CA Chief Justice Agrees: Traffic Courts Can’t Charge Fees in Advance of Trial
Here is an article by the #ACLU praising the decision that traffic courts cannot make people pay their tickets in order to have a hearing on whether they owe money or not. This could lead to major changes in how #SFMTA and other parking enforcement hearing offices conduct appeals."Across California, traffic courts are withholding the right to contest a traffic citation until the fines and fees for the citation are paid in full. This unfair practice violates constitutional guarantees of due process and unfairly impacts low-income people."
It was the #Lawyers’CommitteeforCivilRightsoftheSanFranciscoBayArea that brought this to the ACLU's attention in a report called
"Not Just a Ferguson Problem – How Traffic Courts Drive Inequality in California"
"Over four million Californians do not have valid driver’s licenses because they cannot afford to pay traffic fines and fees. These suspensions make it harder for people to get and keep jobs, further impeding their ability to pay their debt. They harm credit ratings. They raise public safety concerns. Ultimately they keep people in long cycles of poverty that are difficult, if not impossible to overcome."
SFMTA hearings are informal, but HOs can use more formal procedures as a guide. I've been looking for appropriate benchbooks, but so far here's all I've found.
Here is the manual for Traffic Court Proceedings in CA courts.
It's judicial rather than administrative, but I think it's still a good model, since it's [1] the right state; it's the law to which appellants will need to go if their cases move up the appeal ladder.
The California State Office of Administrative Hearings is one of the more logical sources.
Electronic filing is now required. How far along is SFMTA on electronic filings?
Laws Governing Formal Hearings under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA)
Both Statutes and Regulations determine the procedure for formal APA hearings.The California Administrative Procedure Act is found in the California Government Code starting at section 11370 and continuing through section 11529
Ttitle 1 of the California Code of Regulations starting at section 1000 through section 1050.
- California Codes can be found on the California Legislative Information webpage
- California Regulations can be found on the Office of Administrative Law’s webpage
At the other side of things, there are articles by lawyers and others who advocate for people in administrative hearings. Their general advice can be helpful to individuals protesting parking tickets, and also to hearing officers who want to conduct hearings as fairly as possible.
Here, for example, is an article summarizing how an individual should go about organizing their case and the evidence for it.
