Gwinnett County is offering an unprecedented opportunity for those with outstanding citations for traffic violations, including speeding tickets and DUI offenses. Those who fail to pay their tickets, or appear in court to defend against them, have a bench warrant issued for their arrest. However, for the first time ever, Gwinnett County is offering amnesty for those with outstanding tickets.
This amnesty program still requires prior offenders to pay the fines associated with their traffic citations, but it waives the $25 bench warrant fee that the County routinely imposes upon those who fail to show up or pay by their scheduled court date. But don't think the amnesty program is in place because of officials' kind hearts and desire to forgive; the goal of the program is to raise revenue.
Gwinnett County officials state that there are over 30,000 outstanding traffic-related tickets. If everyone responded to the amnesty program and paid their fines, the County would net $12 million. While the local government doesn't expect to reach that lofty figure, they hope to bring in quite a bit of revenue. An outstanding DUI may have the offender tagged for as much as $1,500.
Understand that this program doesn't vindicate those have been issued traffic citations; it simply offers them an opportunity to clear the bench warrant from their name by paying their fine, less the typical bench warrant fee. Those who were recently issued tickets for traffic violations such as speeding or DUI still need to adhere to the normal criminal justice procedure - don't confuse this for an instance of forgive-and-forget.
The Gwinnett County amnesty program runs through March 31. Its program includes traffic citations dating back to 1983.
Source: theweekly.com, "Gwinnett County Recorder's Court offers amnesty program throughout March 2011," 2/24/11
