Bail Bonds
Can I believe my bail bondsman? I’m Tulsa attorney James Wirth and that’s the question that we have. Can you trust your bail bondsman?
Okay, well, first off, bail bondsman’s a very different thing than attorneys. When you hire an attorney, they have an obligation to you, an ethical obligation to you, a fiduciary obligation to you, where they have to tell you the truth, they’re violating their oaths, and essentially the rules and ethics of being an attorney if they are not truthful with you. So, you should be able to trust your attorney.
Bail bondsmen’s are not the same. Their rules are different. They do not have the same type of fiduciary relationship with you. So, sometimes I’ve seen instances where you cannot trust your bail bondsman.
Understanding the Relationship with a Bail Bondsman
Ultimately, if you miss your court date and your bail bondsman’s talking to you, hey, we gotta get you in to get this taken care of, they may not be truthful with you because they wanna make sure that they get you in and in court so that they can get off the bond.
So, under those circumstances, a lot of times we have to work out a deal where we’re gonna do an appearance before the judge. When you fail to appear, the judge will typically triple the bond. We wanna request the judge, hey, please, can we put that down? It was a mistake. They missed their date, but they’re here. Get that bond put back down to what it originally was, and then we need the bail bondsman that was on it to re-endorse.
But we can’t always trust that a bail bondsman is going to re-endorse because sometimes they have an incentive to lie to you to get you to go in so they can get off the bond. Otherwise, if you don’t appear, they’re potentially at risk for paying the entire amount. That’s a lot of money, so they have a lot of incentive not to tell you the truth under those circumstances.
Consult an Attorney for Trust Issues with Bail Bondsmen
So, if the question is, can I trust my bail bondsman? The answer is, not always. So, under those circumstances, where you need to know whether you can trust your bail bondsman, it’s always a good idea to have an attorney involved. They can kind of give you the pros and cons of whether trust is likely in those scenarios, and so that you can get issues resolved with hopefully not too much risk or surprise.
Contact Us for Legal Advice
All right, well, if you’ve got other questions related to criminal defense in the state of Oklahoma or Oklahoma law in general, you’re gonna wanna talk to an attorney about that privately, confidentially, to receive legal advice specific to your circumstances. To get that scheduled with somebody at my office, you can go online to makelaweasy.com. We offer an initial strategy session for new clients. Don’t hesitate to reach out and get the help you need.
