Has anyone put any thought into whether or not you will have your JP's collect hot checks for under $100?

The vast majority of the hot checks are under $100. The JPs just went to their legislative update and came back saying they are being taught that the county attorney does NOT get a collection fee on cases that go through their court. In the past, we have charged our fees in county court as resitution. I really don't see my office spending time and energy trying to send letters and do pre-filing collection if the JPs will refuse to order our fees.

quote:

Originally posted by JenniferD:
The JPs just went to their legislative update and came back saying they are being taught that the county attorney does NOT get a collection fee on cases that go through their court.

How so? CCP Art. 102.007(a)(1) applies to both theft by check and issuance of bad check, regardless of amount, and the fees in subsection (c) clearly include thefts of less than $100. If your office is doing the collecting and processing, then you get the fee. What are we missing?

My guess is that they are under the impression that 102.007 only applies in cases where the money is collected by the county attorney BEFORE a case is filed. Historically, in county court, we have included this fee in plea bargains as resititution to the county attorney. They are saying that there is no legal justification for doing that.

I just talked to a JP (who is a lawyer and who has attended a JP ass'n-sponsored legislative update) and he hasn't heard anything about what you describe. I would encourage you to press them on the point and make them show you proof of the supposed change.

After every legislative session, rumors about various new laws float around the state by word of mouth, without any substantive support, and the only way to stop them is to make the purveyors prove it by showing you new language in black and white. That usually pops their balloon pretty quickly, and you can then get back to business.

It's always possible that we missed something, but absent any such change in the law, the prosecutor fees in Art. 102.007 apply to any case in which you handle the collection and processing of the theft/IBC, regardless of what stage of the process that occurs, and subject to PC 32.41(e). But perhaps that subsection is the rub if they are trying to cut you out of the process so they can use (e) to funnel more funds to themselves? (Personally, I always thought that provision created an ethical conflict for the JP and muni judges, but perhaps that's just me.)

Okay. So I go more details. My JP asked a question of, Bronson Tucker, Program Attorney for the Texas Justice Court Training Center during a break. He was the trainer in Lubbock on August 21, 2015. She asked him if the county attorney got a hot check fee if the case was filed in jp court. He responded that the county attorney did NOT get a fee if a case was filed in their court. He told her to ask me to show her the law that justified our fee. The JP and I had already looked over 102.007 and Mr. Tucker appeared to be aware of that section and our fees but interpreting it to only apply on funds collected pre-filing.

But where's the authority for "interpreting it to only apply on funds collected pre-filing"?

???

They are comparing 102.007 that has the language that the prosecuting "attorney may collect" the hot check fee for their collections and the merchant fee with 102.0071 which says that the Justice Court can collect the merchant fee without mentioning the prosecuting attorney's fee. They are saying 102.0071 limits what they can order since it only mentions the merchant fee.

In other words ... there is no authority, only opinion.

Well, as we like to say around here, you can lead a judge to logic but you can't make him think.