Driving in circles

Over the last decade, the California Legislature has enacted a series of stiff new traffic laws aimed at enhancing public safety on the state’s vast network of roads and highways. In the process, lawmakers have, inadvertently perhaps, created a system that preys upon the poor.

The rationale behind most of these laws is understandable. The smog inspection laws attempt to alleviate air pollution. Seat belt laws, child restraint laws and drunk driving laws all hope to save lives. And the mandatory insurance laws, as well as licensing and vehicle registration procedures, strive to make drivers accountable for their actions.

Heavy fines and/or jail sentences ensure compliance with these laws, and the trend has been to steeply increase both. Routine infractions such as speeding and running a red light now carry double or even triple the punishments they warranted even a few years ago.

These changes have spawned what some officials call “a vast revolving door of justice”—one which, once it ensnares low-income victims, tends to cycle them in and out of the system, sometimes for years at a time. By the time many of these poor souls manage to extricate themselves from its clutches, they find themselves shorn of thousands of dollars, many of their possessions, and often their very liberty.

Day in court
The odyssey begins at the Carol Miller Justice Center. This three-story, 94,000-square-foot building, completed in 1991 at a cost of just over $21 million, contains the four courtrooms used by Sacramento Superior Court to prosecute traffic offenses. There are some other state agencies in the building, but by far the main business of the building is Traffic Court.

A recent visit to Courtroom 82 offered a glimpse into how the system works. On this day, Judge Raoul Thorbourne was dealing with people charged with “Failure to Appear.” As usual, the courtroom was packed. The 1:30 p.m. session was the third of four that day, so Thorbourne had his rhythm going and was moving things along.

The judge started by lining up people alphabetically, then calling out names. As people came forward, Thorbourne read the charges against them, then asked for their plea. Those who pleaded guilty or no contest were sentenced immediately and sent to the fines room. Those who wanted to explain, or were confused by the process, were told to take a seat and talk to the prosecutor. Those who couldn’t speak English were directed to an interpreter.

At the same time Thorbourne was going down the names, a couple of young, Dockers-clad prosecutors cycled quietly and unobtrusively in and out of the courtroom, summoning each of the seated defendants into conference, then returning to fetch another. Those they had counseled returned to their seats to await sentencing.

Moving violations—once the mainstay of Traffic Court—are now overwhelmed by more administrative charges: driving without a license (either suspended or invalid), driving without insurance and driving without registration. These misdemeanors often carry stiffer penalties than moving violations, which are lower-level “infractions.”

This trio of charges was heard again and again and again. When moving violations were cited, they were usually mentioned in concert with at least one, if not more, of the offenses from this same trio. In only a handful of the cases did moving violations stand alone, and these were disposed of quickly and relatively cheaply.

Because all the defendants in Thorbourne’s courtroom that session had failed to show up for earlier court dates, he was handing out heavy sentences: $1600 or 16 days in jail, $1100 or 13 days, $416 or 5 days, $810 or 10 days. One unfortunate individual was hit with a whopping $2086 fine or 25 days in jail. In virtually all of the cases, the jail sentences were pronounced “with Work Project recommended.”

Work project
Those who can’t afford their fines are put to work, joining a Sheriff’s Department Work Project workforce that carries out the unsung menial labor tasks that are vital to a smoothly functioning community … and paying for the privilege of doing so.

Work Project, you see, isn’t free. Defendants assigned to Work Project are charged a $43 application fee at the time they are booked, and they are assessed an additional $20 per day for each day they serve. This is still cheaper than jail, however. Offenders who end up doing “straight time” at the County Jail are charged $47 per day for the privilege of occupying a cell.

The reason these “license-registration-insurance” offenses have so taken over the sum and substance of Traffic Court is best illustrated by the story of Dean Martin (no relation to the entertainer), who was encountered one recent morning sweeping up leaves and trash under the supervision of Work Project Deputy Joe Garcia at Cottage Park in Sacramento.

Martin is 34 years old, married, and has three children, ages 2, 4 and 11. He has been steadily employed for the past six years as a shift leader in a fast-food restaurant. He makes “$8-something” an hour, and his wife, who also works in fast food, makes about the same.

When Dean was 22, he was arrested for drunk driving. It was one of those kid things: a party in a bar, a few drinks too many, he made a bad decision to drive and he got arrested. His blood alcohol level was .11, just above the limit, but he couldn’t afford an attorney, so he pleaded guilty. He paid the fines, went to the classes, did everything he was supposed to do, but his license was automatically suspended.

He couldn’t afford to stop working, however. Often his shift went on to midnight—long past the time public transportation had stopped running—and his wife worked at another restaurant. It was a 25-minute drive from his duplex to work, too far to ride a bike, so he took a chance and drove.

Without a license, he couldn’t get insurance, and without insurance, he couldn’t register his car. And since expired tags on a license plate are to a cop what a red cape is to a bull, pretty soon he got stopped again. He had to go to court again, which added a misdemeanor to his drunk driving charge. From this came more fines, more payment schedules, more threats of jail and Work Project.

Over the years, Martin estimates he’s spent more than $4,000 on fines, spent 75 days on Work Project, and lost two vehicles—a ’78 Ford Mustang and a ’78 Honda motorcycle—to forfeiture.

Other than his drunk driving conviction and his numerous run-ins for driving without a license, Martin has a good driving record: He has one moving violation (for speeding), and he’s never had an accident. He says he doesn’t drink, minds his family and goes to work every day. Still, he has been without a driver’s license for nearly 12 years, and only recently has gotten it back.

Captive workforce
Martin’s is not an isolated case. Work Project participants tell tales which depict an enforcement system that “lies in wait,” as it were, for any misstep, and once it gets hold of someone, is extremely reluctant to let go.

Even veteran observers are troubled. As one traffic commissioner told SN&R: “The Legislature passed these laws ostensibly with the idea of sending a strong message. But when you witness people in the fines room pulling out their soiled and crumpled dollar bills to make their fine payments, you wonder if maybe $100 might send just as strong a message.”

Captain Wayne Ikeuchi, who commands the Sheriff’s Work Project Division, finds elements of the system disturbing and tries, within the limits of his power, to ameliorate its effects. Recently he began offering a series of classes within Work Project aimed at helping people escape from the system.

This “Power Program,” as he calls it, allows inmates to satisfy up to half of their sentences by attending classes designed to help inmates learn some important life skills, such as how to prepare for a job interview, how to act on the job, and so on.

Deputy Kathryn Clark, who conducts these classes, calls the Power Program “simply the most rewarding thing I have ever done in 20 years of law enforcement.” She would like to expand the program—which she said exemplifies the spirit behind Sheriff Lou Blanas’ concept of “community-oriented policing,”—but to some extent her hands are tied.

As budget supervisor Dwayne Woodard explained, Work Project is bound by contract to supply workers to various public agencies, such as Caltrans, Sacramento’s Parks Department, and Regional Transit. In return for the use of these workers (at any given time the Work Project Division has approximately 1,700 inmates available for service), these agencies pay a fee to the division.

The department relies on these fees just as surely as the various agencies rely on this cheap, captive labor force.

Traffic Court spokeswoman Maureen Ashby said they process more than 175,000 traffic citations every year. Of these, according to her estimates, approximately 20 percent settle simply by paying the bail. Of the remaining 80 percent, only half make it to court. The remainder—those four out of every 10 defendants who fail to show—then enter what Ashby calls “the penalty phase” of the process. This means that very likely they’ll soon be facing jail, or Work Project.

As one Work Project participant explained, “I didn’t have the money to pay, so I was just holding onto my freedom for as long as I could.”