Virginia’s abuser fees have been in place for just under a month now, but their impact has not been felt in the Court system yet, largely because most tickets written even in early July don’t usually make it into court for a few weeks.
Well, that’s about to change:
They have been trickling into courtrooms across Virginia in recent days. But this week, next week and week after week after that, thousands of traffic cases that carry steep new civil penalties will slam the state’s judicial system.
All summer, the political upset has been growing over new and higher fees for the most egregious driving offenses, fees that in some cases run as high as $3,000. But the practical effect is about to hit even harder, and judges and court clerks predict an unprecedented wave of trials, appeals, strategies and anger as they begin to hear cases subject to the new law.
“They’re picking up,” said Nancy L. Lake, clerk of the Fairfax County General District Court, who is expecting the current few cases to grow to as many as hundreds a day in coming weeks.
“August is not going to be a pretty month, and when we get into September, we’re going to be slammed,” she said.
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Whatever one’s view about whether such offenders should pay the steep fines, lawyers, clerks and judges are predicting mayhem when the offenders show up in court.
“There’s going to be a lot of sticker shock from a lot of people who don’t realize it applies to them, even with all the publicity,” said Corinne Magee, a lawyer in Fairfax City who is representing someone charged with driving while intoxicated in Spotsylvania County. “I think a lot of these guys are going to walk in without lawyers, get nailed and then call a lawyer after the fact and try to appeal.”
Donald P. McDonough, chief judge of Fairfax County’s General District Court, predicted a “profound effect” on the county’s traffic dockets. The clerk’s office is required to collect the first of three annual installments from convicted offenders (the others are collected by the Department of Motor Vehicles). McDonough predicted longer waits to pay fines — not to mention longer waits to be heard in court. With the volume of cases going to trial likely to grow, cases are going to be delayed for days or longer, he said.
“We have only so much time and so many resources,” he said, adding that District judges will gather for their annual conference next month, and he has “every confidence” that the event will be “buzzing” over how to handle the new fees.
The rebellion continues……..
July 29th, 2007 at 3:45 pm
I can guarantee you they’re going to do the same thing that Michigan judges have been doing, REDUCING the charges so that these people do not end up getting the fee. Our judges are so disgusted by out driver tax law that they refuse to accept guilty pleas in all but the most extreme cases. They do it because they have no power to lower the fee, so they just avoid it. (Read Tim Craigs report from last week with statement from MI. Judge William Buhl, for proof) He was on woodtv news 8 even when they went to his courtroom and he reduced the charge for a guy who got caught on a suspended license because of failure to pay fees.
And like I said in my last comment, these two public defender attorneys are going to lose next week. The ones who are in the middle of it told me they did contact Atty. Guikema in Michigan and discussed his brief that he filed in the Sup. court, and apparently they think their 1 little argument will work, but I say they’re wrong and they’re moving too fast without thinking things through. You read of their incompetence already in jumping the ball by not filing their argument in the Circuit court, instead the judge had to tell them that his district court was not the place. And some atty. even filed a motion WITHOUT having a client, which you cannot do.
And even on the 1% chance the judge does hear it the attys. way, what’s to stop the legislature from waving their magic pen and amending the law to include out of state drivers? Then all the sudden you have this law BACK on the books again, and you’ve accomplished nothing but equal punishment for all drivers, when you were trying to kill the whole thing! That’s why I say their motion is going to fail, and they’re going to have to keep revising their appeals for the next 3 years all the way to you supreme court, like in our case in Michigan. Because their 1 “equal protection” argument is WEAK.