Bail bondsmen can’t enter private homes without clear evidence that bond jumpers are inside, the Kansas Supreme Court ruled Friday in a Lawrence case.

Observers said the ruling would help clear up a murky area of state law.

“This is a major step toward putting some logical restrictions on the power of these bounty hunters,” Douglas County Dist. Atty. Christine Kenney said.

But Sam Fields, owner of AJ’s and Applejacks bonding companies in Lawrence, said the ruling only laid out what professional bondsmen already knew.

“That’s the understanding we all have in the industry,” Fields said. “I don’t think we need the Supreme Court to know that.”

But Fields added: “There’s been some stupid bondsmen who’ve been put in the business in the last few years.”

The ruling upheld the Douglas County District Court misdemeanor trespass and assault convictions of bail bondsman Charles Burhans. And it came the same week a Douglas County family said its home had been invaded by bounty hunters.

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, Burhans 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.

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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 Austin around the Williamses’ home.

Friday, the state high court sided with prosecutors.

“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.

Hinder justice?

The ruling came the same week a rural Douglas County family filed a complaint with the Sheriff’s Office alleging bounty hunters impersonating police burst into its home early Wednesday, looking for a man who doesn’t live there.

Kenney would not comment on that case, which is still under investigation. But she said Friday’s ruling showed prosecutors now had clear legal authority to prosecute similar cases.

“This is an industry that does not have the right to operate without any restrictions,” Kenney said.

The ruling comes on the heels of a new state law that requires bondsmen to alert police before attempting to apprehend a fugitive.

Fields said the growing number of restrictions would “hinder justice.” But he said that a growing number of poorly trained, unprofessional bondsmen were forcing the government’s hand.

“They’ve got to do something,” Fields said, “because there’s idiots out there.”

Kenney said the restrictions were needed.

“A law enforcement officer would not be able to take that action,” she said of the trespass. “The thought that just a citizen could just barge into a third person’s home … just because they have some weak information that a person might be there, is offensive to everyone.”