Of Human (Bail) Bondage

The Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals vacated a judgment suspending a bail bonding company from operation

A bondsman for Appellant Cumberland Bail Bonding (“Cumberland”) was arrested after law enforcement determined that he was trading bonds for sex. A panel of circuit court judges entered a sua sponte order suspending Cumberland’s authority as a bonding company in Marion County and a subsequent order suspending the authority of A Bail Bonding Company (“A Bail Bonding”) and A+ Bail Bonding, whose proprietor was also the owner of Cumberland. After a hearing, the trial court determined that the bondsman engaged in professional misconduct, that Cumberland did not explicitly prohibit the misconduct in its employee manual, and that Cumberland failed to notify the court of the bondsman’s arrest. The bonding privileges of all three Appellants were suspended for a period of six months. The Appellants challenge the suspension, asserting that they were denied their due process rights and that the trial court erred in suspending their bail bonding authority. The State responds that the appeal is moot but that there was in any event no error. We have addressed the underlying issues and have determined that the trial court’s actions were in error. Accordingly, the judgment of the trial court is vacated.

The bondsman’s story

Mr. Kelvin Pell, a bondsman for Cumberland, was arrested on February 8, 2017, after law enforcement conducted a “sting” to establish that he had been trading bonds for sexual contact…

Mr. Pell confessed to having traded sex for bonds on multiple occasions and had asserted it was “a common occurrence in the bonding industry.”

As Johnny Carson might say, I did not know that.

Chattanooga Times Free Press reported on the arrest.

The company was improperly suspended

We do not mean to suggest that a professional bondsman cannot be suspended based on the actions of its agent. We merely observe that the record before us refutes culpability on the part of Cumberland and that the trial court’s basis for suspension was  not any statutory misconduct but an allegedly inadequate employee manual. We reiterate that suspension on this basis was error…

In the order of suspension, the trial court found it “not inconsequential” that Cumberland failed to notify the court of the arrest. The finding regarding the failure to notify came after the trial court’s order had already concluded that the Appellants would be suspended as a deterrent to misconduct. We conclude from this language that the failure to notify was not in itself a basis for the suspension. While the trial court “note[d]” that the failure to notify was “not inconsequential,” the court does not appear to have based the six-month suspension on this technical violation. Accordingly, we conclude that the failure to notify likewise forms no basis for affirming the suspension.

(Mike Frisch)