Before the warrant round-up: Know your Rights

The city’s amnesty period provides a chance to pay off delinquent tickets while taking advantage of savings, before police conduct a warrant round up–but not everyone can afford to shell our the cash.

“You’ll find that people are living in fear everyday,” El Paso attorney Fernando Chacon said.

In October, a Buzzfeed investigation found people who couldn’t afford to pay traffic tickets were being jailed. In at least 100 El Paso court cases, judges did not ask defendants about their inability to pay and were jailed. Something Chacon says is unconstitutional and against the law.

“The El Paso example is just one of many examples where judges have the discretion and the obligation to find out why a person could not pay and take that into evaluation when administering a punishment, in this case jail time for a monetary debt,” Edgar Saldivar, Senior Staff Attorney at ACLU Texas said.

Following the investigation, city council made changes like making payment plan options more visible at clerk’s windows, posting information on rights and allowing payments by phone.

The amnesty period allows for more flexibility, where fees are waived–but if a person finds that they can’t pay even during an amnesty period, they still have several options. They can go to municipal courts, and explain their situation where they’ll be granted an indigency hearing.

“If you can’t do that then you have to tell whoever picks you up to let you out on a pr bond, make you return another day, and tell them you’re too poor to pay, and they should have an indigency hearing for you if you can pay or not. So everybody out there, if you have tickets, you can’t pay, you tell the judge you want an indigency hearing to determine whether or not you can pay” Chacon said.

The amnesty period ends midnight Saturday. After that, police will conduct a warrant round-up.