Amnesty days for those with outstanding arrest warrants can help local and state courts tackle problems like dire case backlogs, overpopulated jails and ever-climbing sums of uncollected debt, but even proponents of the practice agree it's a bandaid for systemic flaws best addressed by lawmakers.

The amnesty concept is simple: district attorneys and public defenders join court administrators for a day- or even monthslong drive to clear out warrants tied to unpaid fines and fees and other low-level offenses.

Promising not to arrest attendees, the organizers often offer incentives — like waived fines that accrue when people fail to pay an initial fee — if offenders enter payment plans on their remaining balances.

Todd Williams, a former public defender elected in 2016 as district attorney of Buncombe County, North Carolina, said a recent amnesty day in January allowed county prosecutors to help over 500 defendants via dismissals, recalled arrest warrants and reset court dates. Many of them only became "wanted" after unpaid traffic citations led to suspended driver's licenses with which they drove anyway.

"We're concentrating on largely nonviolent misdemeanor or traffic matters that can cause pretty dramatic collateral consequences for people," Williams told Law360. "The loss of driver's licenses and other privileges are hindrances to economic security."

The idea dates back to the biblical age, when prophets commanded a "Jubilee" every 50 years to erase all personal debts. In modern times, American cities and states have used amnesty programs for tax offenders, violators of narcotics law and illegal immigrants.

But while Williams said he's looking forward to holding another amnesty day to help alleviate court fees and old warrants, the progressive DA did note that the approach is little more than a band-aid for the justice system's flaws.

He pointed out how North Carolina's recent "Raise the Age" law — which made it the last state to stop automatically prosecuting juveniles as adults starting at age 16 — failed to create a protocol for people to clear their records of adult convictions for misdemeanors from their late teens.

For Williams, that's just one of many legislative opportunities that could be more effective than daylong amnesty drives.

"I think the legislature should look at that and find a way to rescind those convictions," Williams said, also mentioning automatic expungement for decades-old offenses. "Those would be reasonable reforms."

Other lawyers who've helped organize amnesty days agreed that they may not be the best way to take care of arrest warrants. Richard Cherry, city attorney for Kalamazoo, Michigan, told Law360 that a successful effort in September saw 150 people clear charges and start payment plans.

"It's a good way to deal with the problem, but there are other solutions in just everyday prosecution that could probably help deal with those lower-level misdemeanors," Cherry said.

As an example, he said the recent legalization of recreational marijuana in Michigan means prosecutors are likely to dismiss old possession charges, with or without amnesty days.

"That will also help alleviate some of the backlog," Cherry added.

Despite some reservations about using amnesty days as a permanent tool, representatives from several cities told Law360 that they see it as a method for bolstering drained budgets, especially in rural areas where courts largely rely on fines and fees for funding.

Marilyn Jackson, court clerk for Philadelphia, Mississippi's city court, said an ongoing three-month amnesty program has helped about 150 people — and brought in at least $72,000 for a town with just over 5,300 residents.

"Our incoming fines were really low, so we decided to come up with something to help the citizens of Philadelphia," Jackson told Law360. "We ended up asking for half of half the outstanding balances ... we'll do it again next year because it's been so successful."

California saw a similar financial benefit when it ran a statewide amnesty program from October 2015 to April 2017. The Judicial Council of California reported that over a quarter of a million cases were resolved via payment plans, creating a $45.1 million windfall.

Nevertheless, plenty of money was left on the table: roughly one in three of those who agreed to payment plans stopped making payments before satisfying their whole debt, and about $2.2 billion in eligible debt remained outstanding at program's end, according to the JCC report.

Jim McClure, a contract public defender in Muskogee, Oklahoma, said financial incentives were not the "thrust" of an amnesty he helped arrange in October, but he did agree that poor court funding played a role.

"Our legislature has failed to properly fund our court system," he said. "They put it off on the court clerks, and the court clerks become collection agents. We end up funding our court system off of the backs of the people who have the least ability to pay."

McClure pointed out that its rare when a misdemeanor case requires less than $750 in penalties and fees, a sum that can seem like "Mount Everest" to low-income people.

"Eventually they just give up," he said. "If you issue a warrant and they get picked up [by police], a judge will set a bond. If they can't meet that bond, they'll sit in jail for a week … lose their job by the time they get out. And then when they get out, if they get caught again, the costs go up. It's a vicious cycle."

But while DAs like Buncombe County's Williams believe that amnesty is a good way to interrupt that cycle, others, like North Carolina Orange County Assistant District Attorney Jeff Nieman, are cautious of sacrificing fairness for efficiency.

Though Nieman agrees that it is "a way to get some revenue out of people who are just going to stay away forever," he said his county prefers to examine unresolved tickets on a case-by-case basis.

"There's always a tension between fairness and efficiency," Nieman said.

"Mass dismissal days are likely to be more efficient but you do run the risk of it being less fair," he added.

--Editing by Pamela Wilkinson.

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