A City Could Wipe Away 55,000 Old Warrants 1

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A City Could Wipe Away 55,000 Old Warrants

The New Orleans City Council last month passed a resolution calling for the dismissal of over 55,000 outstanding municipal and traffic warrants, along with their associated fines and fees. The oldest are two decades old. SHUTTERSTOCK

By Emma Coleman | NOVEMBER 11, 2019 03:50 PM ET

More than 44,000 people in New Orleans have warrants for traffic Most Popular violations and what advocates call “crimes of poverty.” City leaders The New First Responder Crisis: say the system needs to be overhauled. 1 Not Enough Dispatchers

FINES AND FEES CRIMINAL JUSTICE NEW ORLEANS In the One State that Tested the 2 Census, Concerns About Reaching Hard-to-Count Residents

In Most States, Child Marriage is One in seven adults in New Orleans have a warrant out for their arrest for 3 Legal. Some Legislators Are Trying to Change That a traffic or municipal violation. In many cases, the warrants are for unpaid traffic fines or minor offenses like public drunkenness or disturbing the peace. Sign up for Route Fifty Today Your daily read on state and local government Now, some city leaders are saying their system is counterproductive—and Enter your email ripe for change.

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The New Orleans City Council last month passed a resolution calling for the Featured eBooks dismissal of over 55,000 outstanding municipal and traffic warrants, along SEARCH Connecting state and local government leaders with their associated fines and fees. The oldest are two decades old, and the total number accounts for more than 40% of all warrants in the city. If Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s office embraces the idea, more than 44,000 people would see relief.

Councilmember Jason Williams, who sponsored the resolution with the support of the nonprofit Stand With Dignity and the Orleans Public Defenders, said that the city’s court system, which is funded by fines and fees, places a disproportionate burden on poor residents. “New Orleans is not a large city, and we’re not a very affluent city,” he said. “If you visit traffic or municipal court on a given day, you’ll see folks from our poor communities. We’re basically extracting the little bit of wealth in those communities so that their residents can avoid jail.”

Researchers at the Vera Institute found that warrants in New Orleans often resulted because defendants were reluctant to show up for court hearings because they feared being jailed for not being able to pay, a concern that wasn’t necessarily warranted. Researchers found that judges didn’t lock people up when they explained in person that they couldn’t afford to immediately pay the fines levied against them. “But fear of being jailed on the spot … keeps many people who can’t pay away from court. And when people don’t show up to pay, judges typically issue warrants for failing to appear,” the report reads.

At New Orleans municipal court, the top five charges associated with warrants are nuisance crimes, or “crimes of poverty,” according to Orleans Public Defenders Chief of Trials Danny Engelberg. Citations for obstruction Recommended For You of a public place, disturbing the peace, public drunkenness, criminal trespassing, and simple possession of marijuana all led to a significant Don’t Make Intimate Violence Victims Look for Help number of warrants when those with tickets couldn’t pay the fees, or Ohio Considering Opposing Bills on Abortion didn’t show up in court. Reversal

“The criminal justice system shouldn’t be policing these crimes in the first Texas Will Use State Land for Homeless Camp place,” Engelberg said. “It’s distracting law enforcement from real issues.”

Cantrell’s administration—and specifically the city attorney’s office—holds the power to dismiss the warrants, but hasn’t said whether it will or not. The mayor’s office did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Engelberg said that he’s optimistic the city attorney will embrace the resolution. “The judges have said they want to do it, so I’m confident there’s the momentum to take action,” he said. “The city has really spoken in unison to get rid of them.”

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Engelberg said the public defender’s office already had been “chipping away” at the mountain of warrants by hosting warrant dismissal clinics. SEARCH Connecting state and local government leaders They brought judges to homeless shelters and other locations throughout the city, and most people who had their cases heard saw their warrants and fines erased. “We’d get hundreds of warrants vacated in a day, but we knew we could do this every day and not make a dent,” he said.

New Orleans is not the first city to dismiss warrants en masse. San Francisco dismissed 66,000 warrants in 2016, and Los Angeles erased two million warrants and minor citations last month.

Though police in these cities weren’t actively looking for those with warrants, they’re often discovered during traffic stops or other encounters with law enforcement. Even if jail time would never have been suggested for the original crime, the inability to pay becomes a jailable offense, Williams explained. “We did away with debtors’ prisons in the 1830s in name only,” he said. “If you can’t find the money to pay your fine you can end up in jail.”

That’s why Williams also sponsored a related measure requiring judges to use ability to pay assessments before levying fines on city residents, which also passed the city council.

Ability to pay determinations are relatively simple, explained Lisa Foster, co-director of the Fines and Fees Justice Center. “The amount it takes to deter Bill Gates from running a stop sign is much more than it takes to deter a low-income person,” she said. “So you find what makes sense for each person.”

While many local jurisdictions have experimented with making these kind of evaluations a requirement for courts, state legislatures haven’t taken as much action on the issue. Joanna Weiss, the other co-director of the FFJC, said it makes sense for cities to act now instead of waiting on state lawmakers.

Two federal appellate court rulings that found the city’s court systems dependence on fines and fees to be unconstitutional forced the city to act on the new requirement, Williams said. “We had to change,” he said. “But it’s also morally and fiscally sound to evaluate how much is reasonable for each person.”

Researchers in some cases have found that imposing fees without an evaluation of a defendant’s ability to pay is counterproductive. “The practice leads to wasted resources, as efforts to secure payment from individuals who may be unemployed, homeless, or simply too poor to pay are often fruitless,” reads one report from Harvard Law School’s Criminal Justice Policy Program.

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Williams said that the warrant dismissal and ability to pay determinations are just the beginning. He next wants to push to dismiss warrants at SEARCH Connecting state and local government leaders criminal court and focus on communicating to the public what the city is doing. “If you change a law and don’t make people aware of it, you haven’t changed how it affects people’s lives,” he said. “I think this is the most important work we’ve done as a city because of the impact it can have on everyday people.”

Emma Coleman is the assistant editor for Route Fifty.

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By Emma Coleman | NOVEMBER 7, 2019

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STATE AND LOCAL ROUNDUP | Recanvass in Kentucky governor’s race … Montgomery rejects proposal to criminalize giving money to SEARCH Connecting state and local government leaders homeless people … Sioux Falls legalizes beekeeping.

STATE AND LOCAL ROUNDUP

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio is facing criticism for his pick to replace former Police Commissioner James O’Neill, who resigned last week. De Blasio selected Dermot Shea, now the third white Irish-American police commissioner in a row. Critics are questioning why de Blasio did not select the second-highest-ranking police official, Benjamin Tucker, a black deputy commissioner who has been passed over for the top job once before. Councilmember Donovan J. Richards, a Democrat, said that de Blasio missed an opportunity to diversify the city’s leadership. “We were looking for leadership that has that lived experience. Even with all the good will that O’Neill and Shea have, they have not experienced stop and frisk. Their children have not experienced stop and frisk,” he said. State Rep. Catalina Cruz, a Democrat from Queens, aired her frustration on Most Popular

Twitter. “At a time when the relationship between police and Women Still Underrepresented in 1 Elected Office at All Levels of communities of color couldn’t be worse—we chose yet another white Government, Report Says guy? What gives?” she wrote. De Blasio defended his choice, saying that The Imperfect Art of Tracking police leadership would be more diverse in the future. “Everyone has to 2 Local Government Financial understand that this particular job, when it comes down to it, we’re Stress asking one human being to do an extraordinary set of things and that’s In Most States, Child Marriage is 3 Legal. Some Legislators Are a special calling,” he said. While white officers are in the minority of the Trying to Change That patrol ranks in the city’s police department, leadership is disproportionately white. De Blasio campaigned on structural change in the police department, including diversifying its ranks. Shea said he will target gang-related violence in his time as commissioner. “Every New Yorker deserves to be safe and feel safe, and that has been my mission since I took the oath and became a police officer 28 years ago. As police commissioner, this will be what drives me,” he said. [ ABC 7 NY ; New York Times ]

KENTUCKY RECANVASS | Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin, a Republican whose challenger got 5,000 more votes in Tuesday’s election, has requested a recanvass of the results. A recanvass is different than a recount, and requires a review of the vote totals in each county. Bevin’s Sign up for Route Fifty Today campaign manager, Davis Paine, said that the election is too close to call. Your daily read on state and local government

“The people of Kentucky deserve a fair and honest election. With Enter your email reports of irregularities, we are exercising the right to ensure that every lawful vote was counted,” he said. Bevin’s campaign did not specify what irregularities they were referring to, and did not respond to Featured eBooks requests from several news outlets to clarify. Democrat Andy Beshear’s

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campaign manager said his candidate is already preparing for the transition. . “We hope that Matt Bevin honors the results of the SEARCH Connecting state and local government leaders recanvass, which will show he received fewer votes than Andy Beshear. As has been reported, a ‘recanvassing has never changed the result of a Kentucky election," Eric Hyers said. County boards of election will meet on November 14 to retotal their results. State law does not allow for a recount in governor’s races, although Bevin could contest the election. Joshua Douglas, a University of Kentucky election law professor, said Beshear’s vote margin is pretty solid. "I think the 5,000-vote differential out of 1.4 million cast—yeah, although it sounds small—is actually a pretty large amount when it comes to the likelihood of the vote totals changing in any of these post-election disputes," Douglas told NPR. . [WYMT ; USA Today ; NPR ]

PANHANDLING | The Montgomery City Council rejected a proposed ordinance that would have criminalized the act of giving money to panhandlers from a car. The measure in the Alabama city would have amended an ordinance passed earlier in the year that created a fine and at least two jail days for anyone who panhandles. That original ordinance passed unanimously, but wasn’t signed by the mayor and has not been enforced. The council voted unanimously to reject the new amendment. The Southern Poverty Law Center threatened to sue if the amendment wasn’t vetoed. Rev. Edward Nettles spoke against the proposal at the council meeting. "Panhandling may be an eyesore to the city, but it's survival to those who are on the streets. There are veterans. There are people out there at no fault of their own," he said. Councilmember Audrey Graham said that the amount of opposition convinced her to vote Recommended For You against the measure. "As I see the amount of people that are here today Don’t Make Intimate Violence Victims Look for and the concern, I wonder if we should deal with it more before we Help officially pass it," she said. [ Montgomery Advertiser ; ABC News ; Alabama Ohio Considering Opposing Bills on Abortion News Network ] Reversal

Texas Will Use State Land for Homeless Camp BEEKEEPING | The city council of Sioux Falls, South Dakota legalized beekeeping this week, replacing a ban on keeping bee hives within city limits with a regulated system that involves training requirements and permits. Proponents of the measure said that bees pose little risk to the public and provide a myriad of benefits to the local environment. Sioux Falls Animal Control Supervisor Julie DeJong said that her department will have to prepare for the change. "Currently animal control is not equipped or trained to take care of bee swarms. We will need to train our officers to be able to handle bees, and we'll have to buy bee suits and equipment,” Dejong said. The new law will require anyone who keeps bees on their property to obtain the written consent of their neighbors first, which Councilmember Christine Erickson said is extremely important. "This is very, very emotional and very, very real for people that do

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have bee allergies and making sure that they are communicated with and really the transparency of identifying where those homes and SEARCH Connecting state and local government leaders those risks are for their children is important," Erickson said.[ Argus Leader ; KSFY ]

CHILDREN’S CABINET | Baltimore Mayor Jack Young announced a new city cabinet department that will lead investments in programming for the city’s youth. The Baltimore Children’s Cabinet will include representatives from state and local agencies and its first missions will include addressing youth homelessness, food insecurity and the “historical barriers that prevent the success of boys and young men of color.” Tisha Edwards, the executive director of the Mayor’s Office of Children & Family Success, will lead the initiative. “These goals cast a broad net but accurately reflect the incredibly broad scope of work before us to make sure our young people have access to the opportunities, resources and supports they need and deserve. The work is really about addressing deep, institutional poverty in ways that will—and where we must—move the needle. We promise to deliver measurable outcomes for children and families in our city,” she said. [CBS Baltimore ; Baltimore Sun ]

Emma Coleman is the assistant editor for Route Fifty.