Pay your way out of trouble at Bonnaroo? Not this year

Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival goers who leave Manchester with a criminal citation in their pockets won't be allowed to pay their way out of trouble this year.

Coffee County District Attorney Craig Northcott said he will not continue his predecessor's policy of allowing festival goers to pay inflated fines and avoid appearing in court on minor citations.

"Justice isn't for sale," said Northcott, a Republican who was elected last year.

"The thing that's going to change is, in past years, if you were primarily cited, but also some arrests, the former district attorney would send a letter allowing a fine to be paid and the case dismissed without ever having to appear in court or anything else," he said.

"That's no longer going to occur."

Instead, he said, people who receive citations at Bonnaroo will be expected to make court appearances, hire attorneys and "deal with the consequences of illegal activities."

The problem, according to an example from Northcott: A person arrested the day before Bonnaroo on a minor drug possession charge could get five days in jail and year of probation. "A guy arrested at Bonnaroo the next day gets to pay $1,500 and gets out of it," he said.

"To me, it is not just to treat the same set of facts differently just because it happened at Bonnaroo," Northcott said.

Hundreds of citations are issued during Bonnaroo each year, according to Coffee County court officials and media reports. Unlike physical arrests, citations require the recipients to appear in court at a future date. They are typical for less severe offenses like minor drug possession and public intoxication.

The previous policy set pay-your-way-out-of-it fines on a scale, sometimes carrying fees of thousands of dollars. Last year, that policy contributed to more than $630,000 collected in Coffee County courts, about a third of which was paid out to local police agencies that combat drug crime.

How that income will be impacted by the new policy is unclear. Also unclear is how Coffee County, which recently built a new jail with 400 beds and nearly doubles in population during the annual music festival, will handle what could be an influx of visitors who must return at other times for a stay in Manchester — not on The Farm but behind bars to serve short sentences.

Northcott said he would stagger court dates to alleviate any extra load on the jail.

He said he had heard no negative feedback on the policy from the organizers of Bonnaroo.

"They don't want the bad element there any more than anyone else," he said.

Reach Stacey Barchenger at 615-726-8968 or on Twitter @sbarchenger.

By the Numbers

Collections

Coffee County General Sessions court fines, taxes and fees collected from Bonnaroo-related arrests and citations, based on the court clerk's by-hand review:

2013: $630,274.75

2014: $489,800.25

Payments

The following police organizations received the following money from fines during Bonnaroo:

2013: Manchester drug fund, $10,000; Coffee County narcotics enforcement team, $144,941; Coffee County drug fund, $89,599

2014: Manchester drug fund, $21,264; Coffee County narcotics enforcement team, $102,352; Coffee County drug fund, $95,217

Source: Coffee County Court Clerk