Break a speeding law or a city ordinance and it'll cost you. But figuring out the cost is like playing roulette: It depends on what city you happen to get caught in and, therefore, what court you land in.
Yet it's not as if Ohio invented this crazy-quilt system of justice (or of municipal revenue enhancement). Disparities, confusion and dissatisfaction are common throughout the United States.
So you were busted going 15 mph over the speed limit and paid $200 for the fine and costs.
By Stephen Koff, cleveland.com
WASHINGTON -- Get caught speeding in Shaker Heights, and you're on the hook for $220.
If only you'd been caught next door in Cleveland Heights, where the total ticket cost would be $50 less. Ohio is a crazy quilt of penalties, court costs and fees. The fees and fines are so convoluted that not even all court clerks can recount which dollar goes where.
Ohio is one of only two states with mayor's courts. But "mayor's court" is just a title, and many other states have similar, equally messy systems with uneven prices for breaking the law. You roll the dice in just about all of them, it seems.
(Al Behrman, Associated Press)
Next slide: Justice in the dark.
Some states don't even know of all their courts
Every expert we talked with said Ohio seems to follow the norm with a patchwork of courts, at least at the local level. Some states struggle even to keep track of which cities and towns have their own courts, fines and fees.
That's because court information tends to be gathered and tracked by each state's supreme court. Yet since mayors don't report to their state's judiciary, some supreme courts have no way of knowing what a particular city or mayor does.
Ohio's Supreme Court does.
"In Ohio, we know all the jurisdictions that have mayor's courts, and we know all of our municipal jurisdictions, of course," said Maureen O'Connor, chief justice of the Ohio Supreme Court.
O'Connor is co-leading a national task force for the Conference of Chief Justices and the Conference of State Court Administrators to examine disparities in bail, fines and fees. That includes the uneven court costs and special use fees courts can charge as they choose.
"There are some states that do not know how many municipal courts they have, because the city itself is empowered to create a court, and that court is not under the jurisdiction of the supreme court," O'Connor said. "So some burg could set up a mayor's court, a municipal court, put it in operation, put a magistrate in there, and it's not on the radar."
(Mark J. Terrill, Associated Press)
Next slide: Uniformity is not uniform.
States can recommend. Differences arise anyway
Even in states that know what their local courts are up to – and even in states that strive for uniformity – there are differences.
California does not have mayor's courts. Traffic offenses and misdemeanors are handled in county courts. The state Judicial Council, which sets policy for all California courts, recommends a standard set of fines and fees each year.
But the courts and judicial officers are not bound by them, said Blaine Corren, a spokesman for the Judicial Council.
(fauxly, Creative Commons CC By-ND 2.0)
Next slide: Cross the bay for a deal.
You might do better across the bay
The recommended fine for going 15 mph over the speed limit in California is $35. But California has so many fees – for the state, the county, the emergency responders, a state DNA fund, even a $1 fee to pay for night court operations – that the total adds up to $238 for that speeding ticket.
Despite that recommended total, varying county costs, fees and court practices make it an inaccurate predictor of what you'll actually pay. "The same speeding ticket might be a little less in Orange County than in L.A. County," Robert Hakim, a Los Angeles attorney, told cleveland.com. "It's the taxes and fees that might make the difference."
Some judges in county superior courts offer discounts for settling disputed tickets with a guilty plea, a way to expedite cases and avoid trials. The Center for Investigative Reporting found that in San Francisco one day, a court officer told about 80 people they could pay $285 to settle any ticket of $400 or more, and $178 for tickets under $400.
Across the Bay Bridge in Oakland, there were no such deals.
(Marcio Jose Sanchez, Associated Press)
Next slide: The court shouldn't be an ATM.
Making offenders pay
With all these differences, some legal authorities worry that justice is doled out unevenly or unfairly. They believe that since courts were created to serve all of society -- a bedrock as old as the Magna Carta -- there should be a balance in how they are funded and how costs and fees are used.
Cash-strapped cities might like to use fees to pay for their courts' very operation, but "courts are not supposed to be ATMs so that they can be self-funded," O'Connor said. "That's a function of government."
Just as touchy: whether cities and villages should use courts to bolster municipal finances.
(Mark Lennihan, Associated Press)
Next slide: Local control.
Cities have rights, too
Let's stop beating up on the cities and villages and consider a different principle: home rule, which is the right of local government to decide on local issues.
It's an ideal of a democracy, said Ric Simmons, a law professor at Ohio State University.
"I get that the person committing the crime might see it as unfair," Simmons said. But when it comes to fines, each jurisdiction has a right to set local priorities.
This is an age-old debate, and it's why we still see all these differences -- a fine of $12 in Barberton (with costs, it jumps to $164) but $125 in East Cleveland ($222 with costs) and $55 in Shaker Heights ($220 with costs) -- for the same traffic offense.
There is hope for change. But only so much change or hope.
(cleveland.com file)
Next slide: Voluntary limits.
Ferguson was about courts, too
The 2014 police shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed black man in Ferguson, Missouri, led to complaints about unequal justice, carried out through police stops, traffic fines and court practices across the St. Louis region. Local groups and newspapers had already documented the disparities – and the local revenue-from-ticket schemes. But it took civil unrest and a Justice Department investigation to prompt change.
In 2015, 80 of the 82 municipal courts in St. Louis County agreed to adopt uniform fines and fees. Frank Vatterott, chairman of the St. Louis County Municipal Courts Improvement Committee and the municipal judge in Overland, Missouri, told cleveland.com that this was a result of Ferguson.
Yet a St. Louis civic group, Better Together, cautioned that voluntary action would not be enough. Dave Leipholtz, the group's director of community-based studies, said this year in a St. Louis Post-Dispatch op-ed that it is illogical to think the same officials who pursued municipal revenue "at the expense of justice" could suddenly be entrusted with their own oversight.
(Charlie Riedel, Associated Press)
Next slide: Cities push back.
Fairness conflicts with government rights
How much is fair?
A 2015 Missouri law tried to cap how much a city could raise for its general operations through traffic fines and fees. The old law set the limit at 30 percent. The state legislature and governor reduced it 20 percent statewide, and to 12.5 percent in St. Louis County.
The lower rate for St. Louis County cities and villages was quickly challenged as unconstitutional by a handful of communities, and they won. The matter is on appeal. Missouri legislators and Gov. Jay Nixon meantime followed up with a new law capping fines for minor traffic violations.
Some Ohio legislators have tried to enact similar reforms, but opposition from local governments has made it an ongoing slog, says state Sen. Tom Patton, a top Republican and critic of fines and fees that have little to do with public safety. Instead, says Louis Tobin, deputy director of the Ohio Judicial Conference, Ohio has been guided by a belief that courts should not use fines or fees to block access to justice, and that courts should not be self-funding.
Even these principles get occasional pushback from mayors. But in 2013, Ohio did block villages with fewer than 200 people from having mayor's courts. Patton drove that particular change; he said he was tired of seeing the tiny village of Linndale use a small stretch of I-71 as "a cash register."
(Scott Shaw, The Plain Dealer)
Next slide: What we've learned.
It's like Vegas: You never know
The lesson? Obey the law. Because if you slip up, it'll cost you. And your luck depends entirely – crazily so -- on whose town border you have crossed.
(Wayne Parry, Associated Press)
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