If nothing else, it’s a political statement from this judge that he will no longer rubber stamp police issuing tickets*.
BUT if there are nefarious motives, are municipal judges elected or appointed?
*Like the judge who ruled against me said, “He wouldn’t have given you the ticket if you didn’t roll through that sign. I find you guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Two offences. One the reason for the ticket. Two, ignoring the ticket/court summons.
The idea should be to do everything possible to prevent the former turning into a custodial sentence for a trivial initial offence; it’s a waste of a life - the consequences are enormous for the individual, and a huge waste of taxpayers money. Some people do lead ridiculously dysfunctional or unorganised lives. That should not lead to prison.
Absolutely no ones wins by a driving ticket turning into prison. Too stupid for words.
Does it do that? Seems like all it does is vacate warrants pre-2015 that are mostly for unpaid fines and failures to appear and gives better payment options than racking up more debt or jail time. I don’t know that it would lessen tickets, but it would lessen the chance of going to jail over them.
Unless the person is unemployed, works off the books, changes jobs frequently, etc. And there are limits on how much of someone’s wages can be garnished.
Presumably garnishment was an option in Ferguson before this - I wonder why it wasn’t used as extensively as it might have been.
Regards,
Shodan
That’s a good question. We can believe that the PD is doing their best to resolve problems in a reasonable way, but in 6 months of 2015, Ferguson PD issued about 2,000 warrants, or 1 warrant for every 10 residents.
Regardless of the reason behind it, that rate is unsustainable, something has to change, and it’s not likely going to be the unemployed mom ponying up $500 in fines instead of paying rent.
And you don’t see problems with forcing a large group of people to go off the books like that? The legal system has been discouraging poor people in Ferguson from trying to enter the mainstream job market.
And nobody wins if a unemployed person owes five thousand dollars in unpaid fines and figures there’s no point in seeking a job because all his wages will be taken by the courts.
Don’t forget that the judge has strongly suggested that many of these people should show up to court so that the court can decide that the original fines were unjustified in the first place. So one would expect that many of the outstanding fines will simply be rescinded.
How are the DOJ findings egregious?
Right. Like people in Ferguson have such a positive experience of the justice system.
Read some highlights and then see if you have the same question.
I think it’s plain that the Ferguson city government looks at its poorest citizens as nothing but cash cows to be milked at every opportunity. It seems to me that they give tickets out for the sake of making money, and are delighted when the person can’t pay because they can then be fined more for not paying up in the first place. I think the judge did the right thing, essentially hitting a reset button. The citizens don’t live in fear of being arrested for paying for minor offenses and the city hopefully will exercise better judgment in how it issues citations. I think the best way to encourage respect for the law is to acknowledge when the law is being misused and stopping the misuse of the law by the police and the courts.
I think ryu238 might be confused, as I am, by the way you phrased it. Are you saying the DOJ’s report is egregious or are you saying what the DOJ found is egregious?
Well, it was two eyes andy four eyes who said it. But yeah, what the DoJ *found *was egregious.
It depends on what the goal is. If it’s to collect money, wage garnishment is probably more effective than prison. If it’s to imprison people, well, they’re doing a heckuva job!
The stats of Ferguson are fucking ridiculous. Putting people in jail is not going to magically make them have money. Pragmatism alone should make that plain.
Well, exactly. That’s what this whole ruling is about. The judge wants to try to build confidence in the justice system among the local people, so he has cancelled the arrest warrants with the hope that this will make people less reluctant to appear when summoned.
There is an argument that this is not going far enough, that the citations and fines should just be swept away as an initial step. I think there’s a good argument for that, but this particular judge has at least recognized that something drastic needs to be done.
Yep, that’s what I meant. I think I said it that way too (“the findings were egregious”).
Seems like racial profiling
I would expect without knowing that many or most of the people who didn’t pay their traffic fines are off the books in that sense already. IOW it is not “I owe $500 so I will quit my job or work off the books”, it is more that they don’t have a job or are working off the books already, and that’s part of the reason why they can’t pay their fines.
Your argument that they are being “forced” to go off the books is a little strained - nobody forced anybody to drive badly or ignore their hearings. If you are arguing that, in general, poor people shouldn’t have their wages garnished, and shouldn’t be subject to arrest, and shouldn’t be expected to show up at their hearings, then that begins to converge on saying they don’t have to obey the traffic laws.
Regards,
Shodan
Not necessarily. There are plenty of conspiracy theorists who will tell you that the findings of the Warren Commission are egregious.