Court Opinion

ID: 9777310
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 20:07:09.277251+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:32:52.294162
License: Public Domain

CLINTON, Judge,
dissenting in part/concurring in part.
Ever since the English Declaration of Rights of 1689, in organizing themselves into a nation state with a formal government of law, all free civilized societies have included provisions that bail be allowed in an amount that is not excessive to nearly any one of their fellows who is accused of a *557violation of law.1 Historically and constitutionally the matter of bail at once implicates a generally accepted presumption of innocence of the accused and the compelling interest of the State that the accused appear to answer the accusation against him. Accordingly, invariably the governing law will undertake to accommodate and effectuate the competing policies concerning pretrial detention of the accused citizen by prescribing rules and regulations to control the matter of bail.
In Texas from the beginning the legislative department has determined precisely the bail process. Thus, in this State bail is “security given by the accused” that he will appear, Article 17.01, V.A.C.C.P., and a bail bond is a “written undertaking entered into” by the accused and his sureties that he will appear “before some court or magistrate to answer a criminal accusation,” Article 17.02, id. The intent and purpose of requiring a bail bond as a prerequisite to release from detention in this State have always been to secure the presence and ensure the trial of the accused — “rather than to mulct his securities in a penalty”— from as early as Jackson v. State, 13 Tex. 218, 219 (1854) to as recently as McConathy v. State, 528 S.W.2d 594, 596 2 (Tex.Cr.App. 1975).
The heart of the rationale suggested by the majority opinion is the notion that the provision of Article 17.08, § 5, V.A.C.C.P., “that the bond state ‘the court or magistrate’ before whom the principal is to appear is for the benefit of the principal and surety. . . ” That idea, though tempting— albeit not followed by citation of approving authorities, for there is none so holding 3 is belied by the true concept of a bail bond, an “undertaking” that provides “security” for appearance and answer.
Thus, a bail bond is, and always has been, “strictly a statutory bond,” and “to be valid as such must in every essential particular conform to the statute,” Turner v. State, 14 Tex.App. 168 (1883). This because once properly prepared, executed and returned into court it becomes a legal obligation of record. Costily v. State, 14 Tex.App. 156, 160 (1883); Gragg v. State, 18 Tex.App. 295, 296 (1885) and the obligors are thereby bound to do that which they are capably directed to do by terms of the bond. Wegner v. State, 28 Tex.App. 419, 13 S.W. 608 (1890), Wall v. State, 168 Tex.Cr.R. 512, 329 S.W.2d 884 (1960). So it was, and still is, the rule that an obligation binding one to appear “instanter” is a specification of time that sufficiently conforms to the statutory requisite: Fentress v. State, 16 Tex.App. 79 (Ct.App.1884); Rippey v. State, 132 Tex. *558Cr.R. 415, 104 S.W.2d 850 (1937); Pharis v. State, 362 S.W.2d 857, 8584 (Tex.Cr.App. 1962).
Building on its initial notion, the majority reaches the startling proposition that an omission from a bail bond of a statutorily required part of its facial obligation is somehow “waived,” and may not be raised after purported forfeiture. This gratuitous denial of a defense is not at all justified by the four cases cited behind it. Each of them dismisses the failure of a bail bond to show the mailing addresses required by Section 4 of Article 17.08, supra, but that omission is not analogous to a Section 5 requisite that becomes a part of the obligation of the undertaking.5
Therefore, I agree with that part of the dissenting opinion by Presiding Judge Onion that rejects majority “ruling of first impression,” but to the extent of the reasons that I have somewhat restated. However, I must concur in the ultimate result for, as the majority explains, the forfeiture came about in a district court for failure of appellant to appear there as he was obliged to do by the “subsequent proceedings” obligation of his undertaking. See McConathy v. State, supra, at 597. The latter part of Section 5 contains this requisite, and the obligation portion of the bail bond set out this condition substantially in haec verba. In my view omitting the name of the Justice of the Peace and his precinct and place numbers did not render the bail bond void in its entirety, and for all we know appellant made every appearance demanded of him, if any there were, in a Justice of the Peace Court. Had the bail bond been forfeited by a Justice of the Peace, of course, an entirely different question would be presented, but it is not before us in this cause.
Accordingly, dissenting in part I nevertheless concur in the judgment of the Court.

. Article I, Sections 11 and 13 of the Bill of Rights in the Constitution of the State of Texas; the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States; see Interpretive Commentary, 1 Vernon’s Texas Constitution 297 and 321 ff.

. “The prime object or purpose of bail is to secure the presence of an accused upon trial of an accusation against him. It is not a revenue measure intended to be a substitution for a fine, but is intended to secure the trial of the alleged offender rather than turn his securities or those of his bondsman into a penalty. Grantham v. State, 408 S.W.2d 235 (Tex.Cr. App.1966), and cases there cited. (All emphasis is mine unless otherwise indicated.)

. It is interesting to note that the majority do not now mention the curious opinion rendered in Blaine v. State, 494 S.W.2d 916 (Tex.Cr.App. 1973); there after seeing a change in prior law made by the 1965 revised version of Article 17.08, supra — a version that in my judgment completely overlooks the mandate of the first sentence in id. § 5 — the Blaine court points out negatively that “there is no contention that any of the parties to the bond were misled, or that the principal’s failure to appear... was due in any way to any of the provisions in the bond,” notes that the principal had made prior appearances in the proper court and comforts itself with further garbling the utterly ambiguous and wholly unsupported statement in Landrum v. State, 171 Tex.Cr.R. 106, 345 S.W.2d 752 (1961) that “[i]n the case at bar, all that is required is that the principal know where and in what court he was to appear [emphasis in original].” (The Blaine opinion, in its purported quote from Landrum completely omitted the limiting clause I have underscored and changed “where” to “when” even though the former was in italics.) Still, the only explanation for such observations and remarks in Blaine and Landrum is that they too saw § 5, id., as a form of notice to the principal and his sureties in their “benefit.”

. “We find no merit in appellant’s contention that the bail bond was insufficient because the date of appearance is stated ‘Instanter’ and not ‘Instanter after notice’ [citing cases].” Manifestly, the Pharis court was firm in the view that essential purpose of this aspect of the statute is not to provide “notice” but one obligation of the undertaking to be performed.

. Indeed, when we trace the three later cases cited by the majority, Smith, Hodges and Hall back to their common root, Bowen v. State, 413 S.W.2d 915 (Tex.Cr.App. 1967), it is obvious that the issue decided was whether existence of a fact issue precluding summary judgment was shown by opposing affidavits, and the finding was that they did not as to exoneration because, contrary to the claimed advice that the principal would be notified at the address written, the bail bond itself did not show any address — as provided by Section 4. Thus, while the requirement was turned against the principal and his sureties, validity of the bond itself was simply not addressed by the Court.