Where Mercy Is Shown, Mercy Is Given (2010)

by Chapman, Duane Dog

  “Do you think I’ll see my pet parrot that died last year?” the boy asked.

  “He’ll be right there, waiting with God.”

  “This has been a good talk, Dog. Thank you.”

  I fought back my tears when we said our good-byes, because I knew my little friend wasn’t going to make it. A few weeks later, I received a call from his mother saying he had passed away. She told me he started to cough a bit when he asked his father for my feather. His mother went on to tell me he laid it on his chest and smiled the biggest smile she had seen since he got sick. His parents heard him take his last breath, and then he was gone.

  “Dog, do you mind if I ask you what you and my son talked about the day you met?”

  I told her everything.

  “You know, I believe he saw his bird there, Dog,” she told me. In my mind, I had no doubt that he had.

  I was sorry for her loss but felt lucky to have met this young man before he died. I’m the guy that has always said “All aboard!” because I know life is truly a journey and a path we all walk along. In the criminal world, I’m sometimes the last guy a fugitive sees a free man. As a lover of God, sometimes I am the last man a young boy sees before he closes his eyes for good. Whatever hat I’m wearing, I wear it proud.

  CHAPTER 14

  Lucy Pemoni

  People rarely like to admit they’ve made a mistake, especially people in positions of power who can change people’s lives with the snap of a finger. In 1997, I reluctantly surrendered my bond license in Hawaii for two years after reaching a settlement with Amwest, my former insurance company. They quickly revoked my appointment and essentially put me out of the bond business and on the street overnight.

  This was the result of a terrible and frustrating series of events that began when Richard Heath, an insurance agent from Amwest, came to audit my books because his company suspected there were some unlawful dealings happening in my Honolulu office. After a couple of days of poring over my books, Heath was convinced that I wasn’t the one responsible for any unreported bonds to the insurance company. It was clear they were being written by two former employees who were using my powers and then pocketing excess fees. Once Heath was certain it wasn’t me, he sat me down as if he was the Godfather and made me an offer I had no choice but to accept. I knew he had the ability to rescind my powers by canceling my appointment. If he did that, I’d be out of the business. A few days later, Heath called me to a meeting. Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, he said my two former employees were willing to testify against me, saying I was the one stealing the insurance money. He knew they were lying because I had already proven my innocence. Still, it didn’t matter because I was a convicted felon—an essential point Heath kept reminding me of over and over. If my case went to court, Heath told me, a jury would probably take me down forever. At the very least, I was looking at doing more time in jail.

  As I listened to Heath talk, I began to wonder who would bail me out. None of the local bondsmen, that was for sure. They all hated me because I had swooped into town and changed the way everyone had to do business. I also began worrying about my children and what would happen to them. I couldn’t bear the thought of any of my kids ending up in foster care. Heath said he wouldn’t press charges if I agreed to get out of the bond business for a minimum of two years. After I reluctantly took the deal, life as I knew it was over. Suddenly, I had no job, no income, and no savings. With no phones ringing, it all stopped.

  Rumors began spreading like a California wildfire. I heard people saying I had embezzled millions of dollars and even tried to kill a man, both of which were utterly absurd. There were whispers wherever I went.

  One of the conditions of my deal with Heath was that I surrender my bond license during our two-year noncompete agreement. Since I had no license, several complaints were filed with the Hawaii Department of Insurance. There were lots of people who needed my service and who had already paid me in advance to oversee their bail and bond. When I was forced out of business, many of those people lost a lot of their collateral in bail forfeiture. What this boiled down to was that the cosigners were losing everything because the people they were backing had skipped out on their bail and I couldn’t go after any of them. This was a rare opportunity where they could run with no threat of the Dog tracking them down. Nonetheless, my company still had to pay the insurer for the full value of the bond. During that two-year period, that meant liquidating my collateral to make good on the money owed. I hated doing it, but I was left with no choice.

  Most of the complaints were settled outside the system. As for the other complaints, my problems started when the Department of Insurance began sending me notification letters at the wrong address. The notices went to an address I hadn’t operated out of for five years. The strange part was that prior to my deal with Heath, I always received letters from the department at my current address with no problem at all. It was my legal address on every document filed with the state. It made no sense that they didn’t try to reach me through my correct address.

  I was patiently waiting for the two-year noncompete Heath made me sign, as part of our deal, to run out so I could get back to work in Hawaii and start all over again. That would have been the perfect plan had it not been for those complaints I never received. The problem wasn’t the complaints, but my failure to answer. That was an automatic suspension of my license. If I didn’t adhere to all of the rules and regulations, I was in danger of losing my rights as a bondsman.

  I called the Hawaii Department of Insurance to make sure they had a correct mailing address so I could deal with any outstanding issues. The next letter I received arrived on December 27, 1997, informing me that my license was in jeopardy for failure to respond to the complaints. The hearing was set for October 29—two whole months prior to receiving the notification. In my absence, the commissioner had revoked my license for five years. The penalty for not answering a complaint is generally a thirty-day suspension and a five-hundred-dollar fine. The revocation of my license for five years was extreme and unfair.

  Nobody in the bond business gets sanctioned as harshly as I did. I was also deprived of my due process under the law because I am entitled to get notice of a hearing before it takes place, not after they’ve already made a decision. It was very difficult to get people to listen to me. I knocked on every door imaginable, until finally one lawyer, Howard Glickstein, agreed that I had been robbed of my basic rights. He told me that it would be an incredible long shot, but I knew we had to go for it anyway. There was nothing left to lose.

  It took eleven years of perseverance and fighting, but Beth and I fought my case all the way to the Hawaii Supreme Court, until we were finally able to show a panel of judges all of the clerical errors that were made leading up to my revocation. Finally, in late 2008, our lawyer was victorious. The judge ruled in our favor, saying the corporate division of insurance was wrong. He said the state was required to reinstate my license exactly as it was when they revoked it. The only problem with that ruling was that when they revoked it, I had already surrendered my license in my deal with Heath and moved to Colorado to wait out the two-year noncompete period. So, in essence, the state revoked a license that had already been surrendered.

  The reason it took so long to win the case was because it was extremely technical. The laws in Hawaii had changed since I first lost my license back in 1997. Initially, the best compromise the state would agree to was allowing me to take the license exam again. That wasn’t good enough for me. The Supreme Court had ordered my license to be reinstated because the state should never have suspended it in the first place. I could have sued for eight years of lost wages because I wasn’t able to work, but I didn’t. My hands were tied because I also couldn’t go to another state to apply for a license since the first question they would ask would be if I’d ever had a license suspended or revoked in another state. I would be forced to tell the truth. This was exactly the same kind of situation I had found myself in num
erous times since I was released from Huntsville, when asked if I had ever been convicted of a felony. My answer was always “Will discuss.” I was conflicted for years by that question. In fact, it wasn’t until most states started regulating bounty hunters all over the country that this common question became something of a problem for me. I had to fight hard to get states to make exclusions in their laws about bounty hunting so that I was not inadvertently put out of the business with the proposed laws.

  In 2008, I finally got my official license reinstated, which gave me permission to write bail anywhere and everywhere across the country. For the first time in eleven years, I was legitimately licensed by the state of Hawaii. I already had credibility as a bounty hunter, but receiving my license back gave me the respect from my peers, the state, and the legislative system that had finally righted the legal wrong that had been committed against me.

  I know the United States government will never admit that they made a mistake in my extradition case with Mexico, because they never do. I’ve reconciled that fact in my mind because even though I’ve lost many a battle along the way, in the long run, I won the war. I wasn’t extradited—I was allowed to stay in America, my home, my country that I love with all of my heart and soul, plus Luster is still in jail.

  Having worked in and around the judicial system for most of my career, I’m used to the government being less than perfect. It’s just a fact of life. I don’t expect much from the lower courts because over the years I’ve learned that real decisions aren’t made until you get to the higher courts. I’ve learned to expect the bureaucratic flimflam. I believe judges in the lower courts are prejudiced. They use their decisions to work their way up the judicial ladder. Judges in the higher courts have already been there, done that. They don’t need to lie or impress people like Andrew Luster’s mother or her high-priced lawyers. Like it or not, justice is political. The system doesn’t like guys like me who are out there fighting for both truth and justice.

  There’s always been a little rift between local police and bounty hunters, especially this bounty hunter. Even though bounty hunting has been around for centuries, it has never really been considered a job. I can’t stomach picking up a newspaper or hearing a story on the news about inexperienced vigilante wannabes breaking into someone’s home and accidentally shooting or, worse, killing them. These unqualified amateurs are the guys that give bounty hunters a bad name. It takes years of experience to learn the business—not guns or guerrilla tactics. We are officers of the court, but that in no way makes us police officers. It’s hard for many bounty hunters who are just starting out to grasp the difference.

  Bounty hunters generally have more authority to arrest than local police, because defendants waive all of their constitutional rights when they sign their bail bond contract. They essentially agree to be arrested by the bail bond agent if they break the terms of that agreement. A bounty hunter can nab a fugitive in any state except Wisconsin, Illinois, Kentucky, and Oregon, because bounty hunting is illegal there. Me? I don’t care about the state law in those four states. As far as I’m concerned, if I know one of my jumps is hiding out in any of those states, I’m going to get him.

  When I was a young boy, there was a local police officer my family knew and who I really looked up to. He was the officer who came to our school to give speeches about safety and awareness. For whatever reason, he used my name a couple times during one of his speeches, which made me feel special in front of my classmates. At the time, I worked the safety patrol, helping the crossing guard do his duties before and after school. One day I decided to take my services to a busy intersection in the middle of town. I stood in the street and began to direct traffic. It wasn’t long before the cops came to pick me up. They called my dad and told him he had to come take me home. I had a great time that day stopping traffic and giving directions to all the drivers. From that day on, I wanted to become a policeman.

  Shortly after that incident, I heard the officer had been indicted for burglary. I was devastated when I heard the news because this was a man I admired. When I went to school, kids began teasing me that my “cop friend” was a no-good crook. After he pleaded guilty to his crimes, I began to see all cops as phonies and criminals. I felt that way until I got to prison.

  Once I started interacting with the wardens and prison guards, I once again began to respect cops and authoritative guys in the system. I’ll never forget one of the prison guards telling me that he lived in Huntsville prison too.

  “No, you don’t,” I said. “You get to go home at night, hug your wife and kids, and I don’t.”

  “Sometimes, but mostly I am here more than I’m home. Sometimes I get a home-cooked meal, but mostly I’m in the joint doing time with you.”

  I gave it some thought and realized he was right.

  For the most part, the guys on the force love me and appreciate what I do. They even send me their service patches from the departments where they work, and I proudly display them behind the desk in my office. I have patches, badges, and pins from policemen and others who work criminal justice all over the world. I’m always so appreciative of their support. However, there are other cops who will never see me as anything more than a felon—and to them, I will always be on the other side of the law. They’re threatened by what I do because my experience and skills help me bring in the fugitives that they simply cannot bring in themselves. Many officers think my success rate makes them look bad. I’m not out to upstage the police. My only goal is to get my man. But some of these cops still see me as the bad guy, while they’re the good guys.

  When I started bounty hunting, I was always trying to prove to the police that I was one of the good guys too. I wanted to be a cop or a United States marshal more than a bounty hunter, but the choices I’d made in the past made that impossible. I love cops and want to work with them because I know we are stronger unified than we are apart. I want their respect for what I do and bring to the table as a fellow member of law enforcement.

  Whenever a cop shows up at a scene we’re working, we fear what type of cop he is. Will he embrace us and work with us? Or will he make it difficult for me to do my job? Every time we make an arrest, we always risk a cop siding with the fugitive and not us.

  This is especially disconcerting because most police officers don’t know the laws that protect bounty hunters. Unlike the police, I can enter private property unannounced and without a warrant. I don’t even have to read a fugitive their Miranda rights before making the arrest. Some states require bounty hunters to be licensed, while others only ask for bounty hunters to register with them. They refer to bounty hunters as peace officers, officers of the court, and people who aid government officials. Whatever it’s called, bounty hunting is an essential element to effectively fighting crime.

  But every time I’m out on a bust, I never know if the cops I come into contact with in the field are friend or foe. Not long ago, we were out making a bust when the police showed up at the house where we’d arrested our fugitive. One of the officers began questioning the homeowner, who told him we broke into her house. When the cop asked me if that was true, I told him, no.

  The cop said, “I certainly hope that’s true, Dog, because if it’s not, you’re all going to jail. Now, get out of here!”

  “I will not. I’ve got proof we got permission and I’ll use it if I have to.” Of course, I was referring to my camera crew, who’d captured the entire bust on tape. It’s generally not a great idea to offer up my footage as evidence, unless I really have to, because the police will confiscate all of it. Usually if I find myself in a position where that’s my only option, I’ll take the arrest and defend myself later. The fact is, I ultimately have to be responsible to uphold the law when I am out on a hunt because not only could I lose my job with A&E, I could also go to jail.

  It really hurts my feelings that some cops see me as the enemy. I’ve got thirty-plus years in the field chasing down criminals. I’ve had experiences most cops will ne
ver have throughout their entire career. I’d love to share my techniques and information on chasing fugitives with the proper authorities so they can share in the knowledge I’ve acquired over the years. I respect the police and the service they provide. Whenever I see cops in a restaurant, I make it a point to pick up their check as a small gesture to let them know how I feel. I always tell the waitress not to tell them who picked up the tab, because I don’t want the recognition. I just want to say thanks for all they do. Unless the police and bounty hunters learn to work together, fugitives can use the system to keep themselves from being caught. Cops and bounty hunters are on the same side of the law—they ought to join forces to serve and protect citizens from dangerous criminals on the run.

  There have been all sorts of laws proposed to govern the field of bounty hunting, ranging from not allowing the use of real firearms to restricting our right to enter a private citizen’s home. To be clear, bounty hunters are not vigilantes, executioners, or police officers. It isn’t our responsibility to execute the sentence, but merely to pick up the fugitive and deliver them to the court. Because the laws vary from state to state, I think bounty hunting has become a business that now needs some kind of regulation to govern what we can and cannot do.

  I’m disappointed that the National Association of Bounty Hunters has never asked me to speak at a function and has never asked me to become a member of their organization. I think I would bring a lot of clout to the table to help establish our profession as a viable and respectable field. The only time they tried to associate, or should I say disassociate, with me was after I was arrested in Mexico, when they were quick to point out that they would have never apprehended Luster like I did. Well, I guess we all know how that story ends. Even so, I would be honored to be a part of the association one day because I know our collective voice would bring the right type of attention to our chosen profession. Since I have become the very best in the field, I would be an ideal advocate to help mediate between the association and the government, to come up with laws that would effectively regulate the business while taking the needs of both parties into consideration. Although I am the poster boy for the profession, many bounty hunters think I am the very person ruining it. For all of those doubters, I have one thing to say: You’re sadly mistaken.