Court Opinion

ID: 9461170
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:07:44.306791+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:55.805908
License: Public Domain

MERRILL, Circuit Judge
(dissenting) :
I cannot agree with Judge Hufstedler that the defendants acted under color of California law or that California has vested or purported to vest them with state power. They were Nevada bondsmen and had no authority in California save to secure California assistance upon complying with prescribed procedures— a course they failed to follow.
*562However, I agree with Judge Hufstedler that as private bondsmen they performed a public function in accepting custody of a released prisoner and guaranteeing the prisoner’s return. Professional bondsmen who assume custody of persons released on bail are providing the state with significant assistance in assuring that the manner in which it discharges its responsibilities to those it accuses of crimes, see generally Schilb v.Kuebel, 404 U.S. 357, 365, 92 S.Ct. 479, 30 L.Ed.2d 502 (1971); United States ex rel. Keating v. Bensinger, 322 F.Supp. 784 (N.D.Ill.1971), meets constitutional standards. The history of state reliance on private action to assure the return of an accused and the extent to which states have grown to rely on this manner of implementing a system of bail place the bondsman in a position where he “discharges a function or performs a service that would otherwise in all likelihood be performed by the State.” Moose Lodge No. 107 v. Irvis, 407 U. S. 163, 175, 92 S.Ct. 1965, 1972 (1972). The close link between that service and the state’s obligations to those enmeshed in its criminal process is sufficient, in my view, to impart color of state law to a bondsman’s actions in seeking to secure the presence of an accused.1 The action taken by the defendants in California, then, was, in my judgment, taken under color of Nevada law; and to the extent that civil rights, not waived by agreement between Ouzts and the bondsmen, were violated, a federal claim is stated.
Accordingly I join Judge Hufstedler in dissent.

. The majority would hold that this action was private and taken only pursuant to agreement, and that state action would be present in a situation such as this only by the issuance of a bench warrant and the taking into custody of the released person pursuant to the warrant, But I believe it oan more accurately be said that the issuance of a warrant is but the second step in a process, taken only if the first step — the attempt of bondsmen to satisfy the state’s demand for production of an accused previously released to the bondsmen’s authority —is unproductive.