An opportunity to help drivers with multiple fines for driving on a suspended license is now in progress. District Judge Vic Fleming, who presides over Little Rock's traffic court, has asked that the word be spread. We'll do our best to make it make sense.
A bill was passed in the 2015 General Assembly. It was Act 1193, "Waiver of Reinstatement Fees."
The act created a pilot program, to run from Jan. 1 to June 30. The act amends Arkansas Code Annotated 27-16-508, which directs the state Office of Driver Services to collect a reinstatement fee of $100 "to be multiplied by the number of administrative orders to suspend, revoke, or cancel a driver's license."
While a hundred bucks may not seem like a lot of money to overpaid newspaper columnists, it's a great burden to many people who pass through traffic court. It's not unusual, Fleming said, for a defendant in his court to have seven, eight or more charges of driving on a suspended license. About 3,000 tickets a year charge a driver with the fifth offense or more.
The record holder appears to be a driver sentenced last year for his 42nd such offense. Call him the Cal Ripken of driving on a suspended license.
It's a vicious cycle. A license gets suspended. The driver can't afford the fine, plus the other fines, or fails to appear, which is another suspension. He keeps driving. He gets stopped. He gets ticketed again and again for driving on a suspended license.
Pretty soon, it's real money. Money some people don't have, and so the cycle gets more and more vicious.
The 2015 act allows, with some stipulations, for all of those $100 fees for driving on a suspended license to be rolled into one fee of $100.
Fleming's first opportunity to give a sucker an even break happened earlier this month. The defendant in question owed $1,100 in reinstatement fees and was up for her 15th offense of driving under suspension. A public defender and a probation officer will collaborate with the defendant to help her get back her driver's license for the low, low fee of only $100.
Let's look at those stipulations while noting that the waiver doesn't apply to DWI cases generally or to drivers with a commercial license. Applicants have to complete one of the following: a court-ordered diversion program; a drug-court program; a diversion program for veterans; a pre-adjudication probation; or any other court-ordered program designed to rehabilitate the defendant.
A defendant must also have paid all other court costs, fines and fees connected to the offense that led to the suspension of his license.
Someone in this pickle should, Fleming said, seek legal advice. And go to whatever court has jurisdiction over his case.
Back to that first beneficiary. Fleming quoted her: "Thank you for your grace and mercy."
That's the kind of thing that makes a judge want to come to work.
Mahatma@arkansasonline.com
Metro on 01/30/2016