Michelle l. Van Geel, Committee Policy Analyst

Transcription of minutes was required verbatim.

The problem with the bill as introduced is that in order to be constitutional it has to provide for entering a judgement of conviction before any effort can be made to collect a fine. If the person "the violator" keeps his written promise to appear, comes in and posts bail then the plain fact of life he never appears and the bail is forfeited, all well and good. The problem that this bill is seeking to solve is the person and I hope it is a minority but obviously there are a lot of them running around who neither come in and post bail nor ever appear.

If we provide that that conduct results in the conviction of the underlying offense, or to say driving 75 miles an hour in a 60 mile an hour zone then it is a violation of the penal laws of the state and the fine must go into the state permanent school fund. The counties obviously want something where if they go out and try to collect from this deadbeat who by definition is nowhere to be found or not easy to find they will get the resulting money.

One way that seems possible to do it is not to make violation of the written promise to appear grounds for conviction of the underlying offense but rather to go to a section of statute which is not in this bill at all but is NRS 484.807 which provides it is unlawful for any person to violate his written promise to appear given to a peace officer upon the issuance of a traffic citation. Regardless of the disposition of the charge for which the citation is originally issued (I’m reading it in English). Then it also provides that compliance may be made by appearance by counsel and that a warrant may issue upon violation. Now to that it is proposed to add and this language may need polishing but the state or local entity that is responsible.

We would add new language because I am going to disregard what is here because it isn’t very well, isn’t terribly well written. But we take the misdemeanor of violating the promise to appear and we would permit the counties, this would require an amendment of another Section 1 which makes certain exceptions to their authority to adopt generally police and sanitary ordinances. To allow the county to make that violation of the promise to appear, if the promise was given in the county, in violation of a county ordinance. Then of course they would have……

Does that mean we need to include enabling language authorizing counties to adopt such an ordinance.

Then if that had been done the county could then present to the justice of the peace the misdemeanor that John Smith on such and such a date in this county gave his written promise to appear on or before such and such a date and failed to keep that promise.

On July 1^st and the police department in question dismissed the citation on June the 1^st and then July the 1^st a month later John Doe failed to appear. The underlying charge of speeding has been dismissed.

But yet John Doe has violated his promise to appear so now is John Doe guilty of the secondary misdemeanor, even though the first one which swung the second one into play has evaporated.

Under present law without our doing anything to this bill he apparently would be guilty, prima-facie guilty of the offense. The only way for him to get out of it, that is that secondary guilt would be to appear and say the charge was dismissed but here I am per my promise. If we want to avoid that need we would also amend the existing in Nevada Revised Statutes (NRS) 484.807 with the magic words unless good cause is shown. That you see then would make it clear that the secondary offense did not survive the first one. Returning to the original track if the county had the authority to make violation of the written promise to appear a violation of county ordinance it could then, it would first of course have to get a judgement of conviction of that from the justices court. It could then, however, go ahead and collect that fine for that violation and retain the proceeds.

It might be desirable since a misdemeanor is simply a fine of not more than so and so, it might be desirable if that were your pleasure to require the county to impose as a penalty for the violation which this present statute does not do the amount of the fine which would have been imposed for the original violation. There is a little fine tuning to be drawn in drafting these amendments but they obviously can’t be drafted unless and until the committee gets some direction.

I think that would be desirable, it would certainly seem to meet the needs of these various local government entities that have approached the legislature.

We will get all of the other parties on record after you and Ms. Lang have presented your presentation so we can ascertain that there is general agreement.

Well, then I believe unless there are questions from the committee that my presentation is over.

Ms. Lang do you care to add anything additional at this time or do you believe that within the frame work that has been set out, we could come up something that is workable and would not cause us to imperil any federal funds coming into highway funds or anything like that.

Under this particular recommendation this wouldn’t affect anything to do with the way the citation is written up so it shouldn’t affect the highways in anyway. What it would do is have a judgement of conviction with underlying offense, I guess is what Mr. Daykin is saying. Is that correct?

May I qualify, I may have said "yes" too soon. The accusation of the violation, the citation for the violation would remain open unless and until there was some disposition of that, but the secondary violation of the failure to appear is the one that they would go after.

So the one that we would be getting the conviction on is the failure to appear.

The question is whether this would affect somebody’s demerit points on their, either for purposes of their insurance and for DMV records and it seemed to me that under the scenario you are saying there would be no conviction so you wouldn’t have the demerit points yet, is that how you would see it too Mr. Daykin?

Okay then do you think that we have come to something that would be workable if the parties in the room also agree.

It looks like that would be one way of dealing with this issue if that’s what the committee is favorable.

In that case if I may call the individuals who have indicated, or in fact I only have two who have signed in. Could that be all who wish to indicate how they feel here. I have John Williams, City of Las Vegas and Bob Hadfield.

Please why don’t you all three come up and we will take you as a panel because we are running out of time for the use of the room and not for any other reason. If you would go one at a time identifying yourself for the record and telling us whether you believe that the organization you represent could live with or enforce the amendments we are suggesting at the moment.

I believe for our court this would work hypothetically if we are going to have the FTA and we can go after that and the rest will follow then they are going to want to take care of the rest of the citation. We would also ask that BDR 843 or 14-843 (also still be included in this amendment to A.B. 121." (Exhibit C and D)

You would ask that that BDR be included with the amendments that we have discussed today, is that correct?

That is the purpose of the subcommittee, you are right I should have mentioned that at the beginning.

I really don’t have anything else to add I think he summed it up rather well but I am happy to answer any questions.

As I understand the proposed amendment it would do nothing that would change the counties underlying position that failure to appear would be a forfeiture and this would deal only with those people that not only don’t send a check they don’t bother to do anything so given that understanding I believe our organization would support it and I appreciate the creative solution.

The real deadbeats, thank you I believe we have a representative from the Administrative Offices of the Courts do you have any input? Okay then.

I don’t have a copy of the bill they want to move, but I think it was just a portion of that bill that you wanted is that correct? You wanted the amendment to NRS 176.064.

Yes it was 14-843 which amended NRS 176. We passed out copies of that in the last subcommittee meeting. I have copies of NRS 176 as far as 843 was concerned as far amending that and I have 20 copies if you would like to have it. (Exhibit E)

I just thought for the subcommittee they might want to know it, its just the one part of it because it is also amended Chapter 171 and some other provisions.

So then if you could give the committee 20 copies for the record that would be great. If we have a general feel of the amendments as they are. I guess I should ask for a vote at this time.

Shall we recommend and do pass based on the amendment outlined by Mr. Daykin with said amendment to be drafted between Mr. Daykin and Ms. Lang and then we will return it with the full report to the full judiciary committee and we will distribute copies to all of you so you can check them but we will not have another meeting. In that case then I (called for the motion)

ASSEMBLYMAN BROWER MOVED THAT THE MOTION BE APPROVED.

CHAIRWOMAN OHRENSCHALL SECONDED THE MOTION.

THE MOTION CARRIED.