Bounty hunter

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For the Jamaican dancehall artist, see Bounty Killer.

For the Star Wars video game, see Star Wars: Bounty Hunter.

A bounty hunter is an individual who seeks out fugitives ("hunting") for a monetary reward ("bounty"), for apprehending by law, if such laws exist.

1 Laws regarding bounty hunters in the U.S.
2 Bounty hunting as a form of vigilantism
3 International laws, legal protection, and bounty hunters in culture
4 See also
- 4.1 Real life bounty hunters
- 4.2 Fictional bounty hunters
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Laws regarding bounty hunters in the U.S.

In the United States legal system, the 1873 U.S. Supreme Court case (Taylor v. Taintor, 16 Wall (83 U.S.) 366, 21 L.Ed. 287) established that the person into whose custody a person accused of a crime is remanded as part of the accused's bail has sweeping rights to recover that person. For this reason, most bounty hunters are employed by a bail bondsman: the bounty hunter is paid a portion of the bail the fugitive initially paid, since if the fugitive successfully eludes bail, the bondsman is responsible for the remainder of their bail, not the bounty hunter.

Thus the bounty hunter is the bail bondsman's way of ensuring his clients arrive at trial. In the United States, bounty hunters catch an estimated 30,000 bail jumpers per year.^{[citation needed]} Bounty hunters are also sometimes known as bail enforcement agents or fugitive recovery agents, which are the preferred industry and polite terms, but in common speech, they are still called "bounty hunters" or "skip tracers".

In the United States of America, bounty hunters have varying levels of authority in their duties with regard to their targets, depending on the states they operate in. As specified in Taylor v. Taintor, and barring restrictions dictated by the state in which the bounty hunter is operating, a bounty hunter can enter the fugitive's private property without a warrant in order to execute a re-arrest. In some states, bounty hunters do not undergo any formal training, and are generally unlicensed, only requiring sanction from a bail bondsman to operate. In other states, however, they are held to varying standards of training and licensure. In California, bounty hunters must undergo a background check and complete various courses that satisfy the penal code 1299 requirements. [1] In most states they are prohibited from carrying firearms without proper permits. Other states require bounty hunters to wear clothing identifying them as such.^{[citation needed]} In Kentucky, bounty hunting is generally not allowed because the state does not have a system of bail bondsmen, and releases bailed suspects on their own recognizance, thus there is no bondsman with the right to apprehend the fugitive. Generally, only fugitives who have fled bail on federal charges from another state where bounty hunting is legal are allowed to be hunted in Kentucky.[2] In Texas, bounty hunters are required to be a peace officer, Level III (armed) security officer, or a private investigator<ref>http://www.txdps.state.tx.us/psb/consumer/bounty_hunter.aspx</ref>.

There is always a possibility for a fugitive to make life hard for a bounty hunter by fleeing to states which restrict certain or all parts of the bounty hunter's service.

[edit] Bounty hunting as a form of vigilantism

Bounty hunters have been described by some as vigilantes and there have been various cases of civil rights abuses that have been committed by bounty hunters. The television program 60 Minutes featured a story of an African American woman who was arrested by bounty hunters who had mistaken her for another individual.

[edit] International laws, legal protection, and bounty hunters in culture

Bounty hunters can also run into problems if a fugitive enters another country. Laws in other nations can be quite different, and taking a fugitive may be considered kidnapping. Noted bounty hunter Duane "Dog" Chapman (star of the TV series, Dog the Bounty Hunter) was arrested in Mexico after he apprehended the multi-millionaire rapist and fugitive Andrew Luster.<ref>BBC news article</ref> Chapman was later himself declared a fugitive by a Mexican prosecutor and was subsequently arrested in the United States to be extradited back to Mexico. Daniel Kear pursued and apprehended Sidney Jaffe at a residence in Canada. Kear was extradited to Canada, and convicted of kidnapping [3]. While the United States Government generally allows the activities of bounty hunters in the United States, the government is not as tolerant of these activities when they cause problems with other sovereign nations [4].

Several bounty hunters have also been arrested for killing a fugitive or apprehending the wrong person, mistaking them for a fugitive.^{[citation needed]} Unlike police officers, they have no legal protections against injuries to non-fugitives and few legal protections against injuries to their targets.^{[citation needed]}

In Westerns, bounty hunters are commonly depicted as romantic figures, such as the so-called Man with No Name played by Clint Eastwood. This tradition has been adopted by several action-oriented vehicles of sci-fi (when and if inspired by Westerns), with fictional characters like Boba Fett, Rally Vincent, Spike Spiegel or Samus Aran. In fact, in the Star Wars universe, there are numerous bounty hunters, though they are sometimes more like mercenaries than bounty hunters. Typically they are shown to work for powerful criminal figures with greater frequency than for the proper authorities.