Austin Municipal Court "Warrant Amnesty" : February 9- March 4 2018

Austin Municipal Court Warrant Amnesty: February 9- March 4, 2018

We have come a long way in Austin in a very short time.  That is not to say that there is still not a great deal of progress to be made, but the work of several organizations and a progressive city government to reform how the criminal justice system treats poor people is paying off.

From what I can tell, Austin Municipal Court is no longer participating in the Great Texas Warrant RoundUp!! This is absolutely a step in the right direction for equity in justice.  The Warrant Roundup without a doubt unjustly targets poor people. 

What AMC is doing instead is what they are calling a “Warrant Amnesty”.  This is going on from February 9-March 4 2018.  What is interesting is that the City is calling this period an Amnesty – but it is absolutely true that you can walk into AMC or a substation at any time, 365 days (not including weekends or city holidays) and take care of warrants without being arrested.  I believe calling this time an amnesty is just to highlight what the court already does.  They are doing some community meetings too where you can discuss your case with judges and court staff.  Learn more about that here: http://www.austintexas.gov/article/warrant-amnesty-2018

HOWEVER!! You still need to understand what you are doing when you go “take care of” a warrant out of AMC during the Amnesty period.  Please read the following before you go:

I.                     Failure to Appear:  “Open” Tickets

You may have an “open ticket” (or more than one) in Austin Municipal Court.  If you receive a Class C ticket, and you fail to appear and it remains open, meaning no action has been taken since the issuance of the citation, in Austin a warrant will issue.  However, a great thing about AMC is that this court does not typically also charge defendants with a further Class C offense of Failure to Appear. You can be taken to jail on these “open ticket” warrants.  What happens when you are arrested for these kinds of warrants depends on the jurisdiction.  For an Austin Municipal Court ticket, you may be given the option of pleading guilty at magistration at the jail and agreeing to pay the ticket, or you may be given a court date if you plead not guilty and told to appear in Austin Municipal Court.

If you have Class C tickets that are “open”, there are several options on how to dispose of those and get the warrants cleared.  Some are better than others.  Here are some of them:

1)      You can always plead no contest and agree to pay.  During the Amnesty, and any other time, you can go to AMC or a substation and take care of it by paying it. There are drawbacks to this option of which you should be aware.  Simply telling a court staffer you want to plead guilty and pay the ticket waives any chance you have at negotiating the fine down with a court prosecutor.  You will pay the full amount plus some extra court costs for letting it go to warrant.  Secondly, depending on the charge, there may be collateral consequences for pleading no contest.  Pleading no contest to driving while license invalid, no drivers license, or failure to maintain financial responsibility where you already have one conviction could trigger a license suspension and will cause surcharges on your license to be assessed. If you did not have an eligible driver’s license at the time you got a moving violation, and you pay it, this could trigger a DPS departmental suspension of your license because you are admitting by paying the ticket and pleading no contest that you were driving without a license. 

The court is also now allowing defendants who can show they are indigent to file what’s called a “hardship” waiver.  This will ask the court to waive the fines and fees on the ticket. This could be a good option for cases that don’t carry collateral consequences if you just plead no contest and pay. 

If the court allows you, you can ask to speak with the judge or a prosecutor at walk-in docket.  At that point, you can ask for what’s called a “DEFERRED DISPOSITION”.  This allows you to avoid pleading guilty and being convicted of the offense --- which allows you TO AVOID COLLATERAL CONSEQUENCES.  A deferral basically puts you under an unsupervised “probation” with the court where you promise not to get any new tickets for a period of time and pay the deferral fee.  You may also have to do driver’s safety course or some other kind of obligation (classes, community services, get a good license, get insurance, etc).  This keeps moving violations off your record (no points will be assessed), and for offenses that carry them, you can avoid license suspensions and surcharges.

2)      You can post bond with the court and put your case back on the docket.  This will allow you to speak with the prosecutors at a court date and negotiate to pay less and potentially keep it off your record, avoiding any collateral consequences that could come with a conviction. This may be an expensive undertaking as bond in some courts can be double the fine.

3)      You can hire an attorney to designate on your cases and put them back on the docket.  Usually this is done by sending a letter to the court in which the attorney says s/he’s going to be responsible for the case.  Once this happens, the warrant will be rescinded, and the attorney will appear in court for you, speak with the prosecutor in that court, and get a deal worked out for you.  Many times this deal will allow you to keep a conviction for the Class C off your record and will be cheaper to resolve than just simply paying the ticket. I am available to do this work across the state of Texas.

II.                   Commitment Warrants – Satisfying the Judgment

If you have a Class C warrant out in Austin Municipal Court and there has been a judgment -- ie, you have pled no contest or been convicted at trial – you have to pay or otherwise satisfy that judgment. If you do not, a “commitment” will issue.  This is a kind of warrant.  At that point the ticket is no longer “open”.  It is in “commitment” status.  That means you cannot change your mind under most circumstances and change what you agreed to pay or even that you agreed to pay.  Its done; you simply have to fulfill your obligation as agreed.

If you’ve already pled on your citation and have agreed to pay, but you cannot, you can sometimes go back to the court and ask to be put on a payment plan for an amount you can pay per month.  Often times this agreement will be enough for the court to rescind the warrant.  In some circumstances, you can ask the court to find you indigent and allow you to do community service at a non profit, non religious, non political charitable organization or you can ask for a HARDSHIP WAIVER.  If you are asking for a court to find you indigent, it is important to bring documentation to support your claim you are indigent.  Tax returns, pay stubs, or proof that you receive government assistance can help prove to the court that you are indigent. You can also get jail credit applied to these tickets if you have been to jail while these warrants were active – even if it is was not holding you or you were not arrested on these warrants specifically.  How much credit a day in jail will give you depends on the court.

Although Austin Municipal has made a very progressive change and is not participating in the Warrant Roundup, if you are walking/driving around Austin with Class C warrants out, you can still be taken to jail for these by APD if it is discovered (sometimes this happens during traffic stops, for example).  It is easier by far to take care of warrants prior to something like this which is usually a very inconvenient time to find out.   Don’t wait for that to happen. If you would like to speak with me regarding your Class C warrants, I am happy to do a free phone consultation to run down what your options are. 

ALSO PLEASE NOTE: Just because AMC is not doing Warrant RoundUp, some of the Constables Offices in Travis County ARE AND other jurisdictions are and can sometimes contract with a Travis County Constables Office to come get you (lots of the little jurisdictions in Williamson County, for example (think Thorndale, Taylor, Hutto, etc) do this).  Warrant RoundUp is still a huge thing in this state and you may not be completely safe just because AMC is not doing it. 

The Texas "Surcharge" Program: Time for the Legislature to Abolish It

Drivers Responsibility Program:  Time for the Legislature to Abolish It

On January 30, 2018, the Texas Legislature’s Senate Finance Committee had a hearing on Texas’ Driver Responsibility Program, known as the “Surcharge Program”.  Senator John Whitmire very eloquently reminded the Committee’s members that they are “blessed” and that they can’t lose sight of the millions of Texans who live “day to day”.  I cannot emphasize enough how true this is.

The DRP, or “surcharge program”, has had devastating consequences to poor and lower income Texans. 

The Texas Criminal Justice Coalition has found that due to the surcharge program:

·         There are 1.3 million Texans driving on a suspended license because of surcharges.  These Texans have a harder time insuring their vehicles and when they get in accidents the other driver is left with no possibility of recovery for the damages. 

·         More than 50% of the Texans with suspended licenses have lost jobs or been denied jobs because of their suspended licenses, which hurts our state’s tax base and hurts their families.

·         Texas counties are left paying for enforcement of Driving While License Invalid cases – in some counties 1 in 5 misdemeanor cases are DWLI.  This costs all of us.

This is just some of the reasons why this program needs to be abolished.  It is a regressive tax on the poorest Texans.  It is a consequence assumed when unsophisticated Texans just “pay” a ticket for Failure to Maintain Financial Responsibility or DWLI instead of asking for a deferral.  It is a second penalty when people have already paid the fine allowed under the law.  It is fundamentally unfair and unjust.

Let’s put some pressure on the Texas Legislature to abolish this essentially regressive tax on the people who can least afford it – one that brings with it a whole set of economic consequences that are costing us all.

What is an SR-22?

What is an SR-22?

Lots of my clients have to get an SR-22.  I will briefly explain what that is here.

An SR-22 is a high-risk, high-liability insurance policy that is required when one does not have a valid Texas driver’s license.  If you are driving with an occupational license, you are required to keep an SR-22.  Also, if you don’t have a driver’s license and cannot get one due to the inability to prove residency, an SR-22 may be the only kind of insurance policy you can get. 

An SR-22 is a liability insurance policy, which means it will cover other drivers who have damages due to your causation of an accident. 

What makes it different, and why it is required if you have an occupational, is that it is a liability insurance policy the state monitors very closely.  If you do not pay your premium, and you fall out of coverage, the insurance company is required to call DPS and make sure they know that you do not have insurance. 

If you are driving on an occupational, the validity of your occupational is directly dependent on having an SR-22.  If you do not stay current on your SR-22 while you have an occupational, if you are pulled over and asked for your license, the police will know that YOUR OCCUPATIONAL IS INVALID.  Although you can still show proof of your occupational, you will still likely be cited for Driving While License Invalid because you do not have a valid occupational.

If you’ve had more than two convictions for failure to maintain financial responsibility, you will be required to get an SR-22 for two years.  You will not have to get an occupational; you will be allowed to keep your regular license.  However, if you cancel or fall out of coverage with your SR-22, your license will be automatically suspended. 

What does this mean?:

If you are required to get an SR-22, YOU HAVE TO KEEP PAYING ON IT UNTIL YOU DO NOT NEED IT ANY LONGER.  Getting it for one month and then letting your coverage lapse is not going to work.  Your license, whether an occupational or a regular license, will not be valid if you let your SR-22 lapse.

If you are looking to get an SR-22, call a small, mom-and-popprovider.  Do not go through your regular provider, especially if you go through a large carrier.  It will be more expensive, for one, and second your rates will go up if your regular carrier knows you need an SR-22.

Austin Municipal Court: The Difference Between "Commitments" and "Warrants"

Austin Municipal Court:  The Difference Between “Commitment” and “Warrant”

I get many, many calls about fixing tickets entered into the “Failure to Appear” database, formally called the OMNI database, because these tickets will inevitably jeopardize a person’s ability to drive legally in Texas.  Tickets entered into the database will not suspend your driving privileges, but it will keep you from renewing your license if you have one or prevent you from getting a regular license if you have not yet tested and been licensed. 

I will talk about Austin Municipal Court here, but the advice is generally applicable to all Class C tickets in the OMNI database. 

If you have tickets in OMNI from Austin Municipal Court, you should search for your ticket at www.austintexas.gov/department/municipal-court.  Look at what it says next to the ticket.  If it says “commitment”, it means you have already entered a plea on the ticket of “no contest”, been convicted, and have agreed to pay it. 

The problem with this is that in most cases, it is very difficult to re-negotiate an outcome on the case.  You are in most instances stuck with what you agreed upon and you are going to have to pay it before it gets taken out of OMNI.  If the conviction came with surcharges or a driver’s license suspension, you are probably stuck with it. 

A lawyer can do very little on these tickets except perhaps file a writ (that is extraordinary and you should not count on it being done or it being successful). Hiring a lawyer may really be a waste of resources.  What you should do is go down to the “walk in” or mitigation docket from 8 am to 11 am or 1pm to 3 pm at Austin Municipal Court and speak to the judge about a manageable payment plan. 

Other courts outside of City of Austin may not call these “commitments” but the outcome is the same – if you agreed to pay, you got convicted, and it’s a done deal.  To get them out of OMNI you have to pay.  Sometimes in small jurisdictions, where the procedures are not as tight, the judge may directly renegotiate with you but this is just a random occurrence that you should not count on. 

If your tickets say “warrant” next to them, there is more hope.  A “warrant” means that you never entered a plea and you can still avoid a conviction.  Do not go running down to the court and agree to pay.  Either hire an attorney to take over, or go down to court and ask to speak with the prosecutor.  You may not be allowed to do this without posting bond due to missing your first court date, but a judge may allow you to see a prosecutor.  It’s just going to depend on who is on the bench.  I have also seen judges offer deferred disposition at the walk -in docket.  However, in Austin, the ticket will need to be disposed of AND paid, if anything is owed, before it is taken out of OMNI.

So, to sum up, there are two ways things can end up in OMNI – either you agreed to pay and didn’t, which limits what you can do to get it out of OMNI, or you just never showed up and you have never entered a plea.  The second is much better and helps you avoid a multitude of collateral consequences.

Common Driver's License Problems

I am a criminal defense lawyer in Austin TX.  That means I defend clients in Central Texas and throughout the state accused of a broad spectrum of crimes from Class C tickets all the way to serious misdemeanors.  One of my biggest passions and joys is restoring my clients’ driving privileges in the state of Texas.  I am good at it and I love doing it.  If you have been struggling with getting back behind the wheel legally - if you have been stuck in a cycle of surcharges, charges of driving while license invalid (DWLI), suspensions, and failure to appears - and you don’t know what to do to get your driving privileges straightened out and get your license back, you have found the right lawyer.  I do not stop until you get legal and this unfair, unjust punitive cycle  keeping you down is fixed.

There are many, many things that can cause you to lose your driver’s license in Texas.  In my practice, I unravel this tangle of issues and prevent any further ones from arising.

Here’s some examples of what I can do:

Certain convictions, like for DWLI and DWI, carry mandatory suspensions.  They also trigger a surcharge assessment, which is a fee you have to pay to DPS to keep your license.  Even after the mandatory suspension is up, you have to stay current on your surcharge payments to keep driving legally until the surcharge is fully paid.  If you are under a mandatory suspension, I can often get you an occupational license to keep you driving until the suspension is up.  If you cannot afford the surcharges, I can assist you in applying for a waiver to reduce or eliminate your payments based on your income. 

Failure to appears entered into the OMNI database will not suspend your license if it is current, but they will block you from renewing your license once you expire.  Driving on an expired license does carry criminal penalties and you can be charged with and possibly arrested for DWLI.  If you have entries in the OMNI database anywhere in Texas, I will track these down.  If they are “open” tickets and you have never pled, I will represent you in these cases and do everything I can to get a disposition that does not result in any further suspensions or surcharges.  If they are in commitment/capias status because you have already pled and agreed to pay, I will work to get you on a better payment plan so you can close the case and get it out of OMNI. 

If you are currently charged with DWLI in Central Texas, I will represent you on that case and work to get your driving privileges restored as part of that representation.  Often times, if you get your driving privileges restored, I can get a result worked out that will allow you to avoid a conviction for the DWLI – which will prevent a further suspension and surcharges. 

If you have pending tickets and do not have eligibility to drive, you need to call me before you do anything on those tickets.  Paying a moving violation – ie a ticket you got for violating a traffic law while driving – is automatically a plea of no contest.  This is an admisssion of driving, and DPS will move to suspend your license for an admission of driving without a legal license.  If you do not have a good license, this will prevent you from getting a good license.  Its not good, however easy it is, to just “pay the ticket”. As your lawyer on the ticket, I will work to get a disposition on the ticket that does not include a final conviction, protecting your ability to get a good license.

If you’ve never had a license, you can indeed be charged for driving while license invalid (DWLI) for driving.  DWLI emcompasses driving when you’ve never tested and gotten a license.  You can be placed under suspension, assessed surcharges, and denied your ability to test for a license for offenses that happen when you’ve never had a license before.  If you want to get a good license, and you have things preventing you from testing, I can work on these problems just as I could if you had a regular license.

Lastly, if you have a hearing pending with DPS in front of a judge, either a JP or Municipal Court judge, in which DPS is moving to suspend your license or revoke your license for medical reasons, you need to call me.  There may be ways to keep DPS from being successful in that motion. 

If the problems I’m describing sound familiar, you need to call me.  I will do a free consultation to go over the problems you are facing and develop a plan to eliminate them one by one.  There is a way out of this cycle – and I’m the lawyer to get you back behind the wheel with no fear of further arrest. 

Occupational License and Order to Test

Occupational License versus an Order to Test for an Occupational License

If you’ve never had a regular Texas driver’s license, your driving privileges can still be suspended pursuant to the rules that govern the ability to drive in Texas.  Your driving priviliges can be suspended for convictions for DWI and drug possession, for example.  You can still be assessed surcharges and reinstatement fees.  What does this mean if you do not have a driver’s license?  It means not only can’t you drive, but you also cannot be issued a regular Texas driver’s license until you get your ineligibility rectified.  If you are caught driving, you can still be charged with driving while license suspended/invalid.

If you are under a mandatory suspension or cannot rectify your ineligiblities, you cannot get a regular license by a simply walking into a DPS field office and taking a test.  First, in order to drive, you are going to need to apply for Texas occupational license.  However, it is more complicated to get an occupational if you’ve never had a license because you cannot be issued a hard plastic permanant occupational without taking the test first.

Therefore, you still need to go through the process of petitioning the court for an occupational.  You need to file the petition and get the order signed by a judge allowing you to drive.  Then you need to send the order to DPS with your SR-22, your reinstatement fees, and your occupational fees.  Instead, however, of getting an occupational back with your picture on it, you will get an order back telling the field office to allow you to test for an occupational license.  This is because you’ve never taken the test before.  You will have to pass that and all other residency requirements and such, and then you will be issued an occupational license until you become eligible for a regular license. 

When you become eligible for a regular license, you will simply be able to walk into a field office and get a regular replacement for your occupational.  You will not have to pass the test again. 

I am available to craft occupational licenses and submit them to the court for signature.  If you believe you need an occupational, give me a call.  I’m happy to help. 

Failure to Appears in OMNI Database

If you are struggling with failure to appear entries that prevent you from renewing your license, you may find the following helpful:

The Texas OmniBase Program: What You Need to Know

I. Overview

Texas Transportation Code Chapter 706 authorizes the Department of Public Safety to create the Texas OmniBase.

If a receipient of a Class C ticket fails to appear in court on that ticket as ordered, or if a he/she enters a plea on a ticket, agrees to pay a certain amount, and fails to satisfy that judgment, the court may have the ability to enter that failure into the Texas OmniBase.

If a driver has an entry in the OmniBase, that driver will not be able to renew his driver’s license once it expires. If the driver is not yet licensed, he will not be able to get a regular driver’s license until the entry is cleared. He will be obligated to take action on that ticket in order to get it cleared from the OmniBase so that he can renew or test for a license.

If a driver has an entry in the OmniBase, his license will not be suspended. Instead, the driver will only be blocked from renewing or testing until the entries in the OmniBase are cleared. That means that he will not be charged a reinstatement fee by DPS in order to renew his license once the entries in the OmniBase are cleared.

II. Entries in the OmniBase

In order for a court to enter failures to appear and failures to satisfy judgments in the OmniBase, the “political subdivision” – ie, the county or the city in which the court has jurisdiction – must have a contract with DPS to do so. The political subdivision will have to pay a certain fee to DPS to have this contract. There is an incentive for political subdivisions to have this contract as it provides them some leverage on drivers to take care of open citations in their courts and thereby collect revenue generated by those citations.

If a driver receives a ticket in a jurisdiction that has a contract with DPS, that court can report a failure to appear or a failure to pay as agreed to DPS. Once that entry is made, the driver will not be able to renew his driver’s license through DPS until one of several things happens to that ticket. If the driver failed to appear and has never entered a plea, then the driver must either a) be acquitted on the ticket at trial, b) get the ticket dismissed by the prosecutor in the court, or c) enter a plea and pay the judgment on the ticket of fine and court costs. If the driver has entered a plea and failed to satisfy the judgment, then the driver must a) perfect the appeal of the judgment or b) satisfy the judgment.

In some jurisdictions, if a driver has an open ticket on which he has never entered a plea, the court may require the driver to post a bond – either cash or surety – to get that ticket back on the docket so that the driver can negotiate a plea deal on the case. An attorney may be able to help a driver post a surety bond. Some courts will withdraw the entry in the OmniBase once a bond is posted with payment of the OmniBase fee; some will not.

The statute also requires DPS to clear OmniBase entries if they are in error or if the record of the ticket has been destroyed by the courts.

III. Administrative Fee

The statute requires drivers who have an entry in the OmniBase to pay a $30 administrative fee to get the entry cleared from the OmniBase. This is in addition to the actions the driver must take to close out the ticket. The only time this does not have to be paid is when the driver is acquitted at trial of the underlying offense that is the basis of the ticket.

If the driver takes action to resolve the ticket entered into the OmniBase, that driver will still be denied renewal until the $30 administrative fee is paid.

The administrative fee is collected by the court that has jurisdiction over the ticket and is deposited in the political subdivision’s treasury. The political subdivision is allowed to deposit the fee in an interest bearing account and is entitled to keep that interest. After it is collected, $20 is sent to the Texas state comptroller and $10 is kept by the political subdivision. Of the $20 that is sent to the comptroller, $10 is given back to DPS to administer the OmniBase program.

IV. Pitfalls of Resolving OmniBase Entries

Drivers may be tempted to simply pay tickets in order to be able to renew their driver’s licenses. To simply pay a ticket without negotiating a result with the prosecutor that keeps the ticket off your driving record means that the driver has entered a plea of no contest and will receive a conviction for this offense. This could have negative consequences on that driver’s ability to continue driving legally.

One way a conviction may have negative ramifications is causing a suspension of the driver’s priviliges to drive. This could happen for many reasons. If the driver didn’t have a driver’s license or was under a suspension already when he received the citation, and if the citation is a moving violation, pleading no contest will cause what’s called a “departmental suspension” because a no contest plea requires the driver to admit to driving at the time he got the ticket. This admission to driving illegally triggers a departmental suspension by DPS. For example, if a driver is not driving legally, gets a ticket for running a stop sign, and enters a plea of no contest, he has admitted to the court and DPS by entering that plea that he was indeed driving during a period in which he was not legally eligible to drive. The Department will move to suspend the driver’s license. If this happens, the driver can request a hearing in his or her county of residence in front of the Justice Court or Municipal Court to challenge the suspension. The driver must request this hearing within 20 days of the notice of suspension. DPS will send that notice to the last known address of the driver.

Another way entering a plea of no contest to a moving violation in the OmniBase can be detrimental is that it will add two points to the driver’s license. If the moving violation causes a traffic accident, three points are assessed. If the driver gets six points on his license, he will be assessed a surcharge of $100 every year the point total is six plus $25 for every additional point.

Another way entering a plea of no contest to a moving violation can have negative consequences is by adding moving violations to the driver’s record. If a driver has four moving violations in twelve months, or seven violations in twenty four months, the Department will move to suspend his license. The driver is entitled to a hearing to challenge the suspension. He must request it in 20 days of receiving notice of the suspension.

Pleading no contest to certain citations will result in an automatic suspension in which the driver is not entitled to a hearing. Entering a plea of no contest to DWLI will result in an automatic suspension. If a driver pleads no contest to a citation for failure to maintain financial responsibility (not having insurance) and the driver already has more than one violation for this offense, the driver’s privileges will be suspended automatically and the driver will be required to provide proof to the Department of possession of an SR-22 (high liability) insurance policy for two years.

These kinds of negative consequences can be avoided with the help of a good lawyer who knows how to navigate Class C tickets and negotiate resolutions that do not result in convictions on the driver’s record.

V. Conclusion

It is important to check the OmniBase at www.texasfailureto appear.comprior to the expiration of your license with enough time to rectify any entries in the database before your license is expired and you cannot renew.

If you check the OmniBase and see entries there, consulting with a lawyer can be helpful. Attorneys can post surety bonds and get cases back on the docket so that beneficial resolutions can be negotiated for the driver that will not result in suspension of driver’s privileges.