Last week I shared with you a recent Court of Appeals decision that has impacted our ability to prosecute persons charged with Driving While License Suspended. Driving While License Suspended in the Third degree is one such offense that was impacted by the decision. A person’s license often becomes suspended in the Third Degree when they do not pay the fines on infractions such as speeding tickets and non-moving violations like parking tickets and registration violations.

In Stevens County, like many other counties, we have attempted to deal with this flood of low level criminal cases by making an alternate resolution available rather than working the person through the whole system. When a person is charged with Driving While License Suspended 3rd Degree only, and they appear in court, they are offered the chance to take responsibility for their offense and pay a $200.00 fine. These people are also given the option of completing two days of work crew instead of paying their fine. A public defender is present to assist in the resolution of these cases. This alternate resolution has allowed our office and the court and the public defenders to devote more time to the more serious offenses. However, if a person abuses this resolution by repeated offenses, they can become deemed to be a habitual traffic offender and are subject to mandatory jail penalties.