Bondsman bill fails to leave committee

It sought to alter licensing board

— A bill that would refashion the Arkansas Professional Bail Bondsman Licensing Board failed Tuesday to clear the House Judiciary Committee.

House Bill 1386 by Rep. Hank Wilkins IV, D-Pine Bluff, would expand the number of board members from eight to 10, reduce their terms from seven years to three years and bar bail-bond-company owners from serving as the board’s chairman. The bill also would have the governor appoint the board chairman.

Wilkins said the aim of the bill was to reduce the influence of bail-bond companies, law enforcement and the legal industry. “It needs more ordinary citizens,” Wilkins, the committee’s vice chairman, testified.

David Viele, president of the Arkansas Bail Bondsman Professional Association, told the committee that the association opposed the bill.

“Maybe I’m interpreting it wrong, but it just doesn’t expand the board, it creates a new one,” said Viele, who owns a bail-bond company in Jacksonville. The board, he added, “has acted in the best interests of the industry and of the citizens of Arkansas.”

Rep. Jon Eubanks, R-Paris, asked Wilkins to clarify the bill’s emergency clause, which said the bill must go into effect once it is enacted because the board was “unsustainable.”

“I’m not sure why that language - ‘unsustainable’ - is used,” Wilkins replied.

But he added that with members of the House of Representatives limited to serving three two-year terms, it wasn’t difficult to see the logic to limit the terms of the members of the licensing board.

The committee vote came less than a week after the licensing board voted unanimously to oppose the bill and separately give its chairman a vote of confidence, given that the bill appeared to be aimed at chairman Curt Clark of Rogers.

Some within the industry said the bill appeared to be retaliation after Clark testified against Senate Bill 56, which dealt with education requirements for bail bondsmen. Wilkins has denied that claim. That bill became Act 36 of 2011 after Gov. Mike Beebe signed it into law last week.

Two members of another association, the Arkansas Professional Bail Association, were prepared to testify for HB 1386, but didn’t. One of them was association president John Muldoon of Hot Springs. He left the meeting early. Several attempts to reach him Tuesday afternoon at his office were unsuccessful.

Clark didn’t attend the meeting, but expressed satisfaction with the bill’s fate.

“It was a bad bill, and it should’ve been defeated,” he said in an interview. “There’s nothing wrong with the board in place today, and there’s nothing wrong with the makeup of the board.”

Wilkins was undecided on what he would do with the bill next.

“I’m looking at amending it,” he said. “I have to give some thought to whether or not the amendments address the concerns the committee might have.”

The committee alsofailed to give a do-pass recommendation to House Bill 1245, which Wilkins also sponsored. It would have required district court judges to issue arrest warrants for defendants who are released on bond but fail to appear for a hearing or trial.

Bail bondsmen testified that some judges issue only failure-to-appear warrants for defendants who are released on their own recognizance, leaving it to the bondsmen to bring back the absconders for whom they are responsible. But bondsmen say that means local law enforcement could encounter those absconders without knowing that they are wanted, and it makes it difficult for bondsmen to work with out-of-state law enforcement when someone they want to pick up doesn’t have an outstanding warrant,they said.

Committee members appeared reluctant to force district judges to issue warrants even though the bondsmen said most district judges already do.

Also Tuesday, the committee gave a do-pass recommendation to House Bill1408 by Rep. Karen Hopper, R-Mountain Home, which would prohibit certain Level II sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of a school, public park, youth center or day-care facility.

The bill’s provisions would apply to Level II offenders who were 18 or older who offended against someone 14 and under. Those Level II offenders aren’t considered as dangerous as Level III and Level IV offenders, but in 2007, the Legislature enacted a law requiring law enforcement agencies to notify the public of their identities and locations, said Baxter County Sheriff John Montgomery. Because they offended against children, itonly makes sense that they, like Level III and Level IV offenders, also be restricted in where they may reside, he said.

Attempts to enact a similar law in 2007 and 2009 failed, according to opponents of the bill, who say it would sharply limit housing choices for a level of offender unlikely to re-offend, which in turn makes them more likely to not register or to become homeless and re-offend again. It also hurts innocent family members, they said.

“The collateral damage to our family would be significant,” said Lynn Gilmore, whose husband “made one mistake 15 years ago.”

Northwest Arkansas, Pages 9 on 02/23/2011

Upcoming Events