Amnesty on Old Traffic Tickets Favored : City Atty. Hahn Would Let Violators Pay Up to Void Arrest Warrants

Los Angeles City Atty. James K. Hahn, worried that burgeoning numbers of unpaid traffic tickets are depriving the city and county of needed revenue, said Monday that he favors a temporary amnesty program in which violators could pay old tickets while having arrest warrants dismissed.

Hahn said he intends to meet with Los Angeles Municipal Court officials as well as with county administrators to discuss the feasibility of a “grace period” that he believes could help reduce the more than 2 million traffic citations and 810,000 arrest warrants now carried on the court’s computer docket.

“Some of these warrants go on for four and five years and that’s money that either the county or the municipal jurisdictions are not receiving,” Hahn said. “If there is a way to get some of that money in hand now, it would be better than waiting on it.”

Hahn said he did not know how much money could be earned during an amnesty period, which he suggested would last from one to three months. If effective, such periods could be held once each decade, he said.

Hahn’s proposal, however, would likely meet resistance from Los Angeles County administrators, who see arrest warrant fines as a major, albeit irregular, revenue producer.

Under a longstanding arrangement between the city and county, the city receives 92% of the fines paid on each traffic ticket issued within the boundaries of Los Angeles. But once a ticket goes unpaid and an arrest warrant is issued for the violator (usually after six weeks), the county is usually entitled to 80 cents or more for every dollar paid on the arrest warrant, according to officials.

In June, the Countywide Criminal Justice Coordination Committee issued a report critical of declaring an amnesty for traffic violators. The plan, the committee concluded, would cost the county a considerable but undetermined amount in revenue. It might initially help speed payment of some fines, but could undermine law enforcement efforts to emphasize the seriousness of violating traffic laws, the committee contended.

“Amnesty may be one thing for a jaywalking ticket, but it may be an entirely different matter for someone charged with (drunk driving),” noted presiding Los Angeles Traffic Court Judge Malcolm Mackey.

Were it enacted, Hahn’s proposal would not be the first giving Los Angeles drivers the chance to clear up old traffic tickets without paying arrest warrants.

In 1974, then-presiding Traffic Court Judge Dickran M. Tevrizian Jr. designated April as a “month of rectification” for recipients of nearly 700,000 unpaid traffic citations.

Few violators took advantage of the amnesty program initially, according to Helen Nelson, chief of the Los Angeles Judicial District Traffic Division. But by its third week, Nelson recalled, the Los Angeles Traffic Court Building at 1945 S. Hill St., was inundated.

Low Priority

“We had 8,000 to 10,000 people a day,” Nelson said. “Do you have any idea what 8,000 to 10,000 people are like in this building? It was chaos.”

The Los Angeles Judicial District, one of 24 Municipal Court districts in the county, annually processes about 750,000 traffic citations, among them jaywalking tickets. About 20% of all of the citations become delinquent and result in the issuance of arrest warrants, according to Nelson.

Most area law enforcement agencies consider traffic-related arrest warrants a relatively low priority, rarely spending time serving them. And, because the computer purges records that are older than five years, some unpaid tickets eventually are erased while the warrants, which usually carry minimum $100 fines, are forgotten, Nelson said.

The California Department of Motor Vehicles, at the request of the court, will not renew a driver’s license or vehicle registration until outstanding tickets are paid. But for some who choose to drive without licensing, that sanction is of little deterrent value, according to Hahn.

That does not mean that all who ignore their outstanding tickets are themselves ignored by the law. Officials say that more than 300 of the 17,000 people presently housed in the Los Angeles County Jail are there because they failed to pay traffic tickets or to appear for related court hearings.

Hahn said he believes that by offering an amnesty period in which arrest warrant fines would be dropped, violators would be encouraged to at least pay their traffic tickets.

He said that an amnesty might also make the streets safer for police officers.

Relieving Pressure

“There are psychos out there with a couple of (traffic) warrants on them; they get pulled over by a policeman who they know is going to check out their background, and suddenly you have an explosive situation,” Hahn said. “Maybe these same guys will go in and pay their tickets if they know they aren’t going to be arrested.”

Hahn also questioned whether the Traffic Court’s computer, which logs arrest warrants, has become overburdened by the number of tickets and warrants it must process.

Questions about the IBM-built, 280-terminal computer system were raised last week when it was disclosed that U.S. Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III had gone five years without paying a $10 jaywalking ticket issued by a Los Angeles motorcycle officer. A computer operator noticed that a warrant for Meese’s arrest had been issued in 1980 but was never pursued.

Also never pursued were arrest warrants for two other prominent people cited with Meese for jaywalking--CIA Director William Casey, (then presidential campaign director for Ronald Reagan) and William Timmons, a former Reagan campaign official.

Court administrators, however, said that the computer is operating smoothly.

“I don’t know what the present capacity is, but the computer as it’s designed has an infinite capacity to grow,” said Clinton H. Moore, the court’s data processing chief. “Whatever the requirements are, the computer can grow to the requirements.”