Last Tuesday marked the first time a professional bail bondsman worked in Kanawha County in more than 20 years.
Amy Hass, owner of a professional bail bonds service, came to the Kanawha County Circuit Clerk's office on Tuesday and posted bail for a man incarcerated in South Central Regional Jail.
The next day, attorneys with the Kanawha Public Defender's Office asked a judge to stop Hass and three others like her who were approved late last month to begin working in Kanawha.
About three weeks ago, Chief Public Defender Diana Panucci and former chief George Castelle, who now works as senior counsel for the office, filed a petition asking that an administrative order be rescinded that allows professional bail bondsmen back in Kanawha.
The petition, filed Dec. 15, 2015, was assigned to Kanawha Circuit Judge Jennifer Bailey. It hasn't been ruled on.
Despite the petition, then-Chief Kanawha Circuit Judge James Stucky approved four bail bonds companies to begin working in Kanawha County.
Panucci and Castelle filed a motion Wednesday asking that Stucky's orders approving the four companies to begin work be stayed until Bailey rules on their petition. Late Friday, Bailey had not ruled on that motion.
The administrative order allowing bondsmen in Kanawha County was entered Oct. 5, 2015, by Stucky. But it's never been presented to the state Supreme Court for approval, as state Trial Court Rules require, according to the petition filed by the Public Defender's Office.
Stucky's nine-page order allows bail bondsmen to get people facing charges in Kanawha out of jail, although individual bondsmen must first apply and get approval from the chief judge before they begin working. Judge Tod Kaufman took over Jan. 1 as chief judge.
State Trial Court Rules also require that in a circuit with multiple judges, a majority of judges sign off on administrative orders, the Public Defender's petition also states. The order entered in October bears only Stucky's signature and makes no mention of how many judges opposed the order. Judge Duke Bloom is the only one of seven Kanawha circuit judges to speak out against the order.
"Based on the grounds set forth in the Petition to Set Aside the General Administrative Order, there is a reasonable likelihood that the Petition to Set Aside will prevail on the merits, either in Circuit Court or upon appellate review in the Supreme Court of Appeals," the motion filed last week states.
"The four individual bonding companies, and the individual persons who may be admitted to bond by bonds posted by the companies, may suffer financial harm if commercial bonds, granted while the Motion to Set Aside is pending, are subsequently found to be null and void upon the setting aside of the General Administrative Order," Panucci and Castelle wrote.
Kanawha circuit judges barred professional bail bondsmen in 1998, after questions were raised about some of the bondsmen's lack of property value to secure some bonds. The 1998 administrative order would have allowed bondsmen to operate in Kanawha County, but only if they formed a partnership, rather than being competitors.
Reach Kate White at
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