The Professional Bondsmen of Texas- Blog

  The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals issued an opinion today in Cause No. PD-0018-23; Continential Heritage Insurance Company v. Texas; In the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to address court costs in bond forfeiture cases. The court made two important rulings: 1.     The State of Texas is exempt from paying certain filing fees.  Whichever fees the State is exempt from paying, then the bondsmen cannot be required to pay them once the case is over. 2.     If the bondsmen is exonerated on a bondforfeiture under article 22.13 (a) 1-4 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure, then the State must pay the filing fees in that case. The case was remanded to the Court of Appeals to determine which court costs the State is exempt from paying. To read the opinion CLICK HERE . If you would like to know more information, including how this may impact bondsmen, seeking a refund from a county, or if you are a county official and would like to know how this might impact your County, consider coming to

On this episode of The Bail Post, we discuss two different counties approaches to federal bail litigation.  In both counties, the federal courts entered preliminary injunctions to fundamentally change local bail procedures.  In Schultz v. Alabama, the county appealed, refused to settle and fought the litigation every step of the way.  The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the preliminary injunction and returned control of bail back to the county.  In contrast, in O'Donnell v. Harris County, the county appealed and won only to have the trial court enter a new preliminary injunction.  It was appealed as well and the 5th Circuit stayed the 2nd preliminary injunction stating that there was a substantial likelihood that the judges would win again.  However, the case did not go forward because there was an election and new judges were elected who promised to resolve the litigation.  A settlement was entered that tied the hands of the judges going forward.   On this episode, we h

The 4 Phases of the ‘Spiral of Death’ Facing Our Nation’s Largest Cities by Ken W. Good Across America, some of our major metropolitan cities are facing a crisis created by their own politicians seemingly intent on destroying public safety, while chasing away both businesses and citizens. Unable to keep up with lost revenue, increasingly, we will see municipalities getting overstretched and facing collapse if course corrections are not made. This dire situation is analogous to the “death spiral” experienced by ant colonies. Well-known for their self-organizing structure, ants search for food by following the ant in front of it. This behavior also allows them to find their way back to their nests. Sometimes a slight deviation occurs, typically caused by an environmental trigger, and an ant mill forms. When this happens, a group of ants will be separated from the main foraging party. If they lose track of the group’s pheromone trail, they will default to following one another, forming a

  The Honorable Lee H. Rosenthal, United States District Court Judge for the Southern District of Texas has dismissed Cause No. H-19-226; Russell v. Harris County ; In the United States District Court for the Sourthern District of Texas.  The case was dismissed August 31, 2023.  This will bring to close the litigation seeking to "force" Harris County to simply release defendants in felony criminal case proceedings. This litigation push started in Houston in another case called Odonnell v. Harris County .   In that case, Judge Rosenthal forced the county to adopt a simple release system for misdemeanor cases that has lead to an average of an 80% failure to appear rate over a two year period of time. After their "success" in the Odonnell  case, the same activists filed suit in Dallas County (the Daves  case) seeking to extend the Odonnell  ruling to felony cases as well.  Also, the activists filed suit in Galveston County (the Booth  case) and they filed a new suit in

  Mexican cartels are behind the spike in organized retail crime and are deeply entrenched in every level of the process, according to the federal government's chief investigative agency. Retailers nationwide sustained nearly $100 billion worth of losses in 2021, the highest year on record, according to the National Retail Federation report published in September 2022. The growing number of cartel-run theft rings around the country drove that figure up from $70 billion in 2019. "Organized retail crime is leading to more brazen and more violent attacks in retail stores throughout the country. Many of the criminal rings orchestrating these thefts are also involved in other serious criminal activity such as human trafficking, narcotics trafficking, weapon trafficking, and more," said Steve Francis, acting executive associate director for Homeland Security Investigations, in a statement. HSI is part of the Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcem

On August 8, 2023, the Texas Attorney General's office issued Atty Gen. Op. AC-002.  The Attorney General had been asked to interpret article 27.027 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure which was enacted as a part of SB 6.   The article applies when a defendant is charged with committing an offense that is a felony while they are currently out on bail in a pending case for another offense which is also a felony.  If the two cases are in different counties, then SB6 requires notification to be sent to the other court.  If the two offenses are in the same county, then only the judge over the first court can magistrate the defendant on the new charge. The statute contains an exception which allows the court to designate another court to perform the magistration. The question that the Attorney General's office was asked to address was if the court designated to perform the magistration on behalf of the district court is not also a district court judge would the magistrate or the

Anne Marie Schubert is a career prosecutor.  Schubert earned a bachelor's degree from Saint Mary’s College of California in 1986 and a J.D. from the University of San Francisco in 1989. Her career experience includes being the Sacramento County District Attorney, Supervising Deputy District Attorney of the Sacramento District Attorney's Office, and Deputy District Attorney of Contra Costa and Solano Counties. Schubert has been a board member of the National District Attorneys Association and has been affiliated with Fight Crime: Invest in Kids and Stand Up for Victims. On this episode of The Bail Post we discuss whether California has  reached a breaking point with rising crime and criminal justice reform.   If you would like to learn more about the letter from the Oakland NAACP (referenced in this episode) demanding action on crime from their local politicians  CLICK HERE . If you would like to learn more about the News Nation townhall mentioned in this episode CLICK HERE .  V