People v. Topa Insurance

Opinion

CROSBY, J.

Topa Insurance Company moved to vacate a bail forfeiture and exonerate the bond, arguing the court failed to state on the record that the bail of a criminal defendant who failed to appear for a pretrial hearing was forfeited. The superior court rejected the contention, and we affirm.

Per Penal Code section 1305, subdivision (a), “[a] court shall declare forfeited the undertaking of bail... if, without sufficient excuse, a defendant fails to appear” in court when ordered to do so. Where “the surety is an authorized corporate surety, and if the bond plainly displays the mailing address of the corporate surety and the bail agent, then notice of the forfeiture shall be mailed to the surety at that address and to the bail agent, and the mailing alone to the surety or the bail agent shall not constitute compliance with this section.” (Pen. Code, § 1305, subd. (b).)

People

v.

Ranger Ins. Co.

(1993) 19 Cal.App.4th 353 [24 Cal.Rptr.2d 115] involved an earlier version of Penal Code section 1305.

1

There, the Court of Appeal held a trial court was not required to state on the record that bail was forfeited and the appropriate entry in the minutes was sufficient. (19 Cal.App.4th at pp. 356-357.) The appellate panel also observed that court minutes are generally more easily accessed than a reporter’s transcript.

(Ibid.)

[568]

Ranger's

analysis is just as apt today. Nothing in the 1993 amendments remotely suggests the Legislature’s rewording of Penal Code section 1305 was intended to—or in fact did—obligate the trial court to state on the record that bail has been forfeited. The Legislature certainly knows how to require on-the-record statements by the court. (See, e.g., Pen. Code, § 1193 [pronouncement of judgment in open court].) And nothing in current language of Penal Code section 1305 suggests an on-the-record pronouncement of forfeiture is necessary.