Those with pot may avoid jail
By JOHN MORITZ

STAR-TELEGRAM / BRIAN LAWDERMILK

A new rule lets police officers decide whether to issue tickets for marijuana possession, as opposed to bringing the suspect to jail. What do you think of this rule? Good idea Bad idea Don't care
AUSTIN -- If a police officer in Texas catches you with a few ounces of marijuana you're going to jail, right?

Maybe not.

Beginning Sept. 1, police officers will have the discretion to issue citations similar to traffic tickets rather than hauling the offender to jail. House Bill 2391, which passed with virtually no opposition during the 2007 legislative session and was signed into law without fanfare by Gov. Rick Perry, does not change the penalty for pot possession.

But supporters say the discretion may only be used when the person is in possession of four ounces of marijuana or less and lives in the county where the stop was made, and only when the suspect is not considered a threat to public safety. Plus, they say, it will save a lot of time and paperwork for beat cops and it will help prevent local jails from being clogged with otherwise low-risk lawbreakers.

"From my perspective, it gives police officers another tool in their belt when dealing with nonviolent offenders," said Deputy Chief Dennis McKnight of the Bexar County Sheriff's Department. "Rather than spending three hours taking a guy downtown, booking him into jail, taking him before a magistrate and taking his paperwork up to the district attorney, I can write him a ticket compelling him to show up in court.

"And I can get back to my beat protecting my citizens from rapists and burglars," he added. "It's a no-brainer."

But the Fort Worth Police Department and the Tarrant County District Attorney's Office see it differently. Assistant District Attorney David Montague said his agency is advising local law enforcement agencies to continue taking into custody anyone who violates the law governing marijuana possession.

"It is our desire that they continue to handle these cases as they've been handled in the past," Montague said. "It would be a big hassle to implement the new policy, and there would be no guarantee that we would have the tools we need to make sure these folks made it back for their court appearance."

Lt. Robert Rangel, who heads the narcotics division for the Fort Worth Police, said the department will follow the DA's recommendation. He said most arrests involving small amounts of marijuana are made by patrol officers who find the stash in the course of making traffic stops or other routine business.

"Our unit is targeting the trafficking of more dangerous substances," Rangel said.

State Rep. Jerry Madden, a Richardson Republican who chairs the House Corrections Committee, said he introduced the legislation at the behest of law enforcement organizations who expressed concerns about local jail overcrowding and about whether police officers' time could be better spent rather than taking misdemeanor offenders into custody.

The measure passed 132-0 in the House and 29-1 in the Senate. Houston's Dan Patrick, a Republican, cast the sole dissenting vote.

"This is not about decriminalizing marijuana," Madden said. "There's nothing in the legislation about that." Under the new law, possessing less than two ounces of marijuana remains a Class B misdemeanor punishable by 180 days in jail and a fine of up to $2,000. Possession of two ounces to four ounces remains a Class A misdemeanor and is punishable by up to a year in jail and a $4,000 fine.

Perry spokeswoman Krista Moody said the governor has no problem with local law enforcement agencies deciding to allow citations to be written in marijuana-possession cases as long as the suspects are held accountable.

Ana Yanez Correa, director of the Criminal Justice Coalition, said the new law makes sense for both law enforcement agencies and for those accused of possessing small amounts of marijuana.

"This says to the police officer, you have the experience and judgment to decide whether this person needs to be taken to jail immediately," she said. "And for the person accused, if he is given a citation, he doesn't risk losing his job because he misses work or risk losing his home because he lost his job. He still has to go to court, and he still faces punishment."

Thankfully, our office does not handle misdemeanors. However, this seems like a really bad idea.

Let's see, we are going to take people who already don't like to write reports or do paperwork and we are going to encourage them not to because...they have more important things to do. Then, someone is going to get stuck prosecuting a case with all of a ticket to tell them the facts of the case. I wonder how you will tell the PC for the stop or the exception to the warrant requirement that justified the stop. I am sure that the officer will be able to remember all of those details when the case finally goes to trial.

I understand the reasoning here; jail overcrowding is an expensive problem for many of us. However, until we can find the answers to questions of procedure, my office will request that the officers refrain from ticketing these folk. If the judges wish to work with the spirit of the legislation by lowering bonds on these, that's oK with me.

If any of you have answers to these questions, I'm more than willing to be educated!

1) A ticket is an arrest, in this case for a Class A or B misdemeanor. How are they magistrated in a timely manner?

2) We provide people with information about their court date when released from jail; how do we do it now? Officers have more than enough paperwork in their cars, they don't need these documents also. Neither my office, the clerk or the Court have the manpower to send out letters to these folks.

3) When they don't show up, we are looking at issuing warrants, which increases court costs by $50 (one day in jail, if they are laying it out...), increases demands on officer time to find and arrest the individual, then he is in jail and facing a higher bond than he would have originally.

Like I said - please - educate me!

Lisa L. Peterson
Nolan County Attorney

There is a much simpler solution to jail overcrowding, if that is the true justification for this new law: approve a personal bond. But, the real justification seems to be the notion that law enforcement can now make a unilateral decision as to the need for enforcement of certain low-level offenses by the well-established process of arrest.

Contrary to the claims made by the author of the bill, decriminalization is exactly what is the result.

We are asking all of our police agencies to go ahead and make arrests. We want fingerprints and a mug shot, as well as initial generation of the CJS form. We have a procedure whereby the defendant can waive magistrating and accept a preset bond (you can waive anything except a capital murder trial), and with an aggressive PR Bond program, this won't greatly affect jail overcrowding for us.

Our officers are still arresting. (Comal County). Trial by citation? Most of our Misdemeanor prosecutors started in JP court and know the joys of prosecution without officer reports. Furthermore, we are not set up to respond to citations with orders to appear in county court. Maybe its a useful tool for the larger metro areas.

"This says to the police officer, you have the experience and judgment to decide whether this person needs to be taken to jail immediately,"????

And yet we have warrant requirements, and exceptions that must be proven, and suppression hearings...and the second bite at the apple in trial....and on and on!!! Minor details that show that the above quote, while may be factually true, is legally not even in the ballpark!

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Originally posted by Sammy McCrary:
Let's see, we are going to take people who already don't like to write reports or do paperwork and we are going to encourage them not to because...they have more important things to do.

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I'll just say this, if an agency doesn't require a report for any offense above a class "C" (mine requires them for any custodial arrest) then you have a much bigger problem.

I'm wondering if the same people who are claiming it is a great idea for officers to use their discretion on whether to arrest or cite are the same people who made allegations of profiling that led to the collection of statistics. Who wants to bet that such a requirement will be added next session to this citation law, after minority groups begin complaining?

I certainly don't mean that they aren't supposed to write reports. However, there a certain officers who will put off writing a report for weeks or months...sometimes even until a victim calls wanting to know why their case isn't being prosecuted. The feeling I get is that officers feel they should be "out fighting crime" not sitting at a desk typing reports. I think this statute reinforces that idea. Look at the comments about how the statute will save time on paperwork and the guy quoted about getting back on the beat to catch rapists and burglars. I just happen to feel that the paperwork is pretty important. And, I have trouble believing that anyone, myself included, would be able to remember the pertinent details after 6 months and dozens of pothead arrests unless they had written a detailed report.

One of our investigators tells me that, at his old agency, they were not allowed to go home until they had written a report about every case they had during the shift. He said the rule applied no matter how long of a day you had.

Two police agencies in my county are going to use the citation procedure since they only have one officer on duty at night and have to travel 15 miles to the jail if they make an arrest. Using this procedure will save time and get them back on patrol quicker.

They are going to use their ticket book and write in "County Court" and add theappearance date on the ticket from a list of dates provided by my office. They are going to fingerprint the person and fill our the CR-43 paperwork and send it to my office along with the criminal history and offense report.

As specified in the statute, the county court judge will magistrate the defendant upon appearance in court.

I see no disadvantage. The "no-show" rate on DWLI cases will probably be about the same as it is now.

"It's incompatible with our system, so we're not doing it that way," says Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal.

Rosenthal says Harris County has a 24-hour-a-day, 365-day-a-year intake system in which lawyers in the district attorney's office review all cases before filing charges. At least four lawyers are assigned to the intake office at all times, he says.

"We believe that it's best to have a lawyer review the facts and circumstances of a case to determine whether or not there was probable cause to make the arrest in the first place and whether or not there's sufficient evidence to sustain the charge," Rosenthal says.

Rosenthal says he notified all the police chiefs in Harris County that if their officers want to follow the new law and issue citations, the DA's office would not accept the charges.

Pflugerville, hoping to slow traffic, uses cardboard officers
The cutouts are being placed near schools
By Marty Toohey
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Saturday, August 25, 2007

PFLUGERVILLE � From down the street, the beefy police officer standing in front of Brookhollow Elementary School looked real enough that cars slowed as they approached him.

Up close, he's obviously a plastic cutout, and not really police Capt. Jim McLean. But Pflugerville police say the cutout reminds drivers to slow down.

quote:

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Originally posted by Sammy McCrary:
One of our investigators tells me that, at his old agency, they were not allowed to go home until they had written a report about every case they had during the shift. He said the rule applied no matter how long of a day you had.

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This is the way it is at my current department, all custodial arrests and any criminal charges require a report (PI's, MIP's, MIC's, DUI, etc). Hell, we even write reports on warrants we serve, our guys are trained this way from the get go and quickly learn the value of a well written report.

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[Harris County District Attorney Chuck] Rosenthal says he notified all the police chiefs in Harris County that if their officers want to follow the new law and issue citations, the DA's office would not accept the charges.

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Way to uphold the new law there Chuck.... or do you only uphold laws when you agree with them?

We already do it for small quantities of MJ, and have been for years. We cite for possession of drug paraphernalia if it's contained in some way to facilitate it's use such as in a rolled form.


I really don't mind booking people on POM, so either way it doesnt matter to me.

www.cop-talk.net

Not that Chuck needs defending but Alex he is upholding the law. As he pointed out, that system of "citation" doesn't work with the Harris Co. system as it currently stands. Just because the leg. has given officers the ability to write these "citations" does not mean the prosecutor has to take them; just as with any other case a law enforcement agency files, the local prosecutor can refuse the case.

I don't think my office has made a final decision on what we are going to do with these citations, I do know that it is going to cause a lot of havoc with our current system too, such as what date will the officer give to the defendant when he gives him the citation, giving a court date in a county court is diferent than a JP court ? When is the defendant going to be fingerprinted and photographed and the CJIS paperwork going to be completed and by whom ? Will the arresting officer have to come to court at the arrignment to do that as he would have done at the jail if arrested, what if that officer works midnights ? I could go on but I think you get the point. I'm not saying these are insurmountable issues but I know that if they are issues in my little county I can only imagine what they are like for Harris Co.

Cases are refused all the time for valid reasons but Chuck threatened a premptive blanket refusal of lawful citations. If his "system" doesn't handle it then the system needs to be adjusted. The law didn't go into effect overnight so these adjustments should have already been started, ideally to be ready in time for Sept.1 He shouldn't just stick his head in the sand and ignore the law.

Much easier said than done !
We only have one full time crim county court and one part time, Harris County has 15 or so full time county courts. Keeping in mind that this "citation" system does not come with funding, where does the money come from to establish booking stations for the courts, where does the money come from to pay the officers overtime, how do you "make" your county judge(s) find a place in their already overburdened dockets to arraign these new defendants.....and in 30+ days. Please don't say from the SO budget because if you think for one second that the SO can or will let go of funds it has already been budgeted for the year, you're dreaming
Again, I'm not saying these things are insurmountable issues, I'm just saying to change the system to make way for this is not as simple as it may look (see other issues discussed above from other counties). At least from my perspective, I would welcome a way to save jail overcrowding and officer time too, but some solutions create more problems than they solve. And again, this is not a mandate from the leg., nothing says it has to be done this way, it just gives the officer/agency another way, some counties will find it workable others will not.

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Originally posted by AlexLayman:

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[Harris County District Attorney Chuck] Rosenthal says he notified all the police chiefs in Harris County that if their officers want to follow the new law and issue citations, the DA's office would not accept the charges.

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Way to uphold the new law there Chuck.... or do you only uphold laws when you agree with them?

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Alex, since "Chuck" isn't a participant in this thread, you may only address future comments about him directly to him, and not on this forum. If you want to debate the merits of a particular policy, then keep your comments limited to that policy -- esp. when several offices, not just one, are employing that policy.

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