Effective January 1, 2011, Maryland traffic citations will undergo a major change in procedure.
Maryland was for a long time unusual in that any non-jailable traffic citation issued by would simply result in the court setting a trial date on its own, without pre-trial input from the motorist.
Now a traffic citation requires the motorist to pay, request a hearing for leniency or request a trial in writing within 30 days of receiving the citation. It is not clear whether a motorist will be free to change his or her option on the date of trial from pleading guilty to not guilty though I suspect they will be able to do so as per current practice. (I am reasonably, though not absolutely, certain that pleading guilty in court after requesting a trial in writing will incur no wrath and will possibly bring extra leniency from some judges.)
The BIG change is that motorists will have to plead, effectively, not guilty in writing to get a trial date. Failure to plead or pay will result ultimately in a license suspension. I assume that any motor vehicle suspensions will be punished under TR section 16-303(h)/(i) for minor suspensions, though the Michie version of the code does not reflect any changes to those subsections as of today. I predict a massive uptick in motorist license suspensions and 16-303(h)/(i) charges. It is also possible that more motorists will consider retaining counsel for traffic court, insofar as they have to “face the music” earlier.
I would not hazard a guess as to what this new policy will do to the rate of police officer showing up for court, or for that matter of motorists showing up for court. It might raise the attendance percentages of each but that’s a conjecture.
