Countywide : Ruling on Arrest Warrants Appealed

The California Supreme Court was asked Monday to consider last month’s state appellate court ruling upholding the validity of arrest warrants issued by court clerks against traffic offenders who fail to show up for hearings.

The case is being appealed by Kurt Albert Stapf, a Laguna Niguel resident who had paid nearly $2,000 in fines for failing to appear five times in court and for motorcycle speeding tickets.

Staph contends that state law allowing clerks to issue complaints for failure to appear is unconstitutional because it gives powers to court clerks that are reserved for prosecutors.

But last month, the 4th District Court of Appeal in Santa Ana reversed an earlier judgment by the county’s Superior Court that sided with Staph, and thus paved the way for the county to reissue arrest warrants for more than 100,000 traffic offenders who failed to appear in court.

But attorneys who opposed the court’s decision contended that the three-justice state panel based its decision on practical concerns, not the Constitution.

John R. Farris Jr., one of Staph’s lawyers, said he expects to learn within 60 days whether the state’s highest court will hear the case or let the Court of Appeal ruling remain as a statewide precedent.

Lon Watson, assistant Orange County counsel representing the county’s municipal courts, said that in view of the appellate court ruling, he sees no reason why the court clerks should stop issuing complaints or postpone collecting fines.

“Our advice to the courts would be to continue to do what the law authorizes you to do until a higher court tells you not to,” he said.