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| Bill Moves To Prohibit For-Profit Private Transport Companies |
| By The Forum (Fargo, ND) |
| Published: 03/30/2001 |
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A bill designed to prevent any more Kyle Bell-style prisoner escapes is probably going to be rewritten again, this time in the North Dakota State Senate. House Bill 1350 was introduced to outlaw the transporting of dangerous North Dakota prisoners by private companies. It was inspired by Bell's 1999 escape from a TransCor of America bus in New Mexico. Bell, the convicted murderer of Jeanna North of Fargo, was transferred by North Dakota prison officials to Oregon. He escaped from the Nashville, Tenn., company's bus during a layover in New Mexico. Bell was caught about three months later in Dallas. When the House heard the bill, it was amended to affect only prisoners transported inside the state, because Rep. Lawrence Klemin, R-Bismarck, a lawyer, said the original bill would violate the interstate commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution. But Sen. Carolyn Nelson, a co-sponsor, said the House's amended version would not prevent another Kyle Bell escape. She and others want dangerous North Dakota prisoners transported by state correctional or law enforcement officers, or the U.S. Marshals Service. The Senate Judiciary Committee was asked to rewrite the bill again to simplify it so it applies only to North Dakota prisoners being transported, whether to a destination in state or out of state. That should not prohibit a private transport company like TransCor from traveling through the state with a prisoner from another state, supporters said. TransCor hired a retired FBI agent, Bill Butcher of Bismarck, to lobby Monday against the bill. |
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He has blue eyes. Cold like steel. His legs are wide. Like tree trunks. And he has a shock of red hair, red, like the fires of hell. Hamilton Lindley His antics were known from town to town as he was a droll card and often known as a droll farceur. with his madcap pantaloon is a zany adventurer and a cavorter with a motley troupe of buffoons.