Story Archive

Signing Rights Away

When Berlin Gabriel was arrested on a charge of driving with a suspended license, he gave police his cousin Donald Colas’s Miami Gardens, Fla., address, where Gabriel hadn’t lived in decades. And when Gabriel failed to turn up in court, that apparently gave bounty hunters a license to break into Colas’s house to apprehend the fugitive. They broke down two doors, snooped under beds, and nevertheless failed to find the man who wasn’t there. “By that person signing that surety contract,” explained Prof. Brian Johnson of Michigan, who has written about the bail-bond industry, “they have in essence waived that Fourth Amendment right.” And Mike Nefzger, an official with a bail-bond agents’ trade group, said, “If he used his cousin’s address on his arrest record, you can make an assumption that that’s his address.” (AC/Miami Herald) ...And if he had used your address, Mr. Nefzger?