Court Opinion

ID: 9762414
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 02:22:51.477138+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:34.237681
License: Public Domain

DIES, Chief Justice
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent.
The question here, I feel, is one of legislative intent and I am unable to conclude from the applicable statutes that the legislature intended to make a different rule for insurance companies making bail bonds as distinguished from personal sureties.
Art. 17.13, C.C.P., requires the officer taking a bail bond to fully satisfy himself of the sufficiency of the bond. This is not a recent statute (see p. 468, Vol. 1, Vernon’s Ann.Code of Crim.Proc.). No exception is given to insurance companies. Nor is any exception given in Art. 7.19-1 of the Insurance Code, on which appellant relies.
I am strengthened in this view by Art. 17.06, C.C.P., which authorizes corporate surety. It specifically makes them “subject to all the provisions of this Chapter regulating and governing the giving of bail bonds by personal surety insofar as the same is applicable.” (emphasis added)
Furthermore, Art. 17.09 § 3, C.C.P., states:
“Provided that whenever, during the course of the action, the judge or magistrate in whose court such action is pending finds that the bond is defective, excessive or insufficient in amount, or that the sureties, if any, are not acceptable, or for any other good and sufficient cause, such judge or magistrate may, either in *121term-time or in vacation, order the accused to be rearrested, and require the accused to give another bond in' such amount as the judge or magistrate may deem proper. When such bond is so given and approved, the defendant shall be released from custody.”
The majority opinion denies this power to the magistrate where the surety is an insurance company.
I feel that if the legislature had wanted to make an exception in the case of insurance companies as bail bond sureties, it would have done so more specifically, and would have made provision for its enforcement. See, State v. Central Power & Light Co., 139 Tex. 51, 161 S.W.2d 766, 768 (1942).