By The Public Communications Office
In this episode of “What’s Up, College Station?” Marketing Coordinator Grace Hallowell and Municipal Court Judge Ed Spillane discuss the fall warrant amnesty period that begins on Monday, Oct. 16, and runs through Nov. 3. Those with outstanding warrants can avoid paying a $50 warrant fee if they pay the fine in full.
Transcript
Grace Hallowell:
What’s up, College Station? I’m Grace Hallowell, and today I’m joined with Municipal Court Judge Ed Spillane. Hi, Judge.
Ed Spillane:
Hi there.
Grace Hallowell:
I am excited you’re here. It’s once again the time for the Warrant Amnesty and Roundup that happens twice a year, and that is starting soon.
Ed Spillane:
Right. Just a week from today, Monday, October 16th, for three weeks, if a citizen thinks they have a warrant or knows they have a warrant and they come to our court or any of the JP courts, we will not only waive the warrant fee if they take care of the case, but they most importantly won’t be arrested.
Grace Hallowell:
And let’s kind of talk about why it’s important or why somebody should pay attention to this.
Ed Spillane:
Most of our cases are tickets. Sometimes people think, “Well, if I get a citation, I just ignore it,” or they put it in the glove compartment and forget about it, that’ll just go away and like a parking ticket and they won’t have to worry about it. But it’s not like a bill you don’t pay. It’s actually a criminal case. And so if you don’t come in and make a plea, then a warrant for your arrest goes out and you can be arrested, which is even for a traffic ticket that can be very serious. If you get arrested in Brazos County, your booking photo is immediately online. So you now have an online booking photo on the internet for anyone to discover. So we do our best. The last thing I want is for people to get arrested. So by working with you and getting the word out, we used to do it once a year. Now it’s so popular, we do it twice a year. We provide a warrant in amnesty just to encourage people to come to court.
Grace Hallowell:
And that brings up a good point with the parking tickets. A lot of people that live here in College Station don’t live here year round. And where I’m from, a parking ticket is not a criminal offense. You just pay your fine. And if you don’t pay it on time, you’ll get a late fee, but you won’t be arrested for it. But here, it’s different.
Ed Spillane:
Right. Right. I mean, some like parking meter will put a hold on you renewing your license, but most traffic cases are criminal. We do everything. We call your cell phone, we do everything we can to reach people. But if we don’t, then our only recourse is to put the case in warrant. We also handle a lot of alcohol beverage code cases like minor possession of alcohol, disorderly conduct, noise, theft, assault, public intoxication, so those count as well. And those will go to warrant if someone ignores it or they don’t pay their fine and talk to us because we offer payment plans. We offer all sorts of options. It’s just the biggest mistake people can make is they don’t come to court.
Grace Hallowell:
So coming to court, if people don’t know where it is, it’s located right here in town. And you guys, you have a YouTube channel as well as the website that provides all this information.
Ed Spillane:
Right. Yeah. We have videos on how you can take care of a traffic case, how to take care of an alcohol beverage coat case. If you do take care of everything, they clear your records. So we provide all sorts of educational offerings that most people in our court, they represent themselves and so they don’t know the law, and we try to provide them the law on that. So we do everything we can. Sometimes people don’t know what court their traffic ticket or their case is with. If they call our court at 979-764-3683, we’ll direct them to the right court.
Grace Hallowell:
Right. And no one should ever be afraid to come in and talk to you guys.
Ed Spillane:
No. The worst thing is to avoid.. In fact, if you come to our court and you’re in warrant, you’ll never get arrested. We’ll make sure you don’t get arrested if you come to court and cooperate. But during the amnesty period, if you take care of your case, we’ll waive that $50 warrant fee that is attached to each case.
Grace Hallowell:
Well, what else can you share with us, Judge?
Ed Spillane:
Nothing more. As you know, because you’re in charge, and maybe a bigger part than I am of course is our community living classes that we’re holding for all defendants who have non-traffic cases. We have a community living class, and I know they don’t go there voluntarily. But from the anonymous surveys that you give, they seem pretty pleased with the information they learn. We teach them how to clear their cases. They learn about city ordinances, about different things that we have in the city that they may not know about. And just various rules they hear from the police, they can ask questions. So we do our best to educate. Our whole goal is to make sure people don’t end up in a court again. That’s the whole goal.
Grace Hallowell:
Right. And yes, to learn from your mistakes.
Ed Spillane:
Exactly. That’s what we want.
Grace Hallowell:
Well, if anyone needs more information, cstx.gov/court.
Ed Spillane:
Exactly.
Grace Hallowell:
Or they can call you or they can stop in.
Ed Spillane:
Yeah, we even give a list of those who are in warrant. So you can even look up or see if your neighbor has a warrant and let him or her know. So the website is great.
Grace Hallowell:
Well, thank you so much for joining me today.
Ed Spillane:
Thank you very much, Grace.
Grace Hallowell:
And that’s What’s Up.
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