A break for speeders?

Traffic ticket prosecution hand off

By FRITZ MAYER and TOM KANE

SULLIVAN COUNTY, NY — People who get traffic tickets have a right to their day in court, just like everyone else accused of breaking the law. But the fight just might get a little easier for folks accused of traffic violations in Sullivan County after the first of the year. Because after that time, assistant district attorneys from the DA’s office will no longer be going to the various county municipal courts to prosecute or plea bargain tickets issued by the New York State Police (NYSP).

This was not the first time responsibility for the prosecution of the tickets was handed off. In 2007, the brass at the NYSP decided that their officers did not have enough time in their days to go to court to sit through the proceedings, so they announced the practice was ending. That was when the county DA’s office stepped in.

But with budget cutting into the resources of that department, incoming DA Jim Farrell determined that his office no longer had the resources to prosecute or plea bargain the tickets because they needed to be dealing with more serious crimes. He, therefore, authorized the town attorneys to take up the cause.

This might seem to only be a concern for towns such as Thompson, Liberty and Rockland, where because of tickets of Route 17, NYSP issue many tickets each year, and revenue from the tickets contributes a significant portion of the towns’ budgets. But it also resonates with smaller towns.

Tusten

At the Town of Tusten meeting on December 14, outgoing supervisor Ben Johnson read a letter from Farrell’s office explaining the situation. It was unclear to the board whether an “authorization” to prosecute the tickets amounted to a mandate to do so.

Farrell subsequently said no, the town attorneys were not mandated to prosecute the tickets. He said the state police had also been “authorized” to plea bargain the tickets and decided to stop. He also said that if town attorneys decided not to act, it would be much easier for people who received traffic tickets from the state police to show up before the judge and have the tickets thrown out.

In the case of Tusten, according to incoming supervisor Peg Harrison, town attorney Jeffry Clemente said that covering the tickets would not be a problem.

But that leads to a question of cost. Town attorneys tend to charge towns the same as they charge others for their services: $275 per hour or more. In the smaller towns, there is a question of whether the towns might actually lose money by paying attorneys to show up to traffic court.

Delaware

The Town of Delaware doesn’t like it one bit. “We have to discuss this with our town justices to see how many cases will be affected by this decision,” said Delaware attorney Ken Kline at a town meeting on December 15.

“The problem is that we did not budget this,” said supervisor Jim Scheutzow.

“Sometimes you get about $10 to $15 per ticket, something very nominal,” Kline said. “You’re talking about a whole new layer of bureaucracy.” Kline said it was not clear whether towns would get any reimbursement beyond the part of the ticket the town normally receives.

The board discussed the possibility of not assigning the town attorney to the task. “What would happen if the violator showed up in court and there was no prosecutor?” Scheutzow said.

There was no clear answer, Kline said. The town council will have to discuss this further with the two town justices.

While the towns try to figure that out, would-be speeders should be aware that this situation applies to tickets issued only by NYSP, and not by tickets from the Sullivan County Sheriff’s Office, or from any of the village police departments or town constables.

Also, the DA’s office will continue to prosecute more serious infractions such as those that involve passing a school bus while it is picking up or dropping off children, or drivers traveling at speeds greater than 40 miles per hour above the posted limit.