Opinion ID: 2583950
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: the court's response to the dissent's critique

Text: ¶ 19 The dissent would have us hold today that the discretion given a trial court to vacate a forfeiture order is abused and good cause for vacation is shown within the meaning of § 1332(C)(5)(b) where (1) a bondsman takes all legal steps to return a defendant to custody and (2) the trial court makes inappropriate suggestions during a hearing that the bondsman could have resorted to illegal methods to obtain defendant's return. While we join with the dissent in disapproving of the trial judge's comments about bribing Mexican officials, we disagree that his comments signaled that the use of illegal means was the only way appellant could have demonstrated good cause. Moreover, even if his inappropriate comments had given this impression, they could not turn what is otherwise an insufficient showing of good cause for the forfeiture's vacation into a sufficient one. ¶ 20 The bondsman's role in the appearance bond process is to provide security for the appearance of the defendant as ordered by the court. [35] When a defendant fails to appear as ordered, the Oklahoma statutes authorize the court to declare a forfeiture of the appearance bond. [36] The bondsman is then given a ninety-day grace period in which he or she can return the defendant to custody and obtain vacation of the forfeiture as a matter of course. [37] After the ninety-day grace period has expired, the trial court retains discretion to vacate the bond forfeiture under the provisions of § 1332(C)(5). Prior to 1995, that discretion extended only to a showing of good cause for the defendant's failure to appear. [38] In 1995 the statute was amended to give the trial court discretion to vacate a forfeiture where the bondsman presents evidence demonstrating good cause for his or her failure to return the defendant to custody within ninety days. [39] As is true of any exercise of judicial discretion, the trial court in deciding whether good cause has been shown within the meaning of 1332(C)(5) must not act arbitrarily or unreasonably. [40] ¶ 21 The court's first opportunity to construe the parameters of the discretion conferred upon the trial court by the 1995 amendment to § 1332(C)(5) came in State v. Vaughn , [41] in which we outlined some of the factors a trial court should consider in determining whether good cause has been shown. The factors we specifically urged to be considered are: (a) whether the defendant has been returned to custody and, if so, whether the bondsman's efforts assisted in the defendant's return; (b) the nature and extent of the bondsman's efforts to locate and return the defendant to custody; (c) the length of the delay caused by the defendant's non-appearance; (d) the cost and inconvenience to the government in regaining custody of the defendant; (e) the stage of the proceedings at the time of defendant's non-appearance; and (f) the public interest and necessity of effectuating defendant's appearance. We said in Vaughn that this list is illustrative and not exhaustive, that no single factor alone is determinative, and that the relative importance of each factor is for the trial judge to determine inasmuch as it may vary from case to case. [42] In applying these factors, it must always be borne in mind that the burden of showing facts warranting relief from forfeiture is on the party seeking such relief. [43] ¶ 22 In Vaughn, the evidence established that the bondsman had hired bounty hunters who conducted searches in three states and that the bondsman had expended approximately $50,000.00 trying to locate the defendant. The bondsman argued that this evidence established that he had exercised due diligence and that a showing of due diligence was sufficient to satisfy the good cause requirement of § 1332(C)(5)(b). We rejected that argument, instead analyzing the evidence in light of all the factors outlined earlier in that opinion. [44] We pointed out that extant jurisprudence imposes on an appellate court an obligation to accord substantial deference to a trial court's exercise of discretion and to reverse only if the trial court's decision is clearly contrary to reason and evidence. [45] Applying this standard, we concluded that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in refusing to vacate the forfeiture order in Vaughn. ¶ 23 The dissenting members of the court would have us reverse the trial court's order based on what they consider sufficient credible evidence of one of the factors prescribed by Vaughn that the bondsman exhausted all legal steps to locate and return the defendant to custody. We said in Vaughn that no single factor alone should be determinative. That principle clearly guided our decision in Vaughn, in which we held that efforts alone, even when substantial and costly, are not sufficient to justify reversal of the trial court's decision. The dissenters disapprove of the nature and scope of the proof we prescribed in Vaughn as necessary to establish good cause under the provisions of § 1332(C)(5)(b) and would have us use the present case to overrule our earlier decision. We decline to do so and hence remain committed to and bound by the requirements for relief under § 1332(C)(5)(b) as pronounced in Vaughn. ¶ 24 Piecing together the documents in the court file [46] and the statements, admissions, and comments given evidentiary status by the dissent, we can arrive at the following facts. Defendant Torres disappeared on 7 March 2001. On 24 April 2001, the bondsman submitted a written request to the district attorney's office asking for assistance in obtaining a federal warrant for defendant's arrest. After submitting this request, the bondsman received what appears to be an unsolicited letter (dated 30 April 2001)from the defendant's wife's aunt in Chickasha, in which the aunt said that the defendant was in Casa Blanca, Zacatecas, Mexico. The district attorney's office submitted a request to the United States Attorney's office for a federal warrant for defendant's arrest only after the expiration of the ninety-day grace period in which appellant could have obtained vacation of the forfeiture as a matter of course simply by returning the defendant to custody. ¶ 25 Appellant alleges that the bondsman pursued his request for assistance on more than one occasion, but there is no record support for this contention. The district attorney's office did not admit to any specific conversations with the bondsman, but conceded only that it received a request for assistance. Appellant alleged that he contacted American and Mexican officials in his effort to determine the proper way to proceed in Mexico to apprehend defendant. Again, no record support for this allegation exists. Every allegation made by appellant in the motion to set aside the forfeiture or in oral argument cannot be taken as true in the absence of some form of proof simply because the allegation was not specifically contested by the district attorney's office. ¶ 26 The efforts made by the bondsman in this case with respect to which we can view at least some supporting documentation or with respect to which we have some admission from the district attorney's office do not compare to the nature and extent of the efforts the bondsman made in Vaughn, which we did not believe justified reversal of the trial court's decision in that case. Moreover, a recapitulation of the other factors enunciated in Vaughn fails to provide any alternative basis for holding that appellant met its burden of proof. [47] ¶ 27 In conjunction with their rejection of Vaughn's multi-factor analysis, the dissenters justify their departure from that decision by pointing to the trial court's suggestion at the motion hearing that illegal measures to secure defendant's custody might have proved more fruitful than the legal route pursued by the bondsman. We detect here a concern that the judge may not have carefully and dispassionately examined the evidence. We have examined the trial court's order and see no indication that the he failed to consider that which appellant presented (regardless of its status as admissible forensic evidence) or that his decision rested on a conviction that only an illegal act would have been acceptable evidence of good cause. [48] In fact the trial court's order reflects factual findings very similar to those facts gleaned by the dissenters from their various sources, but the trial court's conclusion, unlike that of the dissent, is consistent with the controlling decision of this court in Vaughn. Nothing in the dissent's critique demonstrates that the trial court's decision was contrary to the dictates of reason and evidence. ¶ 28 We turn now briefly to the dissent's recitation of what can be gleaned from statements and admission of counsel, the hearing transcript, comments of the trial judge and from the written order. The dissent lists four facts that it says fall into this category based on which it would hold that good cause has been shown. [49] A cursory examination of these facts underscores the problem of trying to determine, without the benefit of formal evidence, what happened. Direct and cross examination of the bondsman and other relevant witnesses, if any, may easily have cleared up the problems and ambiguities we see in the evidentiary picture presented by the dissent and discussed below. ¶ 29 As a preliminary matter, we cannot agree with the dissent that our jurisprudence sanctions the substitution of statements of counsel without qualification, a hearing transcript, comments of the trial judge, and the written order for actual forensic evidence. We agree that stipulations of fact and admissions may serve as evidentiary substitutes that dispense with the need for proof of the conceded facts, [50] but reiterate that unsworn statements, whether made by a forensic advocate or by the trial judge, do not constitute evidence. [51] Additionally, the dissent's contention that the failure to contest a material fact may operate to cure an otherwise deficient record has no application in the context of a motion to vacate a bond forfeiture. [52] ¶ 30 The district attorney's office did not stipulate to any facts that would have established good cause under § 1332(C)(5)(b). The dissent cites only a single, narrow admission by the district attorney's officethat the bondsman made a request for help in obtaining a federal warrant and the district attorney's office acted on it. This admission is found in Schedule A of the district attorney's response to the Petition in Error. It states: After receiving information from the bondsman that the defendant had fled to Mexico the Tulsa County District Attorney requested that the United States Attorney file a federal charge of Uniform Flight to Avoid Prosecution which was filed. The assistant district attorney had not previously made this admission during oral argument nor did his appellate brief repeat it, but we agree that, having made it in his response to the Petition in Error, he is bound by it. Yet it admits nothing more than that the district attorney's office received information from the bondsman and, after receiving the information, acted on it. It neither states nor fairly implies that the district attorney' office was dilatory or in any way impeded the bondsman's efforts to return the defendant to custody. In order to determine that we would have to know much more than is contained in this meager admission. For example, we would have to know when the bondsman provided the information to the district attorney's office and when in relation to receiving the information the district attorney's office acted on it. From this admission we do not even know whether the district attorney's office received the bondsman's request in time to act on it before the ninety-day grace period expired, or whether the district attorney's office received more than a single request for assistance from the bondsman, or whether any of the Vaughn factors were met by the bondsman. ¶ 31 We turn now to discuss just a couple of the specific facts gleaned by the dissent and explain why we must remain unpersuaded that the trial court abused its discretion in refusing to vacate the forfeiture order. The dissent states that the bondsman got notice of defendant's whereabouts from his children's great aunt. [53] Indeed, the court file contains a letter dated 30 April 2001 from someone identifying herself as the defendant's wife's aunt, the children's great aunt. We have no idea if the letter was actually sent on that day or whether it was sent a week later or even a month later. The letter displays what appears to be a fax notation at the top dated 30 April, but there is nothing in the record explaining the significance of that notation. The letter is physically attached to another letter bearing the date 24 April with no explanation of how a letter dated 30 April came to be attached to a letter bearing a date a week earlier. There is also no evidence to indicate when the letter was received by the bondsman. Perhaps he received it on 30 April in fax form, perhaps not. Perhaps he received it in early May, perhaps not. This is important because the bondsman cannot have told the district attorney where the defendant was until the bondsman acquired that information himself. ¶ 32 The dissent finds that it was only after the bondsman learned of defendant's whereabouts from the great aunt's 30 April letter that he requested assistance from the district attorney's office. Yet the letter requesting assistance is dated prior to the letter from the children's great-aunt providing information on defendant's location. The facts as set out by the dissent simply do not hold together. Perhaps the bondsman submitted the request for assistance before he actually knew where the defendant was. If that is the case, then he would have had to have contacted the district attorney again in May, after receiving the great-aunt's letter, to provide the critical information to him, but we have absolutely no evidence that there was a contact in May. It certainly would have been in the bondsman's interest to provide this information to the district attorney, but we simply do not know from this record when he told the district attorney's office exactly where the defendant was. ¶ 33 Let us look at another problem with the dissent's proposed finding that the bondsman got notice of defendant's whereabouts from the children's great aunt. If that is true, then he determined defendant's location on or after 30 April 2001. Yet in the motion to set aside the bond forfeiture and again in appellant's brief on appeal, counsel states that the bondsman located the defendant within one week of his failure to appear. By our reckoning, that would be approximately 14 March 2001, six weeks before the great-aunt's letter was written. Adding still more confusion, appellant's counsel stated at the hearing that the bondsman learned of defendant's whereabouts from the great-aunt's letter of 30 Aprilas the dissent agrees. We could speculate that what really happened is that the bondsman learned that defendant was in Mexico within a week of his non-appearance, but that he only learned his precise location from the 30 April letter. If that is the case, then we would point out the obviousthat Mexico is a big country, and we do not know whether it would have been reasonable or even possible for the district attorney to request a federal warrant based on the bondsman's belief that the defendant was in Mexico without knowing where in Mexico he was. ¶ 34 These and other problems might have been resolved in appellant's favor had appellant simply offered evidence to prove its allegations. As we said earlier in this opinion, appellant presented a facially plausible argument for the forfeiture's vacation. We simply cannot agree with the dissent that sufficient facts can be gleaned from admissions and offhand comments to justify dispensing with formal proof and to conclude that the trial court's order resulted from abused discretion.