v.
JAMES A. STEPHENS aka
JIMMY STEPHENS, Defendant.
High Court of
Trial Division
[1] 18 U.S.C.A. § 3148
(concerning bail) contains no provision specifying its application to
[2] Bail may be revoked
if the reviewing court is satisfied that conditions of bail have been violated,
and that the defendant is unlikely to abide by conditions of release.
[3] That a person is
unlikely to abide by conditions of release may be established by a
preponderance of the evidence.
[4] Bail decisions rest
on predictions of a defendant’s future behavior, and a defendant’s past
violations of a release order barring contact with the complainant shed light
on this issue.
[5] A defendant’s
submission that he is no longer a danger to the complainant since she has left
American Samoa will not be accepted where his intimidation and harassment of
her caused her to flee to Boise, Idaho where he has called her at her current
place of employment, and his motion for reconsideration of bail revocation will
be denied.
Before KRUSE, Chief
Justice, and AFUOLA, Associate Judge.
Counsel: For
Plaintiff, Lionel M.
For Defendant, David P.
ORDER DENYING MOTION FOR
RECONSIDERATION OF BAIL REVOCATION
The defendant
The District Court
admitted the defendant to bail in the sum of $40,000. He was subsequently released from pre-trial
detention upon his posting a security bond and upon the condition that he not
have “any contact, direct or indirect,” with the complainant. We expressly adopted in open court on
On
At the hearing, the
defendant stipulated to having violated conditions of bail, however, we heard
testimony at the government’s request from several of the complainant's former
co-workers. These co-workers all
testified about frequent telephone calls and visits by the defendant to the
complainant at her place of employment, three to four times a week; that
arguments frequently ensued between the defendant and the complainant at these
encounters with the defendant often accusing the complainant of having affairs
with other men. Further, that the
defendant, in order to make a point with one of the witnesses, rang the
complainant at her current place of employment in
On the evidence
received, we revoked defendant’s bail status[1]
rejecting his argument that he could no longer be considered a danger to the
complainant since she has left the jurisdiction of this court.
On the same day,
[1] The defendant urges this court to apply 18 U.S.C.A. § 3148
(1993 & Supp. 1994) (the “statute”) in fashioning an appropriate punishment
for his violating this court’s release orders.
However, nowhere in the text of the statute is there a provision
specifying its application to
[2-3] Even if this statute was applicable, we would still
conclude that the defendant’s motion is without merit. In his memorandum of points and authorities
in support of reconsideration, the defendant cites to only a portion of the
statute. Another part of the statute,
which the defendant failed to cite, provides that bail may be revoked if the
reviewing court is satisfied that conditions of bail has been violated, and
that
(B) the [defendant]
is unlikely to abide by any condition or combination of the conditions of
release.
18 U.S.C.S. § 3148. That a person is unlikely to abide by any
condition or combination of the conditions of release may be established by a
preponderance of the evidence.
[4-5] The defendant’s past violations of this court’s release
order shed considerable light on his motive, capacity and propensity to commit
certain acts while free on bail. See
Gotti, 794 F.2d at 779 (all bail decisions rest on predictions of a
defendant’s future behavior). The
defendant has freely admitted to violating this court’s order by contacting the
victim. His motives for these contacts,
as revealed on the evidence, continue to be his infatuation with his ex-wife’s
perceived affairs with other men. Less
than three weeks after the conditions of defendant’s release were issued, the
defendant made numerous harassing contacts with the complainant, frequently
intimidating the complainant at her place of employment. As a result of the defendant’s intimidation,
the complainant fled to the mainland.
Under these
circumstances, we are certainly not about to accept the bootstrap logic behind
the defendant’s submission that he is no longer a danger to the complainant
since she has left the island, when it was the defendant’s campaign of
intimidation and harassment, in clear defiance of this court’s bail order, that
drove the complainant off-island in the first place. Moreover, despite the complainant’s leaving
American
The motion for
reconsideration is denied.
It is so Ordered.
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