April 5, 2002
This Advisory Opinion concerns the following issue as formulated from facts and/or circumstances furnished by a requestor. The Commission approved this opinion on April 5, 2002, basing its approval solely on the facts and circumstances stated herein.
May the brother of a county deputy sheriff write bail bonds for defendants housed by the county sheriff’s department employing the deputy sheriff/brother?
State law restricts the Mississippi Ethics Commission to interpreting and issuing opinions on Sections 25-4-101 through 25-4-119, 1972 Mississippi Code Annotated and Article IV, Section 109, Mississippi Constitution of 1890.Therefore, this opinion does not address the Mississippi laws outside the Commission’s jurisdiction nor the governmental entity’s internal rules and regulations.
The pertinent conflict of interest laws to be considered here are:
Code Section 25-4-101
states:
“The legislature declares that elective and public office and employment is a public trust and any effort to realize personal gain through official conduct, other than as provided by law, or as a natural consequence of the employment or position, is a violation of that trust.Therefore, public servants shall endeavor to pursue a course of conduct which will not raise suspicion among the public that they are likely to be engaged in acts that are in violation of this trust and which will not reflect unfavorably upon the state and local governments.”
Code Section 25-4-103(e),
(f)(i)(ii), (g)(i), (h), (p)(i)(ii)(iii) and (q) states:
“(e) ‘Compensation’ mean money or thing of value received, or to be received, from any person for services rendered.(f) ‘Contract’ means:
(i) Any agreement to which the government is a party; or(ii) Any agreement on behalf of the government which involves the payment of public funds.
(g) ‘Governmental’ means the state and all political entities thereof, both collectively and separately, including but not limited to:
(i) Counties.
(h) ‘Governmental entity’ means the state, a county, a municipality or any other separate political subdivision authorized by law to exercise a part of the sovereign power of the state.(p) ‘Public servant’ means:
(i) Any elected or appointed official of the government;(ii) Any officer, director, commissioner, supervisor, chief, head, agent or employee of the government or any agency thereof, or of any public entity created by or under the laws of the State of Mississippi or created by an agency or governmental entity thereof, any of which is funded by public funds or which expends, authorizes or recommends the use of public funds; or
(iii) Any individual who receives a salary, per diem or expenses paid in whole or in part out of funds authorized to be expended by the government.
(q) ‘Relative’ means the spouse, child or parent.”
Pertinent facts and circumstances provided by the requestor, absent
identifying data, are set forth as follows and considered a part of this
opinion.
I am writing concerning another matter.My Brother is a Deputy Sheriff, and I am concern about whether or not will this be a conflict of interest, because he is working there.I stay in my house and he in his and we hardly ever see each other.I do not wish to do anything wrong or illegal to affect this association.
The Commission’s staff contacted the requestor who clarified the above issue addressing his ability to write bail bonds to the county sheriff’s department that currently employs his brother as deputy sheriff.
Based solely on the facts and circumstances presented by the requestor, the Commission’s opinion is as follows.
The conflict of interest laws do not prohibit the brother of a deputy sheriff from writing bail bonds for defendants housed by the county sheriff’s department employing the deputy sheriff/ brother.
There are circumstances where the spouse, parent or child of a law enforcement official will be prohibited by the conflict of interest laws from serving as a bail agent for a public servant’s relative’s governmental entity.However, these circumstances are limited to the spouse, parent or child of the public servant as they are the only kinship included in the definition of “relative” set forth in Code Section 25-4-103(g), as cited above.
The issue presented by the requestor also must be viewed as it relates to Code Section 25-4-101, set forth above.This code section sets the tone for the conflict of interest laws as the Legislature’s “Declaration of Public Policy.”This public policy can be summarized as any circumstance having the potential of creating suspicion among the public and reflecting unfavorably upon the state or local government should be closely reviewed by public servants with the intent to reduce or eliminate any suspicion on the part of the public which detracts from the public’s trust in state or local government.
Clearly, a deputy sheriff’s brother acting as an agent for a bail bonding company that provides bail bonds to individuals being held in the county jail of the county employing his brother has the potential of creating suspicion among the public and reflecting unfavorably upon the county.
Therefore the individual, in his role as a bail bonds agent, must be careful to avoid situations which might cause the public concern while dealing with the county that employs his brother or a deputy sheriff.
Scott Rankin