Today's Crime Scenes article describes the winners and losers in police-related legislation passed by the just-concluded General Assembly. I forgot to mention (well, actually, it didn't quite fit) one bill important to law enforcement.
When you get a speeding ticket, you no longer automatically get a court date assigned. Instead, if you want to contest the citation, you have to request a court date. It seems a small change (and it prompted lots of debate -- see my colleague Mike Dresser's Getting There blog and some of his columns).
For police, it should cut down on the number of no-shows in court. Too often, they said, cops were forced to attend hearings automatically set up but that the ticket recipients had no intention of attending. Now, hopefully with the burden on them to make the appointment, only the people who really want to contest the fines will show up.
Savings in overtime run into the millions.
Kristen Mahoney, who heads the Governor's Office of Crime Control and Prevention, gave me permission to reprint her e-mail to me (and following that is a fact sheet from a local law enforcement agency):
FYI, the traffic citation bill passed too. This may have been the most important law enforcement bill statewide. If you recall, it is the bill that makes defendants request trials, rather than automatically be assigned them. Last year, 28% of defendants in over 200,000 traffic cases failed to show; though police and sheriffs deputies were there waiting for trial. This bill has the potential, conservatively, to save local law enforcement over $16 million in court overtime and officer down time in court.
It also was a legislative priority of the Maryland Municipal League.
Why I loved the bill so much? Well, I worked on the Court Liaison program when I was with BPD and we cut court overtime in one year from $5 to $2 million....doing things like this...common sense government reorganization. I saw this bill as an opportunity to do that statewide. In times of fiscal distress, when we have to reduce state aid for police protection, we need to look for other chances to offset those reductions. I think this bill does that, and I think the Maryland Municipal League, Chiefs Association and Sheriffs Association would tell you the same. It's not a law and order bill, but it ultimately will have that impact.
The Courts resisted, citing a $250,000 cost to reprogram their computers to accommodate this potential $16 million savings. GOCCP is using recovery act funding to support the court computer reprogramming. I think that is part two of the story---recovery act funding can be inserted in places like this to help offset high overtime costs and make permanent changes to impact the system and expenditures.
The attached fact sheet was created by Charles County Sheriff. I am sure they would be fine with me passing it along to you. We passed it out in Annapolis during our hearings. This bill has been introduced for 3 years and we finally got it through.
Here are some addition details:
HB 829/SB 560 will:
Reduce the number of traffic court appearances required by officers
Save overtime cost of officers in court
Keep more police officers on the street and out of court unnecessarily
Not diminish a violator's ability to contest a payable traffic citation
Significantly reduce the mailing cost for the District Court
Make District Court scheduling more efficient
Currently in Maryland if a violator receives a payable traffic citation, they have three options. Those are:
1. Pay the pre-set fine
2. Request a hearing to plead guilty with an explanation (officer's attendance not required)
3. Do nothing and receive a court/trial date
During FY 09, over 274,000 violators statewide failed to appear in Maryland District Court for payable traffic citations. In every case an officer was required to appear.
HB 829/SB 560 would only affect the third option. The new law requires a violator to affirmatively request a court date. If a violator fails to exercise an option, MVA receives information. Everything else remains unchanged.
The proposed legislation would still provide the violator of a payable traffic citation with three options:
1. Pay the pre-set fine
2. Request a hearing to plead guilty with an explanation (officer's attendance not required)
3. Request a court/trial date
No other state automatically schedules a trial date on a payable traffic citation without some action by the violator. Many states require the violator to post a fine or bond even if contesting the citation. In many states a failure to appear in traffic court on a payable offense results in a license suspension and an arrest warrant being issued for the violator.
The proposed legislation would not change current arrest law relative to payable traffic citations. If a violator ignores the citation completely the result is a driver's license suspension.
The following are police agencies in Maryland from whom we have gathered information regarding court overtime expenditures for September 2009. The total cost for these sixteen reporting agencies is $416,348.59 for one month only.
Charles County Sheriff's Office
$5,941.65 (payable traffic citations)
Harford County Sheriff's Office
$5,675.82 (payable traffic citations)
Calvert County Sheriff's Office
$5,110.56 (all traffic court)
Carroll County Sheriff's Office
$5,480.00 (payable traffic citations)
Washington County Sheriff's Office
$3,139.52 (payable traffic citations)
St. Mary's County Sheriff's Office
$4,265.07 (payable traffic citations)
Wicomico County Sheriff's Office
$2,202.14 (payable traffic citations)
Baltimore County Police
$19,975.80 (payable traffic citations)
Anne Arundel County Police
$18,597.00* (all traffic court)
* This cost does not reflect compensatory time, which many officers select in lieu of overtime.
Annapolis Police Department
$9,112.00 (overtime for District Court)
Howard County Police
$43,416.00 (payable traffic citations)
Montgomery County Police
$122,504.00 (all traffic court)
Maryland State Police
$21,517.46* (all traffic court)
*This figure includes all overtime.
Maryland Transportation Authority Police
$17,737.73 (all traffic court)
Baltimore Police Department
$427,839.00 (overtime for all court)
Prince George's County Police Department
$131,246.00 (all traffic court)