 Tex. Code Crim. Proc. Art. 22.03.
17 Tex. Code Crim. Proc. Art. 22.04.
18 Hubbard v. State, 814 S.W.2d 402 (Tex. App.—Waco 1991, no pet.).
19 Tex. Code Crim. Proc. Art. 22.05.
20 Tex. Code Crim. Proc. Art.22.13(a)(1).
21 Balboa v. State, 612 S.W.2d 553 (Tex.Crim.App. 1981).
22 Reyes v. State, 31 S.W.3d 343 (Tex. App.—Corpus Christi 2000, no pet.).
23 Surety Ins. Co. v. State, 500 S.W.2d 119 (Tex.Crim.App. 1973).
24 Tex. Code Crim. Proc. Art. 22.13(a)(2).
25 Herndon v. State, 505 S.W.2d 546 (Tex.Crim.App. 1974).
26 Tex. Code Crim. Proc. Art. 22.13(a)(3).
28 Hill v. State, 955 S.W.2d 96 (Tex.Crim.App. 1997).
29 Allegheny Cas. Co. v. State, 163 S.W.3d 220 (Tex. App.—El Paso 2005, no pet.)).
30 Tex. Code Crim. Proc. Art. 22.13(a)(4).
31 Tex. Gov’t Code §24.012.
32 Tex. Gov’t Code §26.002.
33 See generally Tex. Gov’t Code §25.0016; the creating statute for some statutory county courts specify their terms.
34 Tex. Code Crim. Proc. Art. 22.13(a)(5).
35 Benson v. State, 476 S.W.3d 136 (Tex.App.—Austin 2015, pet ref’d).
36 Tex. Code Crim. Proc. Art. 22.13(b).
37 Alvarez v. State, 861 S.W.2d 878 (Tex.Crim.App. 1992).
38 Kubosh v. State, 241 S.W.3d 60 (Tex.Crim.App. 2007).
39 Tex. R. Evid. 101(e)(3)(C).
40 Tex. Code Crim. Proc. Art. 22.14.
41 Tex. Code Crim. Proc. Art. 17.08.
42 Moore v. State, 828 S.W.2d 497 (Tex. App.—Dallas 1992, no pet.).
43 Tex. Code Crim. Proc. Art. 22.13(b).
44 Many insurance companies require their bondsmen to retain a percentage of each bond premium in a fund to cover these expenses.
45 Tex. Occ. Code §1704.204(b).
46 Tex. Code Crim. Proc. Art. 17.02.
47 Tex. Att’y Gen. Op. C-740 (1966) also indicates that the sheriff may not be designated as the custodian to get around this situation.
48 Tex. Gov’t. Code §501.014.
49 Tex. Gov’t. Code §105.014(e)(6).

References: §11
 Art. 17
 Art. 17
 Art. 17
 Art. 17
 Art. 22
 Art. 22
 v. 
 Art. 22
 Art. 22
 Art. 22
 v. 
 Art. 22
 Art.22
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 Art. 22
 v. 
 Art. 22
 v. 
 v. 
 Art. 22
 §24
 §26
 §25
 Art. 22
 v. 
 Art. 22
 v. 
 v. 
 Art. 22
 Art. 17
 v. 
 Art. 22
 §1704
 Art. 17
 §501
 §105