While a "calamity of human and institutional errors" occurred in the bonding and release of Bricen Rivers before his then-girlfriend Lauren Johansen was killed in Mississippi, the companies that posted his bond did not violate any rules, a panel of six judges ruled in an order published Monday.
The Nashville criminal court judges identified nine concerns with the bonding, release and GPS monitoring process that they believe need to be improved or corrected. Rivers, 23, is charged with murder in connection with the death of year-old Johansen in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.
Rivers posted bond on June 24 after being held nearly seven months in a Nashville jail on several charges, including aggravated kidnapping, related to what police described as a bloody attack on Johansen while the pair was visiting Nashville from Mississippi in December Johansen's father and much of the Nashville community blamed her death on different aspects of Davidson County's justice system from the bonding companies to the clerk's office and sheriff's office.
In a special hearing on Aug. Brooke Harlan, owner of Brooke's Bail Bonding, said she was happy with the ruling. Agents of the two bonding companies signed the order that bound Rivers to those conditions on June 4, but they never saw the conditions.
That was the first concern the judges pointed out. Weeks later on June 24, when the bonding companies actually paid the bond and Rivers was released from jail, neither the Davidson County Sheriff's Office nor the bonding companies received a copy of the conditions from the State Warrant and Bond Office. This was one of the points of concern for the judges, who also noted that the clerk's office implemented safeguards to prevent this happening again.
