Tag: DMV

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Reaching out: With much on the line, voter registration groups push through the pandemic

Tara Mincer works with Spread the Vote/Project ID, which helps underserved populations obtain all forms of identification, including voter registration. PC: Eze Amos

By Carol Diggs

In each of Virginia’s last five national elections, voter registration around the state has surged anywhere from 6 to 10 percent. This year, coronavirus has made voter registration (like so many things) just a little harder.

Registering online, available throughout the pandemic shutdown, requires a Virginia driver’s license or DMV-issued ID—things that were hard to get when DMV offices were closed for two months. Even now, the earliest available appointment for driver’s licenses and IDs at the Charlottesville DMV is the end of October, despite voter registration closing on October 13. The other options are to register by mail, or in person at the registrar’s office; local registrars have stayed open for the most part, but hours at the Charlottesville office have been cut back through the end of August. 

Overall, early indicators suggest that the area will feel some election-year registration bumps. Applications have been increasing since March, says Melissa Morton, the City of Charlottesville’s director of elections and general registrar. Nelson County Director of Elections Jacqueline Britt says her office has handled more than 1,500 requests for new registrations or address changes in the last five months. In Greene County, according to registrar Jennifer Lewis-Fowler, voter registrations are actually outpacing the same period in 2016.

Still, the pandemic has hampered efforts by both local governments and nonprofits to expand registration among young people and the underserved.

Visits to high schools and nursing homes, and registration drives at libraries and city events, have been curtailed. Charlottesville’s Morton cites one of many examples: “Our office and the Albemarle County registrar’s office usually partner to do a drive at UVA, but we haven’t heard from the university—although some fraternities and sororities have expressed interest.”

The League of Women Voters, a major player in voter education, usually has volunteers setting up registration tables at neighborhood association events, swimming pools, farmers’ markets, grocery stores, and shopping malls—all difficult if not impossible in this contactless environment.

Sue Lewis, voter services chair of the League’s Charlottesville Area chapter, says her group is working on ways to promote registering early, especially for those who plan to vote by mail. But she admits that in the midst of COVID-19, with no public events, large gatherings, or even people strolling on the Downtown Mall, “how to reach people is a real conundrum.”

Spread the Vote/Project ID focuses on helping underserved populations obtain all forms of identification, including voter registration. Tara Mincer, co-lead for the Charlottesville chapter, says her group holds weekly drives in the parking lot of Loaves & Fishes, and works closely with both the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail and Piedmont House to help former inmates and homeless voters. But it’s challenging. “Our volunteers can’t even safely offer to drive people to the registrar’s office or the DMV,” Mincer says.

Virginia Organizing, a nonprofit focused on helping underserved populations make their voices heard, has tried to find creative ways to work within social distancing.  Amanda Dameron, the organization’s representative for central Virginia, runs a weekly Zoom training (open to all, it’s been averaging five-10 people a session) for people who want to assist in local or neighborhood voter registration. Dameron says the pandemic has forced her group to concentrate on disseminating information rather than in-person outreach. “We’re asking our volunteers to tap their personal networks, use their social media and phones, to spread the word and make sure that everyone has a plan for how to register and how to vote.”

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Voting in Virginia: the basics

With recent changes in election laws, the pandemic, and the U.S. Postal Service upheaval, there’s a lot of misinformation circulating. Here’s what you need to know:

How can I register, or check my registration? The easiest way to register, update your address, or transfer your registration from another state is online, via the Citizen Portal. You will need either a valid Virginia driver’s license or a Virginia DMV-issued ID.  If you don’t have either, you can fill out an application
form (available online, by mail, or in post offices and many state agencies) and submit it by mail, or in person at your local registrar’s office. Registration applications must be received by the registrar’s office or postmarked by 5pm on October 13.

How can I request a vote by mail ballot? Once you are registered, you have until October 23 to request a vote by mail ballot (online or by mail, email, or fax).

When is the deadline to submit a vote by mail ballot? Your ballot must be postmarked by November 3 and received by the registrar’s office by noon on November 6—so mail early! Alternatively, you can deliver your ballot (in person or curbside) at your local registrar’s office by 7pm on November 3. Be prepared to show identification, and note that the registrar’s office cannot accept a ballot from a third party.

What about voting early? You can vote in-person absentee at your local registrar’s office from September 19 through October 31. You don’t
need to provide a reason.

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UPDATE: Northam calls for end of automatic driver’s license suspensions

Governor Ralph Northam was at Legal Aid Justice Center to call for an end to suspending driver’s licenses without consideration of ability to pay. Courtesy Legal Aid Justice Center

Governor Ralph Northam was in Charlottesville today to announce a budget amendment that would end the automatic suspension of driver’s licenses for nonpayment of court fines and costs. The amendment would also reinstate driving privileges for 627,000 Virginians whose licenses are suspended.

At Legal Aid Justice Center, which has filed suit against the commissioner of the Department of Motor Vehicles for the automatic suspensions that don’t consider someone’s ability to pay, Northam said, “It is time that we end this unjust practice and allow hardworking Virginians to get back to work”

A bill to end the practice failed in this year’s General Assembly, and one concern of legislators was that part of at $145 license reinstatement fee goes to the DMV and the Trauma Center. Northam said he’s providing $9 million in his budget amendment to cover the impact of the loss of the fee revenue.

Brianna Morgan, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, described losing her license over a minor traffic infraction during a high-risk pregnancy when she had no money. She was unable to take her father, who’d had a stroke, to doctor’s appointments. When her son had an asthma attack at school, it took an hour on the bus to get there. “Suspending people’s driver’s licenses for court debt they can’t pay hurts families,” she said. “It hurt mine.”

Plaintiff Brianna Morgan, center, with Delegate Cliff Hayes, Legal Aid Justice Center executive director Angela Ciolfi, Senator Jennifer McClellan, and Legal Aid policy coordinator Amy Woolard following the governor’s announcement that he wants to end automatic driver’s license suspensions. Legal Aid Justice Center

“The practice of suspending a person’s driver’s license for nonpayment of court fines and costs is inequitable—it’s past time we end it,” said Northam. “A driver’s license is critical to daily life, including a person’s ability to maintain a job. Eliminating a process that envelops hundreds of thousands of Virginians in a counterproductive cycle is not only fair, it’s also the right thing to do.”

Northam’s amendment goes back before the legislature when it reconvenes April 3.

The lawsuit, Stinnie v. Holcomb, was back in U.S. District Court March 25  after a big victory before Christmas. That’s when federal Judge Norman Moon issued a preliminary injunction reinstating the plaintiffs’ licenses, and said they were likely to prevail in their arguments the “license suspension scheme” is unconstitutional.

In the latest hearing, the state argued a motion to dismiss, still insisting driving is not a fundamental right, and that a traffic summons and a form given in court offered people plenty of notice that their license would be suspended 30 days after their conviction if they didn’t pay up—and if they read the form, they’d know they could request a payment plan, community service, or just ask the judge to forego the fine and court costs all together.

“What if a person 15 days later runs into a government shutdown and doesn’t get a check?” asked Moon. “What tells them they’re entitled to a hearing?”

“There is no notice before the automatic suspension,” said McGuireWoods attorney Jonathan Blank, who, with Legal Aid Justice Center, represents the plaintiffs.

He said the automatic suspension of driver’s licenses is a coercive way to collect debt, a technique private creditors can’t use. “It’s crazy and it’s not constitutional,” said Blank. “People are threatened with jail if they can’t pay their debts.”

He also called the state law “one of the worst statutes that’s in the Code of Virginia today.”

The plaintiffs filed a motion to certify a class action that would include everyone whose license is currently suspended and all future suspensions.

The commonwealth disagreed, and said the class was way over broad and would include people who could afford to pay.

“Every individual deserves the right to notice [of license suspension] regardless of their ability to pay,” said McGuireWoods attorney Laura Lange.

Judge Moon did not rule on either motion, and a weeklong trial is scheduled to begin August 5.

Legal Aid Justice Center executive director Angela Ciolfi says she can’t predict when or how the judge will rule, but “relief can’t come soon enough for the hundreds of thousands of families living under this brutally unconstitutional law.”

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In brief: DMV’s court order, Brown’s abrupt closing, Murray’s lump of coal and more

Courtesy DMV

Driver’s license suspensions under siege

A federal judge granted a preliminary injunction December 21 and ordered Department of Motor Vehicles Commissioner Richard Holcomb to reinstate the driver’s licenses of three plaintiffs who automatically lost their licenses when they were unable to pay court costs and fines. The judge said they are likely to prevail in their arguments that such automatic suspensions are unconstitutional.

That same week, Governor Ralph Northam called for an end to the practice. And Republican state Senator Bill Stanley has filed a bill that would end the automatic suspensions.

The class-action lawsuit—Stinnie v. Holcomb—challenges the automatic loss of driving privileges regardless of a person’s ability to pay and without notice or a hearing. Brought by the Legal Aid Justice Center in Charlottesville, the case alleges that approximately 650,000 Virginians have had their licenses suspended for reasons that have nothing to do with driving violations and solely for failure to pay fines.

In his ruling, Judge Norman Moon says, “While the Court recognizes the Commonwealth’s interest in ensuring the collection of court fines and costs, these interests are not furthered by a license suspension scheme that neither considers an individual’s ability to pay nor provides him with an opportunity to be heard on the matter.”

Two of the plaintiffs—Damian Stinnie and Adrianne Johnson—are from Charlottesville, and Moon’s injunction noted how the inability to drive affected their ability to find employment and “created a cycle of debt.”

His ruling only affects the plaintiffs in the case, and the DMV is ordered to reinstate their licenses without charging its $145 reinstatement fee.

“Today’s ruling is a victory for the Constitution and for common sense. The Court stated unequivocally that Virginia’s driver’s license suspension statute likely violates procedural due process rights, says Angela Ciolfi, executive director of Legal Aid Justice Center, in a release.

Since the case was filed in 2016, the issue, which advocates call a “modern-day debtors prison,” has gained national attention. Lawsuits have been filed in six other states and a federal judge in Tennessee recently issued a similar injunction there.

Quote of the week

“We cannot ignore the role of firearms in mass school shootings, nor should we avoid our responsibility as legislators to act.”—Democratic minority report to a House of Delegates committee report on school safety that does not address gun violence

In brief

Eugenics landmark closes

The Central Virginia Training Center outside Lynchburg, where 4,000 Virginians were sterilized, often without their knowledge, will close in 2020. Charlottesvillian Carrie Buck was sent there in 1924, because she was pregnant and accused of promiscuity and “feeble-mindedness.” In Buck v. Bell, the U.S. Supreme Court famously ruled that “three generations of imbeciles are enough,” and okayed her later sterilization. The institution stopped performing sterilizations in 1952 but continued to care for the intellectually disabled.

Hung out to dry

Brown’s Cleaners abruptly shuttered its four stores Christmas Eve, leaving employees without paychecks—and customers wondering how to retrieve their dry cleaning. A sign said to check legal notices in the Daily Progress about how to pick up orders, but as of December 28, the Progress said it had received no info from the 71-year-old business, which took its website down and left phones unanswered. NBC29 reports the company declared bankruptcy.

Virginians favor pot decriminalization

A new ACLU poll shows 71 percent of registered voters favor dropping criminal penalties for small amounts of marijuana, and 63 percent say it should be legal and regulated like alcohol. The poll also shows a majority believe that race or economic status influence how one is treated in the criminal justice system, and 62 percent say fewer people should be sent to prison because it costs taxpayers too darn much.

Garrett’s swan song

Tom Garrett file photo

In his last days as 5th District representative, Tom Garrett saw President Donald Trump sign his bill renaming the Barracks Road Shopping Center post office in honor of Captain Humayun Khan, a UVA grad who died in Iraq in 2004. The Republican also delivered a bipartisan letter to Trump opposing the president’s decision to remove U.S. troops from Syria, calling it a threat to national security.

Lump o’ coal

Jim Murray contributed photo

The office of UVA Vice Rector Jim Murray got a visit from one of “Santa’s elves,” who delivered a piece of coal and said the venture capitalist had been naughty this year for opposing a living wage and calling its proponents “intellectually lazy,” according to a video circulated by Virginia Organizing.

Another Landes challenger

Ivy resident Lauren Thompson, 30, became the second Democrat to seek the nomination to run against 12-termer Republican Delegate Steve Landes, 59, whose 25th District, mainly in Augusta and Rockingham counties, includes a swipe of western Albemarle. Thompson, a Navy veteran, faces Augusta activist Jenni Kitchen, 37, for the Dem nod.

By the numbers

Housing affordability

The folks at the Virginia Public Access Project are always crunching the numbers, and last week they published how much of your take-home pay goes to housing, depending on where you live.

While Charlottesville may seem like one of the most expensive markets in the state, in Emporia City, 32.7 percent of median household income goes for housing, compared to nearly 25 percent in Charlottesville and 20.14 percent in Albemarle County. Highland County is the cheapest place to live, taking only an 11.6 percent bite out of paychecks, according to VPAP.

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‘Modern-day debtors’ prison’: Injunction sought to stop practice of suspending driver’s licenses for unpaid fines

Caption Legal Aid Justice Center attorney Angela Ciolfi wants a judge to order the DMV to stop automatically suspending driver’s licenses because of unpaid fines and court costs. Staff photo

It’s a tough argument to make: That a woman with three children who makes around $9 an hour, who can’t buy enough groceries to meet minimum nutritional needs, and who shares a bedroom with two kids in an apartment with another family, has plenty of money left over to pay $100 a month to get her suspended driver’s license back.

Yet that was the case the Commonwealth of Virginia made at a November 15 hearing. The state suggested that if the woman gave up her cellphone, she’d have the $100 a month and that losing access to communication would in no way would cause her “irreparable harm.”

The case is Stinnie v. Holcomb, and it was filed in 2016 by the Legal Aid Justice Center, which claims the state’s automatic suspension of driver’s licenses for nonpayment of court fines and fees that often have nothing to do with actual driving infractions, is unconstitutional because it happens with no notice of the suspension, no consideration of the person’s ability to pay, and falls disproportionately upon the poor.

At a four-and-a-half-hour hearing in U.S. District Court, plaintiffs’ attorneys asked Judge Norman Moon for a preliminary injunction to immediately stop the automatic suspensions.

Moon has seen this case before. In early 2017, he heard the state’s motion to dismiss, which argued that Richard Holcomb, the DMV commissioner, was not the proper defendant and federal court not the proper venue. Moon agreed and dismissed the case, but a federal appeals court sent it back to him.

This time, Moon asked a lot more questions about how indigent people were supposed to pay staggering court costs—and then the additional $145 the DMV charges to reinstate a license. At times he called a driver’s license a “property right,” veering from the state’s assertion that a license is a privilege.

“We’re seeking an order declaring the statute unconstitutional,” said Legal Aid Justice Center attorney Angela Ciolfi. That’s a possibility Moon had considered last year in his decision dismissing the case, because people get no notice or hearing about the license suspension—in effect no due process.

Adrianne Johnson, 34, is one of the plaintiffs. The native Charlottesvillian has three children and worked as a certified nursing assistant until she was convicted of a drug charge in Brunswick County. She didn’t get jail time, but had court costs of $865. She was paying $100 a month until she lost her job. Unaware that her license had been suspended for the unpaid fines, she was then charged with driving with a suspended license. After a second suspension, she stopped driving because a third conviction carries jail time.

Not having a license has affected her job opportunities, she testified. Though she managed to find another job, the lack of a driver’s license is preventing her from being promoted to manager, she said, because that position requires driving to make daily bank deposits.

“It’s very stressful, very inconvenient to me and my children,” she said. Her daughter has medical issues and her son plays sports. “I can’t take him or go to any of his games.”

With a license, she said, “I would be able to have a better paying job. I could pay the court costs and fines.”

Assistant Attorney General Margaret O’Shea asked Johnson if she’d gone to the Brunswick court to ask for community service.

“No, I didn’t know about that,” said Johnson. “And how am I going to get to Brunswick? I don’t have a license.”

O’Shea suggested that with Johnson’s $200/month rent for a room she shares with two of her children, she should have plenty of money left over to pay her fines.

“I have nothing left over after I pay my expenses,” said Johnson. “It just leaves me with nothing. Nothing at all.”

The plaintiffs called Diana Pearce, a University of Washington professor who created the self-sufficiency standard, which determines that amount of income needed to meet basic needs.

Pearce looked at Johnson’s income and expenses, and said, “She’s not able to meet her basic needs based on her income.”

O’Shea asked if the numbers meant Johnson had $400 a month left over, and that with the $200 rent, “she had a roof over her head.”

The money is not extra income, maintained Pearce. Johnson is “not spending enough on housing and nutritional needs,” and sharing a room with two kids was not meeting basic needs, she added.

Steven Peterson is a microeconomist who testified that the loss of a driver’s license for unpaid fines “disproportionately affected poor people,” with 40 to 45 percent losing their jobs. If they found another job, he said, 88 percent had lower incomes.

Using numbers from the DMV, he said in 2017, 977,891 people had their licenses suspended, and 647,517 of those were suspended only as a result of not paying fines and court costs.

McGuireWoods attorney Jonathan Blank asked the judge to declare the suspensions unconstitutional. “You cannot punish a person who lacks the resources to pay a debt,” he said. “We’re here because this is a modern-day debtors prison.”

Moon seemed skeptical of the commonwealth’s arguments that the costs on indigent people caused no “irreparable harm,” and said, “They shouldn’t be punished if they cannot pay.”

But with an eye toward the weather, Moon recessed the court without ruling and said he had to get to Lynchburg.

“I feel very heartened by the judge’s questions,” said Ciolfi. “He clearly gets the unfairness” and the “devastation” to people’s lives.

 

 

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Suspended licenses: Lawsuit back in federal court

Legal Aid Justice Center attorney Angela Ciolfi again will try to convince a federal judge that suspension of driver’s licenses for nonpayment of court costs without consideration of the defendant’s ability to pay is unconstitutional. Staff photo

It’s not just bad driving that has caused nearly 1 million Virginians’ licenses to be suspended. Failure to pay court costs—often unrelated to being behind the wheel at all—has put indigent citizens in a downward spiral of debt, unemployment, and incarceration, according to a civil suit filed by the Legal Aid Justice Center two years ago.

In a February 2017 hearing in U.S. District Court for Stinnie v. Holcomb, lawyers from the state attorney general’s office representing defendant Richard Holcomb, commissioner of the DMV, argued that Holcomb was not the appropriate defendant and the federal district court in Charlottesville was not the right jurisdiction to hear the case. Judge Norman Moon agreed and dismissed the case.

In May, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals remanded the case back to district court to allow the plaintiffs to amend their suit, which they did September 11.

“We spent a lot of time on what the DMV commissioner does,” says Angela Ciolfi, Legal Aid’s director of litigation and advocacy. License suspension “cannot be accomplished without the DMV, which gets revenue to reinstate licenses.”

The amended complaint adds four new plaintiffs from across the state. “They’ve all been treated exactly the same by the DMV,” says Ciolfi.

Two of the plaintiffs are from Charlottesville. Adrianne Johnson, 34, was working as a certified nursing assistant making $8.86 an hour in 2013 when she was convicted of a drug-related charge. She did not get jail time, but she was ordered to pay $865 in court costs, much of that for her court-appointed lawyer.

“So many people who live paycheck to paycheck don’t have a dime to spare,” says Ciolfi.

Although Johnson was on a payment plan, she couldn’t afford to make regular payments and her license was suspended, according to the suit. She continued to work—and to drive to get to her job, take care of her family, and take her daughter to medical appointments. In November 2017, she was convicted of driving on a suspended license.

The court put her on a payment plan requiring her debt be paid in six months, which the minimum wage earner could not afford, and when she missed a payment, her license was again suspended in May 2018, according to the complaint.

Johnson stopped driving after the November conviction, lives with her two children in a crowded apartment with another family—and struggles to pay rent and buy groceries, much less pay the roughly $900 she owes in court costs and the $150 it would take to reinstate her license.

“It’s not just about the people whose licenses have been suspended,” says Ciolfi, “but it’s about their families who can’t move forward.”

And in the two years the case has been pending, “we know of hundreds of thousands more suspensions and convictions of driving while suspended,” says Ciolfi.

She points out that states like California have repealed laws requiring license suspension for unpaid court debt, and in Mississippi, the state official in charge of suspensions has stopped enforcing the statute.

“These statutes are not holding up to constitutional scrutiny in other states,” she says.

The suspensions fall disproportionately on “low-income persons and communities of color,” alleges the complaint. African Americans make up 20 percent of Virginia’s population, but receive nearly half the orders of suspension for unpaid court debt and almost 60 percent of convictions for driving with licenses suspended because of court debt, according to the suit.

Ciolfi would like the General Assembly to repeal debt-driven suspensions, and says the Senate passed a bill to do so earlier this year, but it died in the House of Delegates.

In the meantime, she’ll ask the court for a preliminary injunction to stop the suspensions and a certification for a class action against the state law she says is unconstitutional.

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Easy street: DMV’s mobile unit comes to town

One of five DMV mobile offices. Courtesy of the Department of Motor Vehicles

Most people recoil at the thought of going to the DMV, so when a Department of Motor Vehicles van pulled up to Reid Super-Save Market last Thursday morning, a line of people were already waiting to cash in on the convenience of a mobile office.

The DMV’s first office on wheels used a telephone modem to connect with the department’s systems in Richmond when it hit the road in March 1990. The unit issued its first driver’s license to then Governor Doug Wilder, and the program has expanded significantly in the 27 years since.

“We now have five DMV 2 Go vehicles that visit nearly every corner of Virginia,” says DMV spokesperson Brandy Brubaker, who adds that the mobile office offers every service that the brick and mortar locations do. While the newest van cost about $135,000, at least one was given to the department by another organization that no longer needed it.

In Charlottesville, says mobile office manager Jessica Sanders, “We did a little bit of everything.” But the majority of the transactions she and her team processed were driver’s license, ID and vehicle registration renewals. She also administered a handful of learner’s permit tests. They can also issue road tests, though no one in Charlottesville asked for one.

But this wasn’t the first time a DMV 2 Go fleet has visited Charlottesville. When Commissioner of Revenue Todd Divers took office in 2014, he got the city on the schedule and a department vehicle has visited the city two or three times a year since then.

“Usually we have it set up next to City Hall in the alley by the Market Street Parking Garage,” Divers says. “In talking to some community groups, they thought it might reach more folks if we vary the location. It’s a really great service for folks who might have a hard time getting over to Pantops.”

Sanders says the van’s new location seems to be working. While her team usually processes between 20 and 30 transactions during each visit to Charlottesville, they had 43 at the supermarket.

“I was discussing the topic with a friend and Reid’s just popped up as a nice centrally located destination that would draw lots of foot traffic to the van,” Divers says. He heard that owner Kim Miller took an interest in the mobile unit because she sees many customers who don’t have proper identification.

The DMV has recently been under scrutiny for suspending Virginians’ licenses for nonpayment of fine and court costs, including for convictions that have nothing to do with driving.

Legal Aid Justice Center sued DMV Commissioner Richard Holcomb, contending that the license suspension is unconstitutional because it doesn’t take into account the driver’s ability to pay, gives no notice of the suspension, and it denies due process and equal protection to the poor.

A federal judge agreed the suspensions may be unconstitutional, but ruled he didn’t have jurisdictional authority to proceed with the case. Legal Aid filed a motion April 10 asking the court to vacate the dismissal.

Attorney Angela Ciolfi and the Legal Aid Justice Center did not respond to an interview request.

A DMV 2 Go schedule can be found at www.dmv.virginia.com.

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In brief: Library shocker, UVA’s $9 million plane and more

The Northside Library on Rio Road, which opened in 2015, houses 30,000 square feet and the most checked out books. Stephen Barling

Busy as a bookworm

Here in the digital age, one relic from our printing-press past is defying obsolescence: the library. The Jefferson-Madison Regional Library saw its busiest year ever in 2016, with its newest Crozet and Northside libraries contributing to the boom, according to director John Halliday. It’s not just books that account for the heavy traffic. People go to the libraries for programs, to rent space in the McIntire Room in the Central Library and to use computers or Wi-Fi. E-books are the fastest-growing segment, now making up 5 percent of the volume. The biggest problem at Northside right now is parking. “That’s a good problem to have,” says Halliday.

2016: spine-tingling year

  • 1.7 million Number of books checked out from JMRL
  • 1.2 million Users who came through library doors
  • 103,000 People with library cards
  • 10 Branches including the book mobile
  • 110 employees
  • $7.6 million budget
  • Most used branch: Central Library
  • Branch with most books checked out: Northside

In brief

Keep fighting

A judge ruled March 13 that federal court does not have jurisdiction in the Legal Aid Justice Center lawsuit against the Department of Motor Vehicles that challenged Virginia’s automatic suspension of driver’s licenses for unpaid fines, regardless of ability to pay. Charlottesville resident Damian Stinnie was one of the plaintiffs, and Legal Aid says it will continue to fight.

“Virginia law leads state judges to automatically suspend a defendant’s driver’s license for nonpayment of court fees and fines, regardless of his ability to pay. That unflinching command may very well violate Plaintiffs’ constitutional rights to due process and equal protection.”

—Judge Norman Moon in dismissing a lawsuit against the DMV

Whiskey rebellion sours

Silverback Distillery owner Denver Riggleman ended his campaign for governor, citing “business considerations, resource shortages and family health issues.” Pundits say the effect of his withdrawal on the now-three-man race for the GOP nomination will be minimal.

Chilling death

On a day where the low temperature was 21 degrees, a man, 58, was found dead on the porch of a business around 7:35am March 15 in the 1000 block of East Jefferson Street. Police said the circumstances did not appear suspicious, but it was under investigation, and the man’s remains were sent for review by a medical examiner at UVA.

Shooting and a chaser

A 17-year-old boy was shot in the 700 block of Sixth Street SE on March 16, according to city police, who said he was arrested the following day on charges of attempted malicious wounding and use of a firearm in the commission of a felony. Tyrek Wells, Cy-Lamarr Rojas and Quintus Brooks were also charged in the shooting and the subsequent high-speed chase that followed.

What’s with all the chases?

Around 4am on March 21, county police say officers deployed spike strips on Route 250 to stop a vehicle pursuit that originated in Nelson County. Charges are pending for the driver, who was attempting to turn onto I-64 and crashed his car after hitting the spikes. At press time, a police spokesperson did not yet have the driver’s name.

In plane sight

Cessna560XLCitationXLS_PeterBakema_edit
This Cessna Citation XLS is similar to the one recently purchased by UVA. Photo Peter Bakema

In December, C-VILLE reported on a $4 million jet owned by the University of Virginia Foundation since the early 2000s after a rumor that Thomas Jefferson’s university had purchased a new plane, which a
school spokesperson denied. The Federal Aviation Administration’s website documented that a new tail number, N560VA, was reserved by the foundation on December 30—just two days after our report was published—and we found that the original Cessna Citation Bravo was up for sale.

University spokesperson Anthony de Bruyn now says the foundation recently purchased an $8.8 million 2015 Cessna Citation XLS, an eight-seat, multi-engine jet flown by pilots-in-command John Farmer and Stephen Power. The old Citation Bravo sold for $950,000, he adds.

“The foundation’s previous aircraft, which was also purchased used, had been in service since 2004 and was due for a significant scheduled maintenance overhaul,” de Bruyn says. “Instead of investing in a costly overhaul, the decision was made to purchase a used aircraft and to sell the previous aircraft. The foundation, which owns the aircraft, conducted the sale and acquisition. No tuition dollars or public monies were used.”

Corrected March 22 at 9am to reflect the correct number of seats on the University of Virginia Foundation’s 2015 Cessna Citation XLS.

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‘Constitutional crisis:’ Judge hears DMV’s motion to dismiss

Staff photo

Not in attendance at a civil case hearing February 2 in U.S. District Court were the four plaintiffs who are suing Virginia’s Department of Motor Vehicles. One reason for their absences, according to their attorney, is because their driver’s licenses are suspended.

The case, filed by Legal Aid Justice Center against DMV Commissioner Richard Holcomb, contends that Virginia’s suspension of licenses for nonpayment of fines and court costs, including for convictions that have nothing to do with driving, is unconstitutional because it doesn’t take into account the driver’s ability to pay, gives no notice of the suspension, and it denies due process and equal protection to the poor.

The DMV, represented by Assistant Attorney General Margaret O’Shea, offered a list of reasons why the case should be thrown out: That Holcomb has sovereign immunity. That the state statute offered the option of community service. That the suit was filed in the wrong court, and that people receive notice by the “mere existence of the statute” and are told at the time of their conviction their license will be suspended if they don’t pay fines within 30 days.

“We’re talking driver’s licenses—not someone being locked up,” said O’Shea.

She suggested that the court should give the state of Virginia time to remedy the problem, and said the lack of indigent payment plans has “all been fixed” by the Supreme Court of Virginia’s Rule 1:24 last November, which went into effect February 1.

Plaintiffs’ attorney Jonathan Blank with McGuire Woods wasn’t buying it. He noted that 914,000 Virginia license holders—one out of six state drivers—had their licenses suspended with no hearing.

UVA law professor Leslie Kendrick, another plaintiff’s attorney, called the suspensions of nearly a million licenses “a constitutional crisis.” A driver’s license is a constitutional right and being poor is not a good reason for taking it away, she argued. “Crimes didn’t lead” to the suspensions, she said. “Debt is the cause.”

Angela Ciolfi with Legal Aid Justice Center doesn’t think Rule 1:24 is a panacea to the problem. It would not help people who never had payment plans like plaintiff Damian Stinnie, a Charlottesville resident who owes four courts a total of $1,500.

To get his license reinstated, he could be required to pay 20 percent to each court, a total of $300, and that doesn’t include the DMV reinstatement fees, which could bring the total to $475, an impossible sum for someone who’s indigent, said Ciolfi.

And if he misses a single payment to a single court, his license could be suspended again, she said.

Counting on General Assembly consideration to fix the law, she said, “is still a hope and a prayer,” with the 1,000 bills it typically has to consider.

Ciolfi asked Judge Norman Moon to declare the state law unconstitutional and to enjoin the state from suspending licenses until the matter is remedied.

Moon sounded like he’d rather do anything else, and he asked the plaintiffs’ attorneys if there wasn’t a way to handle this “without going to a low-level federal court.”

O’Shea sounded the same theme. “I understand the appeal of a splashy federal court ruling,” she said. “This is not the right vehicle for their claim.”

However, there’s already been some weighing in on the federal level. The U.S. Department of Justice filed a brief in support of the plaintiffs in November, and called Virginia’s process unconstitutional.

Blank asked the court to deny the motion to dismiss and give the plaintiffs the opportunity to argue the case. “I haven’t been in a case with this many people with this much at stake,” he said.

Added Kendrick, “If everything the defendant says is true, we wouldn’t have 914,000 Virginians with their licenses suspended.”

Fact check

Lawyers representing the commonwealth say people who can’t afford to pay traffic fines already have the option of getting a payment plan or community service. C-VILLE checked with the local general district courts.

In Charlottesville, Clerk Mary Trimble said both were available “if somebody comes in and asks.” She also said a down payment is required for a payment plan.

A clerk in Albemarle General District Court, after checking with Judge William Barkley, referred a reporter to the court’s page on the Virginia Judicial website.

“Payments must be received within 30 days following your court date to prevent the suspension of your operator’s/driver’s license for failure to pay,” it says, followed by the cryptic, “Payments made in accordance with ‘time to pay’ or deferred payment agreements are due on the agreed upon date.”

The page does not mention community service.