BILL ANALYSIS
SB 175
Page 1
Date of Hearing: July 13, 1999
Chief Counsel: Harry M. Dorfman
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC SAFETY
Mike Honda, Chair
SB 175 (Rainey) - As Amended: July 7, 1999
FOR VOTE ONLY
SUMMARY : Establishes in the Office of Criminal Justice Planning
(OCJP) a pilot program to be implemented in San Francisco,
Contra Costa and San Bernardino to apprehend people with
outstanding arrest warrants. Specifically, this bill :
1)Declares the Legislature's finding that the prevailing law
enforcement "chance encounter" strategy to locate people with
outstanding arrest warrants has not been effective in reducing
the backlog of arrest and bench warrants.
2)Declares the Legislature's finding that 2,595,335 warrants
were unserved at the end of 1998.
3)Declares the Legislature's intent to determine whether
increasing financial resources, providing technical
assistance, and promoting innovative practices can reduce or
eliminate the backlog of arrest warrants and reduce crime in
jurisdictions that receive this assistance.
4)Establishes in the OCJP a pilot program of financial and
technical assistance for local law enforcement agencies to
assist in apprehending persons with outstanding warrants.
5)Requires OCJP to distribute available funds to San Francisco,
Contra Costa and San Bernardino counties. Further specifies
that the funds shall be distributed to the San Francisco
Police Department, and the county sheriffs of Contra Costa and
San Bernardino to hire personnel and to develop policies to
reduce or eliminate the backlog of arrest warrants.
6)Requires the executive director of OCJP to prepare and issue
administrative guidelines and procedures for the Service of
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Arrest Warrants Pilot Program (SAWPP). Further requires these
guidelines at a minimum to do all of the following:
a) Require law enforcement agencies receiving funds to log
all felony and misdemeanor warrants to the Department of
Justice's (DOJ) California Law Enforcement
Telecommunications System (CLETS);
b) Require law enforcement agencies receiving funds under
SAWPP to collaborate with other public agencies, including
law enforcement agencies in neighboring jurisdictions,
county probation departments, social service agencies, and
the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) to develop
innovative approaches to apprehend persons with outstanding
arrest warrants; and,
c) Require that funds supplement, rather than supplant,
current expenditures;
7)Requires agencies receiving funds under SAWPP to report to
OCJP one year after the receipt of grant money, and annually
thereafter, on the effectiveness of the grant.
8)Requires OCJP to report to the fiscal committees of the
Legislature no later than January 1 following the year in
which it received any report from an agency evaluating the
effectiveness of the grant.
9)Limits OCJP's expenditure of funds to cover administrative
costs to 5% of the total funds.
10)Provides that this bill remains in effect until January 1,
2003, and as of that date is repealed, unless a later enacted
statute, enacted before that date, deletes or extends that
date.
11)Requires the DOJ to transmit to the DMV records of all felony
and misdemeanor warrants entered in CLETS.
12)Prohibits the DMV from issuing a driver's license to, or
renewing a driver's license of, any person who has an
outstanding arrest warrant.
13)Appropriates $1.5 million from the General Fund to OCJP for
expenditures for SAWPP.
SB 175
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EXISTING LAW :
1)Authorizes a court to issue a bench warrant of arrest whenever
a defendant fails to appear in court including, but not
limited to, the following situations:
a) If the defendant is ordered by a judge or magistrate to
personally appear in court at a specific time and place;
b) If the defendant is released from custody on bail and is
ordered by a judge or magistrate, or other person
authorized to accept bail, to personally appear in court at
a specific time and place;
c) If the defendant is released from custody on his or her
own recognizance and promises to personally appear in court
at a specific time and place;
d) If the defendant is released from custody or arrest upon
citation by a peace officer or other person authorized to
issue citations and the defendant has signed a promise to
personally appear in court at a specific time and place;
e) If a defendant is authorized to appear by counsel and
the court or magistrate orders that the defendant
personally appear in court at a specific time and place;
and,
f) If an information or indictment has been filed in the
superior court and the court has fixed the date and place
for the defendant personally to appear for arraignment.
(Penal Code Section 978.5.)
2)Authorizes a magistrate to issue an arrest warrant when a
complaint is filed charging a felony and the magistrate is
satisfied that the offense has been committed and there is
reasonable ground to believe the defendant committed it.
(Penal Code Section 813(a).)
3)Requires a magistrate who issues an arrest warrant to fix a
bail which will be reasonable and sufficient for the
appearance of the defendant following his or her arrest.
(Penal Code Section 815a.)
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4)Specifies that an arrest warrant shall be directed generally
to any peace officer, or to any public officer or employee
authorized to serve process where the warrant is for a
violation of a statute or ordinance which such person has the
duty to enforce in the state, and may be executed by any of
those officers to whom it may be delivered. (Penal Code
Section 816.)
FISCAL EFFECT : Unknown
COMMENTS :
1)Author's Statement. According to the author, "The issue of
outstanding arrest warrants is one of the most serious
problems facing our criminal justice system today. This bill
is aimed at helping reduce the overwhelming backlog of
unserved warrants, including tens of thousands against persons
wanted for serious and violent crimes. Local law enforcement
has indicated that they do not have enough staff to search out
and arrest the alleged offenders. Law enforcement agencies
often rely on the 'chance encounter' which depends on the
suspect being stopped on a traffic violation or in the course
of another investigation. This strategy endangers the public
by allowing criminals to roam the streets - resulting in an
increasing number of innocent crime victims. We can no longer
ignore this issue which permits spousal abusers, child
molesters, drug dealers, house burglars and others to ignore
the law. This bill would help to reduce the outstanding
warrants in the state and sends a message to criminals that
they will be apprehended and punished for their crimes."
2)Stale Warrants Lead to Stale Cases Which Lead to Compulsory
Dismissals by the Courts. Delay between the time a crime is
committed and the time the perpetrator is arrested or charged,
whichever comes first, may deny the perpetrator due process of
law under the sixth and fourteenth amendments to the United
States Constitution and/or article I, section 15 of the
California Constitution. [ People v. Belton , (1992) 6 Cal.
App. 4th 1425, 1433.] The courts will look to the actual
prejudice suffered by the defendant due to the delay and
balance that against the justification offered for the delay
by the prosecution. [ Jones v. Superior Court, (1970) 3 Cal.
3d 734, 741 fn.1.]
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Constitutional speedy trial rights also protect a defendant from
unjustified delays in bringing a prosecution. The federal
sixth amendment speedy trial right attaches when a defendant
becomes an "accused" which has been defined as "formal
indictment or information or else the actual restraint imposed
by arrest and holding to answer a criminal charge." [ U.S. v.
Marion , (1971) 404 U.S. 307, 320.] The California Supreme
Court has decided that a defendant's speedy trial rights
attach under California law when an accusatory pleading has
been filed or upon arrest, whichever occurs first. [ People v.
Hannon , (1977) 19 Cal. 3d 588, 604.] The defendant generally
shoulders the burden to show actual prejudice flowing from a
delay, but the California Supreme Court has also held that if
post-arrest, pre-complaint delay for a misdemeanor case
exceeds one year, the defendant does not need to establish
actual prejudice. [ Serna v. Superior Court , (1985) 40 Cal. 3d
239.]
Courts entertain a range of claims as proof of prejudice to the
defendant: loss of evidence, loss of a material witness,
faded memories of witnesses, loss of possible concurrent
sentences, inability of a defendant to account for his or her
whereabouts, and loss of evidence potentially favorable to the
defendant.
Assume a man is charged with misdemeanor driving under the
influence and hit and run and the judge lets him out of
custody based on his promise to come back to court. The man
fails to return to court. The judge issues a bench warrant.
Several years go by. The man is stopped for a traffic
infraction and the officer discovers the outstanding warrant.
His lawyer will claim that the defendant's speedy trial rights
were violated by the delay because his client was living at
home with his mother the entire time. All the police had to
do was check the address he gave at the time he was arrested
for the charges and they would have found him. Now his memory
has faded and witnesses are lost. This case will be dismissed
due to the delay and lack of justification for failing to
arrest him on the warrant. This scenario should be avoidable
if law enforcement has enough personnel to serve arrest/bench
warrants.
In short, the law puts pressure on law enforcement to serve
warrants as soon as reasonably possible. The courts will
dismiss cases that have dragged on too long without good
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cause.
3)Practical Problems. Some of the major problems facing law
enforcement regarding arrest warrants are no notice that a
warrant has been issued and is outstanding, failure to have a
complete and easily accessible statewide warrants database,
overwhelming volume of outstanding warrants, and fresh cases
are granted higher priority by agencies. Failure to address
these practical problems will result in a further build-up of
the outstanding warrants dilemma.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
California State Sheriffs' Association
Opposition
None on file
Analysis Prepared by : Harry Dorfman / PUB. S. / (916) 319-3744