The New Jersey Supreme Court recently did some house cleaning by tossing out more than 750,000 petty cases that had been collecting dust for 15 years or longer.

These cases involved such minor infractions as parking tickets and violations of municipal ordinances.

Although minor in nature, these unresolved cases carried fines that kept mushrooming way out of proportion to the transgressions and generated warrants for arrest. A simple parking ticket, for example, could easily triple in cost if not paid in a timely manner.

The burden of these fines disproportionately landed on the shoulders of poor defendants, who were more likely to be held in contempt or even jailed if they did not pay a lingering ticket that they may have long forgotten about.

The Supreme Court action came on the heels of a scathing report from a state judicial committee last July that found municipal courts, which handle the majority of these low-level cases, were too often using warrants and license suspensions to squeeze money out of defendants.

The committee, formed by Chief Justice Stuart Rabner in 2017, found some local courts were abusing contempt-of-court laws to pad fines and cited several cases of misconduct by municipal judges as proof that New Jersey needs to reform its municipal court system, which collected more than $400 million in fines in 2017.

And in 2017, a report by the New Jersey State Bar Association found a “crisis” in confidence among lawyers in the independence of local judges.

A conflict of interest lies at the heart of the problems facing the 513 municipal courts that are presided over by 314 judges, many of whom are hired by the towns they serve.

The Supreme Court committee said this arrangement creates an unnecessary conflict of interest when defendants are unable to pay court-ordered fines and fees and local governments assess a judge’s performance based on revenue collected by the court.

The panel pointed out the growing “public perception” that municipal courts “operate with a goal to fill the town’s coffers” which was “contrary to the purpose of the courts.”

In one case, a municipal judge for nine towns in Monmouth County admitted falsifying about 4,000 court records to redirect fines from county to municipal coffers.

The state’s high court took appropriate action by dismissing 787,764 municipal court cases that have been lingering too long on the books. The court was careful not to include serious transgressions such as drunk driving, speeding or indictable charges.

Chief Justice Rabner was correct when he pointed out that these “old complaints and open warrants in minor matters raise questions of fairness, the appropriate use of limited public resources by law enforcement and the courts, the ability of the state to prosecute cases successfully in light of how long matters have been pending and the availability of witnesses, and administrative efficiency.”

But setting aside these minor cases is just one step in restoring the image and confidence in our municipal courts.

The judicial committee recommended sweeping changes to rein in excessive fines and other court abuses. These include more oversight of municipal judges, better guidelines for sentencing alternatives, an expanded system for instalment payment plans and allowing more defendants to pay off debts through community service.

The panel also urged the state legislature to take action, including limiting a judge’s ability to revoke a driver’s license or issue an arrest warrant simply because fines or fees were not paid.

These are measures we support. In the end, we need to have a fairer court system that is not seen as a cash cow for towns.

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