My co-worker went out during lunch to pay the $150 bail(?) for an outstanding arrest warrant (New Jersey, USA). No legal advice needed here since she is already taking care of the problem.
I just want to know how this can happen and why is it allowed.
She said a red-light-camera ticket was mailed to her house some weeks back, but it was delivered to her neighbor. Her neighbor gave it to her yesterday, and when she tried to pay it online, she found out that it was past due.
She called the court clerk’s office and they told her that a warrant was already issued for her arrest because she did not pay her ticket. She was advised to come in and pay her bail.
Explain to me how this can happen, especially if the ticket was not mailed via certified or registered mail. How can they hold her accountable for something that they failed to notify her about? I hope that this is a simple blunder where the judge will look at a signed statement from the neighbor, laugh, and say “this happens all the time” and make things right, but …
I imagine that they would say “if we let people slide on the payment date by saying they didn’t get the ticket, then everyone would throw them in the trash”
But then they would have to come up with a more reliable means of notifying the person, wouldn’t they? If the ticketing authorities aren’t accountable for guaranteeing delivery, than what’s to keep the city/state from simply shredding a certain percentage of the tickets and slamming the unknowing victims with terrible fines and fees for tickets they never knew about?
They’re only getting away with it in this case because your co-worker decided not to fight a $150.00 fine/bail/whatever. If she had been arrested and taken before a judge, she could have easily used that as her defense, and it would be up to the judge to decide if that was a good reason for not paying the ticket in the first place.
Many years ago when I worked in insurance underwriting, we were required to maintain a ledger that detailed when and to whom we mailed policy cancellations. That was our backup for the ‘we never received it’ argument. I would imagine they have a similar procedure.
Yes, but just because you sent it doesn’t mean they received it- sure someone could use that as an excuse, but it could be legit.
I always thought the people on Cops were full of it when they siad they had no idea there was a warrant out for them, now reading the OP I see its possible.
My local DJ sends the first one via mail. A few weeks later she sends it registered so that she gets a receipt. If both are ignored, a warrant is issued. If the receipt is signed, you have a few weeks before the warrant is issued.
They can only do so much before they drop the hammer. Should your friend have challenged the ticket? Probably. But it’s easier in most cases to pay the extortion and make it go away.
Of course it could be legit. But the claim of not receiving it, legit or no, is not fully relevant. Is that a fair outlook? of course not, but it is life.
A similar thing happened to my sister-in-law a few months ago. She got a speeding ticket outside of Bakersfield by the CA Highway Patrol and they mailed her the info. She paid the ticket and sent it back to the address listed on the ticket. They cashed her check. :dubious:
Months later she was in a minor fender bender and when the cop checked her licence he said it had been suspended for failure to pay the outstanding speeding ticket. :eek: It turns out she was supposed to mail the bail to a different address then the one listed on the ticket!
She had to send another $150 check to the new address and apply for a refund for the original check that had previously been cashed. What a mess… our tax dollars at work!
True, but it doesn’t seem right that someone stopped for speeding can be hauled down to jail becasue of a mail delivery probelm, especially if the warrant was for something trivial.
I knew a professional driver who lost his job due to a situation like this. The DMV screwed up and suspended his license over an unpaid ticket that was actually paid. The guy never received notice of his suspension. He learned about it when his employer ran his license, discovered the suspension, and fired him. Amazingly, he was able to get a letter from the DMV admitting that the whole thing was their fault. However, the employer still wouldn’t give him his job back.
Really, there ought to be a way for ordinary citizens to check for problems like this in the same way that you can get a free credit report.
I imagine that that particular DMV/court was able to issue a warrant (based on a mailed ticket) without a return/receipt required because the statute that they are operating under does not require a return receipt.
If so, you can get petitions signed and try to get that statute amended.
I agree with the registered mail/return receipt 100%. We have to remember this isn’t a speeding ticket type incident where the person gets pulled over and had face time with the officer. This is for an infraction that the person didn’t even know they commited (well, didn’t know they got caught commiting). Since they weren’t expecting the ticket in the mail, they had no reason to wonder why they hadn’t received it.
All that said…
If something gets passed saying that registered mail/return receipt is required, I think it’s safe to assume that on top of the fine there will be another charge for mailing it this way. Last time I mailed something that way I think it cost about $4.50. I think it’s safe to assume the police department would tack on an extra $10-$20 for that. Then they’ll have to listen to everyone complain about that. They’d probably rather listen to one or two people a year that don’t get the ticket then most everyone who gets a ticket calling up to complain about the extra fees.
I know exactly why agencies that issue tickets by mail don’t use registered mail. Many of the folks that are going to get one know it, that flash from the camera as they drive through the intersection is a pretty good clue. When the little card comes from the post office stating you have a registered letter, what does the person do? Ignore it? Yep. My sister in law works for a city that has a couple red light cameras, they tried using registered mail but had so many refused deliveries they started using regular mail. The city saw a dramatic improvement in number of the tickets paid on time.
Similar thing happenned to me and fucked me over twice.
I had an unpaid parking ticket. A PARKING ticket for pity’s sake. At the time time I was living with my father but I was moving out in a few weeks and was taking a trip out of state within days of the fine. I left money for my dad to pay the ticket, left on my vacation, forgot all about it. When I returned, my dad also took a vacation to see fmaily for a couple of months, and I packed up and left.
I don’t know if my dad threw out any incoming notices about the unpaid ticket, I don’t know if he paid it in the first place, sent the check to wrong address, I don’t know what happenned, but this was a non-event in my mind sine I hadn’t seen any warnings in the mail.
A year goes by and I’m haging out with a friend (I haven’t been driving since school is in NYC and I couldn’t afford a card besides), when some cops decide to randomly stop and ask us questions. Friendly enough, we answer them and he asks for ID. I give him mine thinking nothing of it, next I know I’m handcuffed and in the back of the squad car FOR A FRIGGIN’ $30 PARKING TICKET (Which by the magic of beuracratic billing had grown to $300 in fines).
So I get to spend 4 hours in a cell until my friend comes up with the money to bail me.
One year later I’m applying for my citenzenship, and the incompetent officer refuses to pass my application because of that arrest, even though it does not qualify as, well, anything at all it’s a non-event and should have no bearing on my application (I should had a lawyer with me!), and requires me to find some sort of record of the arrest.
Problem is - there is none. The county which issued the warrant says they have NOTHING in the record, neither does the station that had me in jail! How do they not keep records of who’s been in there?!
Return receipt is $2.15 if you do it with the green slip that gets mailed back. If you just want a scan and PDF of the signature emailed to you, it’s a whopping 85 cents. Certified mail is $2.65, and it can be combined with a return receipt, for $4.70. Certified mail alone provides proof of mailing, as well as date and time of delivery/attempted delivery. Return receipt alone does not certify the sending of the letter, but does provide a signature of the person who picked received the letter.
In many states, proof of service by deposit into the mail is sufficient to establish a presumption in a number of cases that the item so served was received. The alleged recipient is required to establish that it wasn’t actually received, sometimes difficult to do. In Ohio, and some other states, camera-caught traffic violations are not criminal violations, but civil infractions, subject to non-criminal rules (fewer safeguards). Thus, it is quite possible that New Jersey has set up a system of handling camera-caught red light running infractions through service by mail, without the protection of normal criminal procedures.
Possibly, had the person in question challenged issuance of the increased fine by proving that it wasn’t properly delivered, she could have had the increased fine set aside. This probably would have required attendance by her neighbor at the court, to establish that the notice of the ticket did indeed get improperly delivered.
I find myself skeptical of the story, however. A neighbor receives a ticket in the mail from Redflex (or whichever company is handling the process for that municipality in New Jersey), doesn’t give it to the addressee for weeks, then just happens to hand it over? Color me suspicious that this is actually what happened. :dubious:
Ignoring it (or declining) is as good as signing and accepting. All the PD has to do is prove that they attempted to send it to you. When your court date rolls around and you say you never received it, they PD will produce the envelope, still sealed with a note from the mail man saying either you declined it or that they had attempted several times to deliver it but could not.
At least when I had to pursue people that bounced checks, that’s all I had to do. Prove that I attempted to send it to the last known address. Whether or not the person actually received it really didn’t matter as far as the police were concerned.
