A bail bondsman overstepped legal bounds when he tried to enter a Lawrence home without permission in 2002, the Kansas Supreme Court ruled Friday morning.

“A bail bondsman does not have the right to enter the home of a third party, i.e., where the principal (bond jumper) does not reside, where the principal is not seen … without the third party’s consent,” Justice Lawton Nuss wrote for the court.

The ruling upheld the misdemeanor trespass and assault convictions of bail bondsman Charles Burhans.

Burhans was charged in a 2002 incident in which he was looking for a man who was wanted for forfeiture of his bond, according to court records.

On April 24, 2002, Burhans tried to enter the home of Jerome and Margaret Williams of Lawrence, in search of Margaret Williams’ brother, Michael Austin.

Pretending to be a salesman, he got inside the residence and then announced that he wanted to arrest Austin, according to court records.

Margaret Williams told Burhans that Austin did not live there, and she pushed Burhans out the door. Later, Jerome Williams and Burhans got into an argument outside when Burhans showed Williams a can of Mace and a gun he had on his hip.

Burhans’ defenders said he was within his right to go into the home because Austin had listed it as his address on his bond application.

But prosecutors said there was no evidence apart from the listing on the bond application that Austin had lived there, and that Burhans had never seen him around the Williamses’ home.