State v. Crooms

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF NORTH CAROLINA
No. COA17-640
Filed: 4 September 2018
Wilson County, No. 12 CRS 053186
STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA,
v.
DEVON SHAMARK CROOMS, Defendant,
v.
AGENT ASSOCIATES INSURANCE, LLC, Surety.
Appeal by Wilson County Board of Education from order entered 23 February
2017 by Judge Milton F. Fitch, Jr. in Wilson County Superior Court. Heard in the
Court of Appeals 16 November 2017.
No brief filed for the State, Defendant, or Surety.
Schwartz & Shaw, P.L.L.C., by Kristopher L. Caudle and Rebecca M. Williams,
for Wilson County Board of Education, respondent-appellant.
BERGER, Judge.
The Wilson County Board of Education (“the Board”) appeals the February 23,
2017 order, which granted a petition for the remission of a bond forfeiture filed by
Agent Associates Insurance, LLC (the “Surety”) through its bond agent Roland M.
Loftin, Jr. (“Loftin”). The Board argues that the petition for remission did not provide
statutorily required evidence to support the Surety’s motion, and in partially granting
STATE V. CROOMS
Opinion of the Court
the relief sought by the Surety, the trial court erred. We agree, and reverse the order
of the trial court.
Factual and Procedural Background
In November 2015, Devon Shamark Crooms (“Defendant”) was on trial for
being an accessory before the fact to murder. Prior to his trial, Defendant had been
placed on pretrial release1 through the Wilson County Sheriff’s Department. As a
condition of his release, Defendant was equipped with an electronic-monitoring
device worn on his ankle. An individual with the Wilson County Sheriff’s Department
monitored the device and would receive an alert if it was tampered with or removed.
Defendant was present in court for his trial when the State presented its case
in chief. After all evidence had been presented to the jury, and immediately following
the charge conference, Defendant left the courtroom during the lunch recess on
November 19, 2015. While out of the courtroom, Defendant removed his electronic-
monitoring ankle bracelet and absconded. After Defendant failed to return for the
remainder of the trial, it was completed in his absence. An order for Defendant’s
arrest was entered on the day he had absconded, and Defendant was eventually
arrested near Miami, Florida.
1 Counsel for the Board failed to include in the record a standard AOC-CR-200 form describing
the conditions of pretrial release for Defendant. There may have been other relevant conditions of
pretrial release, and those stated herein are based on our review of the record and the transcript of
the hearing.
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STATE V. CROOMS
Opinion of the Court
As an additional condition for Defendant’s pretrial release, bail had been set
at $50,000.00. To cover bail, Defendant paid $1,400.00 of the $3,000.00 premium to
have a $50,000.00 appearance bond issued by Loftin as bail agent for the Surety.
Because Defendant had absconded from trial, the Wilson County Clerk of Court
issued a Bond Forfeiture Notice on November 23, 2015.
Loftin testified at the hearing on his petition for remission of the bond
forfeiture that after Defendant fled, Loftin went to great lengths to return Defendant
into custody. Loftin testified that he had spent approximately $80,000.00 and
traveled as far as New Jersey in an attempt to find Defendant and return him to
custody. Loftin filed a motion to set aside the bond forfeiture on March 7, 2016. On
May 19, 2016, the motion was denied, and a final judgment of forfeiture of the
$50,000.00 bond was entered by the trial court and satisfied by the Surety.
On December 20, 2016, the Surety filed its Petition for Remission from Final
Judgment of Forfeiture contending that there were extraordinary circumstances that
would justify relief from the bond forfeiture. On February 23, 2017, the trial court
found that extraordinary circumstances existed, and noted the following during the
hearing on the petition:
In this particular case I see nothing that the bail agent did
wrong up until the defendant had left court. He brought
him to court every time he was scheduled to be in court.
And even on this particular occasion he brought him to
court and the man left after trial was in progress and the
matter was ready to go to the jury.
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STATE V. CROOMS
Opinion of the Court
Now a bail agent doesn’t sit with a defendant seven days a
week, 24 hours a day and does not have the ability to move
that person in and out.
And in this particular case this individual was on a pretrial
monitor and he walked away from the pretrial monitor as
well as the bail agent. . . . [C]ertainly the sheriff would have
gotten the first warning to be the first responder. Is not
there equal, based on release, liability on the sheriff as also
on the bail agent?
...
And in this particular case, because of the severity [of the
offense], the agent never could have signed the bond if the
person were not hooked up to a monitor. So then in that
particular case, is there equal liability on the sheriff as well
as the bail agent?
...
I mean isn’t that the real reason that we even have pretrial
monitors? If not, if not, then all you got to do is just do
away with the bail agents. Maybe that’s the way we’re
going. Just hook everybody up to a monitor. And then if
they run, then who does the School Board sue then?
...
[Factors to] consider are the diligence of the surety of
staying abreast of the defendant’s whereabouts prior to the
date of appearance. Because he brought him here. He got
him here. He came. Not one day. He came two days. And
then three days. And then in the middle of the trial
something happened and he didn’t come back. They were
in trial.
The trial court then ordered the Board to remit $7,500.00 to the Surety.
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STATE V. CROOMS
Opinion of the Court
The Board timely appeals, arguing that Surety’s motion for relief did not
comply with the requirements of N.C. Gen. Stat. § 15A-544.8, and thus, the trial court
erred in granting Surety’s motion for relief. We agree and reverse.
Analysis
The requirements for seeking and allowing relief from a final judgment of
forfeiture are set forth by statute, and “[t]here is no relief from a final judgment of
forfeiture except as provided in this section.” N.C. Gen. Stat. § 15A-544.8(a) (2017).
A court may grant relief from a final judgment of forfeiture only when “extraordinary
circumstances exist that the court, in its discretion, determines should entitle that
person to relief,” or when notice was not properly given to the person seeking relief.
N.C. Gen. Stat. § 15A-544.8(b).
For a party to obtain relief from a final judgment of forfeiture, Section 15A-
544.8(c) sets forth the following procedure:
(1) At any time before the expiration of three years after the
date on which a judgment of forfeiture became final, any of
the following parties named in the judgment may make a
written motion for relief under this section:
a. The defendant.
b. Any surety.
c. A professional bondsman or a runner acting on behalf
of a professional bondsman.
d. A bail agent acting on behalf of an insurance company.
The written motion shall state the reasons for the motion
and set forth the evidence in support of each reason.
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STATE V. CROOMS
Opinion of the Court
(2) The motion shall be filed in the office of the clerk of superior
court of the county in which the final judgment was,
entered. The moving party shall, under G.S. 1A-1, Rule 5,
serve a copy of the motion on the district attorney for that
county and on the attorney for the county board of
education.
(3) A hearing on the motion shall be scheduled within a
reasonable time in the trial division in which the defendant
was bonded to appear.
(4) At the hearing the court may grant the party any relief
from the judgment that the court considers appropriate,
including the refund of all or a part of any money paid to
satisfy the judgment.
N.C. Gen. Stat. § 15A-544.8(c) (emphasis added). In construing this Section, this
Court’s duty is “to carry out the intent of the legislature. As a cardinal principle of
statutory interpretation, if the language of the statute is clear and is not ambiguous,
we must conclude that the legislature intended the statute to be implemented
according to the plain meaning of its terms.” State v. Dunn, 200 N.C. App. 606, 608-
09, 685 S.E.2d 526, 528 (2009) (purgandum2).
Based upon the plain language of the statute, the motion for relief from the
judgment of forfeiture was required to “state the reasons for the motion and set forth
the evidence in support of each reason.” N.C. Gen. Stat. § 15A-544.8(c)(1). The
2 Our shortening of the Latin phrase “Lex purgandum est.” This phrase, which roughly
translates “that which is superfluous must be removed from the law,” was used by Dr. Martin Luther
during the Heidelberg Disputation on April 26, 1518 in which Dr. Luther elaborated on his theology
of sovereign grace. Here, we use purgandum to simply mean that there has been the removal of
superfluous items, such as quotation marks, ellipses, brackets, citations, and the like, for ease of
reading.
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STATE V. CROOMS
Opinion of the Court
motion filed by the Surety seeking relief from the forfeiture merely alleged that “there
were extraordinary circumstances . . . that would justify a relief under N.C. Gen. Stat.
§ 15A-544.8 from the bond forfeiture, said circumstances to be presented via affidavit
and/or testimony at the hearing on this Motion.” Beyond stating “extraordinary
circumstances” as the reason for the motion, the Surety failed to comply with the
statutory requirement to set forth evidence. Because of the deficiencies of the
Surety’s motion, the trial court had no grounds on which to grant the motion, and it
should have been summarily denied. Therefore, this failure of the Surety to comply
with the plain language of the statue compels us to reverse the order of the trial court.
REVERSED.
Judges HUNTER and INMAN concur.
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