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Yesterday, the Seattle City Council approved the City's 2022 annual budget. SMC's 2022 budget includes:
- $88,000 in increased funding for subsidized electronic home monitoring, which will allow the court to cover the costs of electronic home monitoring for clients who are indigent or at risk of homelessness
- $140,000 in funding to provide case management services at the Community Resource Center
- $168,000 in funding to expand race and social justice training and leadership development for court staff
More information on the 2022 City of Seattle budget.
Presiding Judge Willie Gregory recently granted several motions from the Seattle City Attorney’s Office: the first to quash bench warrants, close, and dismiss 37 outstanding Prostitution cases; the others to quash bench warrants, close, and dismiss a total of 73 outstanding Driving While License Suspended in the 3rd Degree (DWLS 3) cases.
The motion to close or dismiss the outstanding Prostitution cases was granted September 16, 2021. The sole charge in these cases was Prostitution, with the oldest warrant issued more than twenty years ago and the most recent issued in 2019.
The three motions to close or dismiss outstanding DWLS 3 cases were granted on October 21, October 28, and October 29, 2021. The cause for the license suspension in all cases was failure to pay a traffic ticket or failure to appear in court for a traffic ticket.
DWLS 3 is a criminal violation that can be charged when a person drives while their license is suspended. Until recently, driver’s licenses could be suspended due to the driver failing to pay or failing to appear in court for a civil moving violation, such as speeding or driving through a stop sign.
In its motions, the City Attorney’s Office cited a 2021 decision from Thurston County Superior Court Judge Mary Sue Wilson that ruled that the DWLS 3 statue was “unconstitutional as applied to individuals who are indigent and is therefore void and unenforceable.” Following Judge Wilson’s ruling, the Department of Licensing (DOL) discontinued license suspensions resulting from a person’s failure to pay or appear in court for non-criminal moving violations.
The people who have had warrants dismissed and their cases closed will be notified via mail. Read more.
In September, the Office of the City Auditor (OCA) released a review of SMC Probation, a post-adjudication jail alternative in which counselors are paired with clients to support them as they meet court-ordered obligations. SMC participated in OCA’s assessment and concurs with the auditor’s 14 recommendations.
SMC shares OCA's goal to ensure that probation is not contributing to racial disparities present in our criminal legal system, and to ensure probation results in successful outcomes for everyone. We take the auditor’s findings of racial and ethnic disproportionality in SMC’s 2017-2019 probation population very seriously. We have implemented many changes since then, and we will continue our efforts to ensure all who come to our court are heard, feel that they were treated fairly and with respect, and leave better than when they came to us.
Read more.
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