CALIFORNIA court leaders voted unanimously on Monday, June 8 to a rule change allowing drivers to contest traffic violations without first paying for them.
The rule, requested by Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye, will bar local courts from charging drivers bail before they can challenge traffic tickets.
The emergency rule, adopted by the state Judicial Council, takes effect immediately statewide. Courts will have to change their notices to the public to say that no one will be required to pay upfront as a condition of a hearing on a ticket.
The Judicial Council, which makes policies, took action in a telephone conference that could be heard live on the court’s website.
Chief Justice Cantil-Sakauye called the action “historic.” She proposed the change three weeks ago, and in court time, the gathering of public comments and the overall vote were extremely fast.
“It was only a first step,” she said. “It will not help the thousands of drivers who have lost their licenses or have accumulated huge fines because of an inability to pay.”
A routine traffic ticket in the state of California now costs about $500, and that amount escalates rapidly when payment deadlines are missed.
Several courts throughout the state have been requiring drivers to post bail—usually by paying the cost of the ticket upfront—before they could have a trial to challenge it.
San Bernardino County Presiding Judge Marsha G. Slough, a member of the council, called the new rule “one step that could be quickly taken for the good…and others will be taken.”
Civil liberty advocates have argued the current “pay-to-play” system unfairly targeted minorities and the poor. The American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California says that people of color receive the most traffic violations on record, and are also the least able to afford them.
In her appeal, Cantil-Sakuye cited a report by the San Francisco-based Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights called “Not Just a Ferguson Problem – How Traffic Courts Drive Inequality in California,” which noted that over 4 million Californians have lost their driver’s licenses because they cannot afford to pay increasingly high traffic fines. This also proves a fiscal problem for the trail courts, which are unable to collect delinquent traffic debts.
The directive allows for some exceptions, but requires courts statewide to give traffic defendants ample notice of their direct options. Under the new rule, traffic defendants can appear for arraignment and trial in traffic cases without depositing bail. After they receive a ticket, drivers are supposed to be notified in the mail of the ticket fine and the date they must appear if they want to challenge it.
Exceptions to the rule include cases where a defendant does not sign a written promise to appear as required by the court, if the court finds that the defendant is unlikely to appear without paying bail, or if the defendant chooses to pay a bail deposit and plead not guilty in lieu of appearing in person.
“The traffic infraction penalty consists of a fine that is then quadruped by all the fees that have nothing to do with the person’s culpability,” said Christine Sun of the ACLU of Northern California. “Folks of color are disproportionately stopped for traffic citations, and they are now paying for things that the state general fund should cover.”
Nearly 5 million drivers have had their licenses suspended because of an inability to pay, and “the bulk of them are people who didn’t appear the first time,” said Michael Herald, a legislative advocate for the Western Center on Law & Poverty. These people have flocked to legal service programs for help.
Aides to the Judicial Council said the problem is complex, and the emergency rule may be only the first step in a long process before the California legislature.
Courts have until Sept. 15 to give public notice of the option.
“I wanted to make certain that Californians would not have to pay for a traffic infraction before appearing in their court,” Cantil-Sakauye said. “I’m proud of the rule that’s been developed. This is an important first step to address an urgent access to justice issue.” (With reports from Los Angeles Times, CBS LA, and Courthouse News Service)
(LA Midweek June 10 – 12, 2015 Sec. A pg.1)
