Warrant recalls offer second chance

Last week, Baltimore’s pretrial justice officials launched the Warrant Second Chance program, which will allow people charged with nonviolent misdemeanors who failed to appear at scheduled court dates to have their socalled “FTA” warrants recalled. The program is the result of an extraordinary collaboration between prosecutors, defense attorneys and the judiciary — something few outsiders thought possible, pointing to ongoing battles and perceived rancor among the different agencies. But the naysayers who sang versions of “lots of luck with that” underestimated the agencies’ strengths, namely smart, knowledgeable and resourceful people willing to listen and share common goals.

Now the hard part begins: persuading wary FTA defendants to trust the system and take advantage of the Second Chance opportunity to recall warrants before the program ends Jan. 31. Will people come? I don’t know; some suspect it’s a trap (it’s not!). Should they return? Absolutely — their quality of life is at stake. Warrant Second Chance will both eliminate their round-the-clock vulnerability to arrest and ensure that prior criminal charges are properly resolved.

Here’s some background. Like criminal systems throughout the country, most people arrested in Baltimore face charges for nonviolent misdemeanor and traffic crimes. While defendants released from jail usually appear to face their charges at court, some do not for a variety of reasons. Very often, the failure to appear is not out of disrespect. Instead many miss court be- cause they attended to jobs, school, family, children or illness. Few who fail to appear have a lawyer who could have informed the judge and prosecutor why they needed a postponement. And nobody who fails to appear can afford to spend 30 to 45 days in jail and risk losing their homes and jobs — the consequence of being picked up on a FTAwarrant and receiving an unaffordable bail. FTA defendants are disproportionately low-income, poor and African-American.

Beyond the adverse impact on individual people, FTA warrants remain a costly problem for the entire pretrial system. Currently, FTA detainees make up a significant portion of Baltimore’s pretrial jail population, which means taxpayers are footing the bill for their incarceration. Consider, too, that FTA warrants expose officers and citizens to being placed in harm’s way when police take people into custody. Second Chance provides a safe alternative.

The new Warrant Second Chance program offers an improved approach to an earlier, amnesty-like endeavor tried in 2010. Though that effort took place inside a church, FTA defendants still felt intimidated by the makeshift courtroom, where they appeared in the presence of a judge, prosecutor and public defender. The coercive environment convinced most people with warrants to stay away.

Warrant Second Chance allows FTA defendants to meet at a public defender’s office, just like others do when seeing their lawyer, and to seek advice on how to responsibly handle their individual cases. Most important, it ensures people can freely leave the courthouse after the meeting without the need to see a judge while awaiting the ruling two to three weeks later. In the worst-case scenario of a judge declining to recall the warrant despite a prosecutor’s recommendation that it be done, FTA defendants remain in no worse position than when they began.

How did Warrant Second Chance happen? Maryland Law School student-lawyers participating in the Access to Justice Clinic developed a warrant forgiveness framework after becoming familiar with their clients’ FTA predicaments. They presented it to the city’s public defender, Police Department, state’s attorney’s office and District Court judiciary, each of whom, during a 16-month conversation, responded favorably to the proposal, concluding, as we did, that a defendant’s return to court represents a win-win situation in pretrial justice.

While Access to Justice clinical students accepted the challenge of arranging meetings and suggesting that the project fit each principal player’s primary objectives, Warrant Second Chance ultimately succeeded because the agency leadership embraced reform and devoted resources to reach a common goal. The collaboration worked and bodes well for future endeavors.

We hope that it becomes a model for other jurisdictions, as they come to recognize that encouraging FTA defendants to return to court saves money, promotes safety and enhances justice by allowing defendants to resolve their warrants and assume a rightful place in community.