DeKalb cracks down on unpaid traffic tickets

“They can have my money. I just don’t want to wait any longer,” said Le’Sia Parker, who waited about five hours on Wednesday to pay a speeding ticket from 2005.

Starting on Monday, the court will institute new fees and begin issuing warrants and sending information to the Georgia Department of Driver Services. The state will give drivers another 28 days to pay the ticket and then start suspending licenses, said Susan Sports, spokeswoman for Driver Services.

“Before we suspend a license, we send notice to the individual,” she told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “But we’re on board [to suspend the licenses] and ready to do that.”

Clearing the backlog of tickets is the final step in Chief Judge Nelly Withers’ attempt to turn around the troubled DeKalb Recorders Court, which handles more traffic tickets than any other court in Georgia.

“It’s hard to reverse 10 years of problems in six months,” she said. “But we’re doing a lot to change the way the court works.”

For county officials struggling with a $100 million shortfall in this year’s budget, the cleaned-up court is a welcome revenue stream. Last year, the court generated $21.3 million and is expected to bring in several million dollars more this year.

As a last effort to eliminate the backlog, the court offered an amnesty program in April for people holding citations. Fines were decreased for anyone who pays their ticket by 4:30 p.m. on Friday.

About 5,000 people have taken advantage of the amnesty program this month, bringing in about $1 million, Withers said on Thursday.

Rebecca Turner of Douglas County said she got a letter earlier this month saying she had to pay $485 for an outstanding speeding ticket from 2006 or have her license suspended. The amnesty program saved her about $100 in contempt and other fees.

The Chattahoochee Technical College student said she didn’t know she had the ticket. She had initially gone to court four years ago, but was told the officer dismissed the ticket.

“I thought I was good and never thought about it until I got the letter,” she said on Wednesday while waiting outside the court. She was one of about 500 people snaked through the courthouse lobby, out the door and around the building.

Turner said she, too, waited about five hours on Wednesday, and that was her third day at the courthouse because of complications with her paperwork.

“All together this ticket is costing me more than $900, including taking off time from work,” she said. “I’m ill to say the least. I just didn’t want to go to jail.”

But just because Turner and the other drivers pay their fines doesn’t necessarily mean their licenses won’t get suspended, Sports said. The DeKalb crackdown could generate extra points on drivers’ records, leading more people to lose their licenses, she said.

Withers said she has heard dozens of stories like Turner’s, but she can no longer make exceptions for “the mess” she says she inherited.

Withers took over as chief judge in January. She inherited the court after 11 employees were indicted in a ticket-fixing scheme and a grand jury report found the court didn’t collect millions of dollars in fines.

“We were missing certain fees, not charging enough, charging too much and we hadn’t been reporting information to the state for years,” she told the AJC.

For the past seven years, warrants were not issued for people who didn’t show up for court and no records were sent to Driver Services or the Georgia Crime Information Center, Withers said.

“They just stopped issuing warrants for years. The drivers never came to court and nothing was processed,” Withers said.

The Georgia Superior Court Clerks Cooperative Authority, which collects court fees for the state, also cited DeKalb several times for failure to submit records and fines. The county is now in compliance, said John Earle, the authority’s financial director.

Part of the problem was an antiquated computer system, which did not allow DeKalb to share information with the state, Withers said. A state grant has since enabled the county to hire temporary workers to enter all of the outstanding tickets into the system.

The 46 employees also have gone through training and signed a code of ethics to prevent the previous problems. This month, the court also launched a new Web site that allows drivers to pay fines and issue a plea online, which hopefully will eliminate some of the lines at the courthouse, Withers said.

In addition to the backlog, the court is trying to move through 40,000 cases pending for 2010.

In June, the court will add additional arraignment calendars. Part-time judges will assist the three full-time judges with night court to help with the backlog.

Withers said she would like to hire another full-time judge, but the Recorders Court facility on Camp Circle in Decatur only has three courtrooms. The courtrooms are designed to hold 150 people, but as many as 300 show up to each arraignment, she said.

On Wednesday, dozens of people crowded onto the benches and stood against the wall; one woman sat on a family member’s lap while waiting for the judge to call her name.

“It’s an aggressive schedule. It’s going to mean crowds, but we feel confident we can get caught up with the backlog by the end of the year,” Withers said. “There are people who have thousands and thousands of dollars worth of outstanding tickets. That won’t happen any more.”

By the numbers box:

495,000: number of outstanding tickets in DeKalb County

963,730: number of traffic citations issued in Georgia in 2008

243,396: number of traffic citations issued in DeKalb in 2008

$21.3 million: Amount of money DeKalb’s Recorders Court generated in 2009

Source: DeKalb County Recorders Court