Got An Outstanding Warrant In Texas? Cops Now Take Credit Cards

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JakeStratham

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The Texas legislature is scheduled to discuss HB 121, a law that will allow cops to take credit and debit cards as payment of fines and court costs associated with the commission of certain crimes.*

The proposed law has been covered inaccurately by some outlets. Guilty parties have all but described a dystopian society where cops can pull anyone over, charge them with a crime and "encourage" the individual to hand over his or her credit card.

That is not how the proposed bill reads. Rather, it's just an example of poor journalism.

In fact, the bill is limited to those for whom a capias pro fine - a warrant, in the vernacular - has been issued.

Bottom line: if there's a warrant for your arrest in the state of Texas, it may behoove you in the near future to carry a Visa or Mastercard when you're in the state. It's unclear whether Discover or AMEX will be accepted, but assuming the higher processing fees will be foisted upon Texas residents, I'm guessing they will.

If the bill is passed and deemed to be successful, Texas will probably add more serious offenses** to the list, especially if it needs cash.


* Class C misdemeanors.

** Class B and A misdemeanors.
 


If you can't aford to pay the fines for your likely victimless crime before a warrant is issued, how likely is it you'll be able to after its issued?


Edit: could you make that run on sentence any longer?
Edit 2: would a semicolon be appropriate in that sentence?
 
BTW... do US cops take cash bribes yet? Or economy not that bad yet? Or due to dash cams and everything, is it impossible for them to do so?

Instead of getting say a $70 ticket for whatever, can you just accidentally forget there's a $100 bill tucked away in your passport when handing it to them, and be let go with a warning?
 
Kiopa_Matt said:
BTW... do US cops take cash bribes yet? Or economy not that bad yet?

Instead of getting say a $70 ticket for whatever, can you just accidentally forget there's a $100 bill tucked away in your passport when handing it to them, and be let go with a warning?
Click to expand...

Pretty sure most of the cops in the US would take that about as well as if you threatened to beat their ass. Too self righteous. Even the one friend I have that's a Sheriff has a fierce god complex.
 
slowboiled said:
Unless I'm missing something..if I got pulled over and had a warrant I'd much rather pay on the spot than be hauled off and booked.
Click to expand...

yeah, this.

i almost assuredly do have a warrant in texas from over a decade ago. i was living in dallas and got a ticket for making a right hand turn from the wrong lane. it was downtown; there was a car illegally parked on the right curb, and i needed to make a right turn, went around it, made the turn, yadda yadda, i got a ticket.

i got their horseshit offer in the mail to settle up & responded back that i intended to contest it. 2 months later i got notification that my day in court would be in 13 months. 13 fucking months.

career opportunities ensued, i got a job offer in san diego 3 months later, and i bounced. a year after that i'm getting shit in the mail about it from dallas forwarded to my california address. they wanted me to fly back for that, lulz.

i laughed and chucked it. i usually handle my business just fine, perfect credit rating, etc. but in that instance i thought 'if you jackholes can't get your shit together in less than 13 months for a traffic violation, fuck you.'

(cool story bro, i know)

point being -- if i moved back to texas (which i won't), and i got pulled over (which i won't), i would appreciate being able to take care of it via credit card on the spot (which i would) rather than getting dragged into the clink.
 
I used to work for a small private detective agency. Mostly did background check stuff not hiding in bushes. Every state was different about how you could go about checking for arrests and what not but texas was kind of unique. As far as I could remember it was the only state that had a website anyone could access that would allow you to run names for criminal history and would charge for each search individually.
 
JakeStratham said:
The Texas legislature is scheduled to discuss HB 121, a law that will allow cops to take credit and debit cards as payment of fines and court costs associated with the commission of certain crimes.*

The proposed law has been covered inaccurately by some outlets. Guilty parties have all but described a dystopian society where cops can pull anyone over, charge them with a crime and "encourage" the individual to hand over his or her credit card.

That is not how the proposed bill reads. Rather, it's just an example of poor journalism.

In fact, the bill is limited to those for whom a capias pro fine - a warrant, in the vernacular - has been issued.

Bottom line: if there's a warrant for your arrest in the state of Texas, it may behoove you in the near future to carry a Visa or Mastercard when you're in the state. It's unclear whether Discover or AMEX will be accepted, but assuming the higher processing fees will be foisted upon Texas residents, I'm guessing they will.

If the bill is passed and deemed to be successful, Texas will probably add more serious offenses** to the list, especially if it needs cash.


* Class C misdemeanors.

** Class B and A misdemeanors.
Click to expand...

Prima facia, this seems like it would avoid the procedural shit-fest that is the court system.

But when you take into account incentive mechanisms, it's obvious this could (and would) lead to a free-for-all of false accusations and increased crackdowns on petty infractions that would otherwise go ignored.

Whatever. Statists go'ne statist.

This is actually a good thing, IMO. It's only a matter of time before people wake up to the fact that government is simply a business that operates without the fear of losing customers.

EDIT: My statement doesn't necessarily condone pure anarcho-capitalism. I guess what I'm saying is that people are gonna people, and institutions need to take that into consideration. Is there a place for some sort of state? Possibly. But certainly not in it's present form.
 
when i was an 18 yo kid, a carload of us traveled from central indiana to rockford illinois. got pulled over late night, and the cop said that because we were from out of state he had to collect the ticket in cash. (as an adult i laugh at that, but....)

we didn't know any better. didn't have the cash on us so he followed us to an ATM, we all had to make withdrawals to meet the ticket amount, then he let us go after we paid him. we were all young and stupid and wanting to get to that party at rockford college, so it was what it was.

would have been nicer just to swipe and roll. then again, swiping would have produced a paper trail...
 
GimpSpack said:
Prima facia, this seems like it would avoid the procedural shit-fest that is the court system.

But when you take into account incentive mechanisms, it's obvious this could (and would) lead to a free-for-all of false accusations and increased crackdowns on petty infractions that would otherwise go ignored.
Click to expand...

I agree with you on both counts.

The bill seems to streamline the process of clearing warrants. It gives that process the air of efficiency. But that's a mirage. Incentives will surely result in an increase in warrants.

If I ran a police department, and was thus responsible for revenue generation, I would persuade judges to increase the number of warrants they issued. I would encourage my cops to take liberties with the truth,* accusing innocents of committing misdemeanors ("Is that your Burger King wrapper on the ground? I think that's your wrapper. You know littering's a crime, right?"). I would aggressively advocate adding an array of new misdemeanors to the list, ensuring the commission of more "crimes" and more warrants.

Procedural inefficiencies are one of the disincentives to issuing warrants for petty crimes.


* Such encouragement would probably be unnecessary.
 
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