Advocates from the Austin Justice Coalition have been working on non-jailable reform since 2017 and expect to see progress this year.
“Texans jailed for infractions that do not have imprisonment as an allowable consequence spend hours and sometimes days in jail,” Austin Justice Coalition Criminal Justice Policy Director Sukyi McMahon said. “They don’t get to work, they don’t pick up their kids and they don’t fulfill the many obligations that most of us shoulder.”
For example, in Collin County on Feb. 16, Rodney Reese was arrested while walking home on a street during the winter storm and spent one night in jail, according to CBS DFW News. The misdemeanor charge eventually was dropped.
“When an officer arrests an individual for a Class C misdemeanor and takes them to jail – before a prosecutor or judge has ever seen the case – this imposes a punishment harsher than the maximum penalty prescribed by law,” McMahon told the Lone Star Standard.
House Bill 830 would prohibit officers from arresting a person for “failure to signal” or “wide right turn” or any other minor traffic offense or ordinance violation as a pretext for searching a car without consent, according to McMahon.
“We believe it will move this year,” she said. “Unnecessary arrests for fine-only misdemeanors take officers off the street for hours at a time and incurs extra jail and court costs – all of which could be avoided.”
A University of California at Irvine study found that the 12.2 million individuals arrested every year also experience mental health repercussions.
“Those who are arrested for something as innocuous as a minor traffic violation are humiliated, traumatized and often stigmatized among their neighbors, families and friends,” McMahon said. “Even the most routine detentions can be perceived negatively, and can poorly impact the standing and reputation of an individual.”
She added that bail bondsmen are a powerful lobby.
“There are so many people who are incarcerated simply because they can’t afford bail, and to limit that group is to take money from the bail bondsman’s pocket,” McMahon said.
About 64,100 traffic stops nationwide resulted in an unnecessary arrest of a driver on a minor traffic violation in 2019, according to data reported by police departments. These arrests take hours of police and booking time, which analysts view as a waste of criminal justice resources.
“An arrest takes troopers off the road, costs county taxpayers a steep price in unnecessary booking and magistration, and makes traffic stops less safe for both troopers and drivers,” McMahon said.
Protection against warrantless arrests for minor offenses is guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment. In 2001, however, the common law guarantee of protection from an unreasonable seizure that was constitutionalized by the Fourth Amendment was undermined in Atwater v. City of Lago Vista, a Texas case, according to McMahon
“In a devastating blow to liberty, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that officers can arrest and jail a person for any offense, no matter how minor, no matter that jail wasn’t an allowable punishment,” she said.
Overall, a study released this year by the Hobby School of Public Affairs at the University of Houston states that 74% of Texans support ending arrests for fine-only offenses.
"When a trooper moves to arrest a driver for a simple traffic infraction, the driver – like Sandra Bland – simply doesn’t believe this is possible and may present signs of resistance,” McMahon said. “The driver gets irate. The trooper may respond aggressively. Things can go badly.”
Bland died in the custody of Waller County police in 2015, allegedly when she hanged herself in a county jail cell following an arrest for a minor traffic offense.
