Davis

Davis

<p>Smith</p>

Smith

Drug arrests, larcenies and driving while impaired offenses are common crimes that impact the time and manpower of law enforcement. While true, there’s another criminal charge that local law enforcement officials say eats up just as much effort, if not more, and is a huge burden in Sampson County after citations and arrests are leveled — failure to appear.

Failure to appear (FTA) charges refer to criminal offenses that occur when a defendant does not appear in court on their designated date. As such, a FTA for simple speeding tickets could lead to consequences resulting in fines, diver’s license suspensions or even arrests and incarcerations.

The problem, however, with FTAs is when arrests are warranted, it means local law enforcement are required to devote their sparse resources to track down those they’ve already arrested or cited once.

For Clinton Police Department and the Sampson Sheriff’s Department, it’s a hindrance that impacts the routine operations, investigation and patrols officers have to do each day.

“Oh yeah, we deal with that a lot,” Anthony Davis, Clinton police chief, said. “We’re serving them or arresting the people or suspect for whatever criminal act they committed or issued a citation on the side of the roadway. Then they don’t show up for court. It’s almost like we’re doing double work, because we’re having to track them down again, to try to arrest them and to serve the failure to appear warrant.”

That, in itself, was a massive issue, particularly, the police chief pointed out, when many times those with FTA warrants don’t live at the address listed during their arrest or citation, or they’ve even moved.

“When that happens, now we’ve got open warrants where we have to spend time trying to track these people down,” Davis stressed.

According to Sheriff’s Capt. Marcus Smith, the same issue is a major hindrance for their department as well, one they battle against daily.

“We deal with failure to appears every day, and basically, you go out there and catch the criminal one time, they have a court date and they don’t appear in court,” Smith explained. “So, you’ve got to go out there and get them again; we have to catch them a second, third and even fourth time. It really takes up a lot of time and a lot of manpower.”

As for the occurrence of FTA cases with the Police Department, Davis said the problem is daily for them, too.

“It’s daily. Because every time a law enforcement officer has a lawful interaction with someone, by law, they’ve got to run background on them through the e-warrant system,” Davis said. “It’s statutory law, so what we find is, when we’re doing those traffic stops, for those minor infractions like speeding or whatever it is, and they run that person’s name. A lot of times, you’ll see those FTAs pop up in the system from where they didn’t show up to court on a simple traffic citation.”

Davis also noted that when the Police Department has to handle an FTA-related incident they, fortunately, have a division to handle most cases.

“Most times it is the patrol division,” he said. “They have, all my officers, computers in the car so they go out and do warrant service on their laptops. So, as they’re out patrolling, and doing their separate assignments zones, they’ll try to serve those warrants inside their zones.”

Smith said that while the Sheriff’s Department has a division which serves FTA cases, for them, it’s mostly all hands on deck.

“It mainly falls on road patrol because they serve the bulk of our warrants, but it really is all hands on deck for us,” he said.

There are myriad reasons that FTA cases are high in Sampson, which both Davis and Smith attested too. The major cause for so many repeated offences occurring and the remedy to diminish the overflow?

“That’s a good question. I just don’t think people are aware of the level of ramifications for not showing up,” Davis said. “I think many think it’s no big deal if they don’t show up. Well, if you don’t, and you have an FTA, it revokes your driver’s license for one, then you’re having to deal with trying to get your license fixed because you got an FTA. I just don’t think they really understand the ramifications for not showing up for court dates.

“As for how to fix that, I think probably more education on knowing what can and will happen,” he added. “Even with that, you have those career criminals who just won’t show up.”

Smith did not share the same view and strongly called into creditably the lack of effectiveness of the judicial system that, he noted, was ‘getting soft’.

“Really, our judicial system has gotten a little soft, if you want me to be frank,” Smith attested.

“I think that those that are failing to appear, very much, know what they’re doing. They don’t need an education. They’re just circumventing the legal system that’s in place by our Legislature. Our Legislature really needs to put some more teeth in some of these laws and clamp down on this abuse.“

Reach Michael B. Hardison at 910-249-4231. Follow us on Twitter at @SamsponInd, like us on Facebook, and check out our Instagram at @thesampsonindependent.