Word: phoenixes
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...seemed like the plot of a very bad movie, but it wasn't, and before it was over Chris Foote and Spring Wright were dead. Five intruders in ski masks, two with body armor, stormed a three-bedroom bungalow in the Maryvale area of Phoenix, Ariz., at 4 a.m. one day last week, using a sledgehammer to bludgeon their way into the house. In one bedroom they found Louisa Sharrah and proceeded to bind her arms with plastic cuffs and strike her with a metal flashlight. The men woke her young children and held them at gunpoint as they screamed...
...Phoenix murders have turned a light onto a dark corner of the criminal-justice system. Bounty hunters are largely independent contractors hired by the nation's estimated $4 billion bail-bond industry to track down criminal defendants who jump bail. Lately, they have taken to calling themselves "bail-enforcement agents" or "fugitive-recovery agents." There are more than 10,000 nationwide, and last year they found tens of thousands of fugitives, generally taking home a fee of about 10% of the bail in question. The profession dates back in the U.S. to the days of the Wild West, when shorthanded...
...still sets the standard of conduct for many in the field but not the geographic boundaries; bounty hunters roam from Manhattan to Southern California, renegades of the American criminal-justice system. Incredibly, only a handful of states have licensing requirements for bounty hunters. "The business is wide open," says Phoenix bail agent Linda Ownbey. "Anybody can get in, and anything can happen...
...they have to observe constitutional niceties like Miranda warnings. An 1873 Supreme Court decision held that bounty hunters may pursue a defendant "into another State; may arrest him on the Sabbath; and, if necessary, may break and enter his house for that purpose." Says Arizona lawyer Gary Klahr: "In Phoenix, it's harder now to repossess a car--you're supposed to alert the police first--than it is to repossess a human being...
...Microsoft [BUSINESS, Aug. 18]. Apple has never sought to be Microsoft but rather to offer the world a wonderful alternative. The company has made great strides in the past year, and will be reaping the rewards in the near future. I predicted months ago that Apple would rise, phoenix-like, from the ashes of its recent past. Stay tuned. WAYNE BOVI Sandown...