## Facts

- Daniel Linder worked as a bail bondsman.
- A person on bond failed to appear in court (a “bond jumper”), and an arrest warrant was outstanding for that person.
- Linder attempted to take the bond jumper into custody and believed the warrant allowed him, as a bondsman, to arrest and transport the person.
- Texas procedure required that, when someone other than a peace officer executes an arrest warrant, the executor must be specially named in the warrant (or otherwise directed by the warrant under the governing statutes); Linder was not named.
- The State treated the seizure as unlawful and charged Linder with kidnapping.
- At trial, Linder claimed he thought his conduct was lawful, relying in part on an 1873 United States Supreme Court decision concerning bondsmen in another state and on his past experience making similar rearrests without being prosecuted.
- A jury convicted Linder. His conviction was affirmed on direct appeal in an earlier case.
- After the conviction became final, Linder filed an application for writ of habeas corpus attacking the conviction and/or restraint as unlawful; the trial court denied relief.
- Linder appealed from the denial of habeas relief to the court of appeals.

## Issues

1. Whether the trial court erred in denying habeas corpus relief where Linder claimed his conduct was justified by an affirmative defense of mistake of law under Tex. Penal Code § 8.03.
2. Whether Linder’s claimed reliance on an 1873 Supreme Court case and on local practice satisfied § 8.03’s requirement that the defendant reasonably rely on an “official statement of the law.”
3. Whether Linder’s rearrest of the bond jumper was unauthorized because he was not specially named in the arrest warrant as required for a private person to execute it.

## Decision

- The court of appeals affirmed the order denying habeas corpus relief.
- The court held that Linder was not entitled to relief based on mistake of law because § 8.03 requires reliance on a qualifying “official statement of the law,” and Linder’s asserted sources (older case law and informal custom) did not meet that statutory requirement.
- The court reiterated that Texas statutes governing surrender of a principal and execution of arrest warrants required Linder to be specially named (or otherwise properly directed) to execute the warrant; because he was not, the arrest was unauthorized.

## Legal Principles

- A Texas mistake-of-law defense under Tex. Penal Code § 8.03 is available only when the defendant reasonably relies on a qualifying “official statement of the law,” as defined by the statute.
- Reliance on outdated authority from another jurisdiction, or on informal practice and prior nonprosecution, does not by itself satisfy § 8.03’s “official statement” requirement.
- Texas statutory procedure governs a surety’s surrender of a principal, including the conditions under which force may be used and the use of an arrest warrant for surrender.
- Under Texas warrant-execution statutes, when a private person (not a peace officer) is to execute an arrest warrant, that person must be specially named (or the warrant must otherwise lawfully direct that person to execute it); absent that, an arrest made under the warrant is unauthorized.
- On collateral review, a habeas applicant bears the burden to show the restraint is unlawful; the writ is not granted merely because the applicant believed his conduct was lawful.

## Conclusion

In *Linder v. State*, 779 S.W.2d 520 (Tex. App.—Waco 1989, pet. ref’d), the court affirmed denial of post-conviction habeas relief to a bail bondsman convicted of kidnapping after he seized and transported a bond jumper under an arrest warrant that did not name him as an authorized executor. The court rejected Linder’s mistake-of-law theory because Tex. Penal Code § 8.03 requires reasonable reliance on a qualifying official statement of the law, and reliance on an 1873 Supreme Court decision and local custom did not satisfy that standard.


Linder v. State, 779 S.W.2d 520 (1989)