I am interested in persuading the district court and the RMV to allow this to happen at the clerk-magistrate's hearing before a complaint is issued. My reasons: (1) Offenses like unlicensed operation, attaching plates, uninsured, even operating after suspension, are often dismissed at arraignment upon payment of court costs. Without a guilty finding, no record for these offenses is transmitted to the RMV. Therefore, there are no license or insurance consequences, not even a record on the driver's history. Reducing the matter to a civil infraction would allow the clerk-magistrate to make a finding of responsible, impose a fine instead of court costs, and transmit a responsible finding to the RMV to begin some sort of RMV entry. To put it plainly, a person could go into court repeatedly for operating unlicensed and, though he would have a BOP, he might have no drivers history. He continues to be merely "unlicensed". (2) If the violator fails to pay the fines for a civil infraction, the consequence is license/right to operate suspension, meaning a more serious offense the next time around rather than a series of operating unlicensed offenses. I believe this would be a better approach than having a warrant issue for a default on arraignment. No one even looks for these defendants in most urban areas. They are only arrested by chance. (3) Though law enforcement should never be a revenue collection function, it is noteworthy that court costs are (usually) paid over to the commonwealth where civil infraction fines are divided between the commonwealth and the enforcing municipality. (4) It would be more convenient for the motorist to appear only once at a clerk-magistrate's hearing and be fined then appear once in the clerk's office then once for arraignment. It also would save an awful lot of judge-time not presiding over minor MV misdemeanor complaints. (5) Note: civil dispositions are not permitted for offenses under Chapter 90, section 24, which includes OUI.
I have spoken with the RMV's legal counsel who seemed to think that it would be possible to handle these matters at the clerk's hearing, but the mechanics of recording these matters as reduced to civil infractions does not currently exist.
Are any other police prosecutors or bosses of police prosecutors interested in trying to push this agenda with the RMV and the courts?
Posted by: Edmizer1
Some of the criminal offenses should be able to be handled by clerks. Basically some are in our court (Palmer). The clerk usually handles 1st offense suspensions at a hearing. Revoked Insurance should be a civil offense with the same similar penalties as they are now. I know thi swas proposed by some lawmakers a few years ago but it died. I used to work at a college where there were several kids from New Jersey. When they were arrested for minor crimes, they would try to plead guilty during booking. Appaently New Jersey has some sort system where you can plead guilty to certain minor offenses at booking and pay a fine depending on your record. Many states have fine schedules where you can give people fines for all sorts of crimes on Chpater 90 type citations.
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