By Judge Valarie Hill
Milwaukee Municipal Court Branch 1
Milwaukee Municipal Court Judge Valarie Hill- BR.1
In November 2016, Milwaukee Municipal Court launched a pilot project known as Warrant Withdrawal Wednesdays where defendants could appear in court and have warrants withdrawn and driver’s license and car registration suspensions lifted.
The court would evaluate the success of the program not just by the numbers listed below, but by compliance with payment and non-payment options worked out by participants. Check-Ins: 2,481 citizens with 15,848 cases Appearances: 2400 citizens appeared before one of three judges on 15,397 cases.
This means that 81 people were checked in, but then decided not to stay long enough to be heard by a judge.
Managers and volunteers reported that a few people specifically cited the need to get to work. Almost half of the people who appeared in front of a judge (1078 people with 7,987 cases) had never appeared on their cases previously.
Please keep in mind that the figures for warrants, suspensions, and dismissals are not mutually exclusive.
For example, a citizen with warrants can also have suspensions.
Also, note that the statistics cited below are specifically in reference to warrants, driver’s license, and car registration suspensions and do not include other matters like future court appearances that judges handled while citizens were in front of them.
Warrants: 1577 citizens had 4,023 cases with warrants that were withdrawn
Driver’s License Suspensions: 1,048 citizens had 2,878 cases with driver’s license suspensions that were lifted.
Note that there were a significant number of citizens who checked on driver’s license suspension cases where the suspension period had already ended, but the fine remained outstanding and they were not included in this statistic.
Car Registration Suspensions: 158 citizens had 199 cases with car registrations suspensions that were lifted.
Dismissals: For a variety of reasons 96 citizens had 160 cases dismissed.
Citizens were offered payment options based on their stated ability to pay. If a citizen told a judge they were unable to pay, they were offered a nonpayment option such as community service, mental health treatment, or job search.
The overwhelming majority of citizens stated an ability to pay and chose a payment option. The payment options included a monthly plan of at least $20 per month or plan where citizens are required to return to court every 90 days and make a payment of at least $20. Most citizens chose the latter of the payment options ($20 every 90 days).
506 citizens with 4,270 cases and fines totaling $584,575 chose the monthly payment plan option.
109 citizens with 641 cases stated an inability to pay and were given nonpayment options to resolve their fines.