Nearly 200 people responded as Nashville officials led a weekend “safe surrender” event at a church for people who had warrants or wanted to check their status.
The two-day event was designed for people with outstanding warrants to show up to a local church and turn themselves in to receive “favorable consideration.”
A total of 193 people came to the church, 67 of whom had warrants, the Metro Nashville Police Department said in a tweet. Charges included 65 misdemeanors and 23 felonies. Out of the 67 people with warrants, 60 were free to go after seeing a judge, police said.
Nashville Safe Surrender event has response from nearly 200 people (tennessean.com)
This is an interesting idea. There is an ungodly amount of outstanding warrants out there and the idea is to see if they can clear the logjam by doing these events in which people can show up and check if they have warrants. If they do, a judge tries to figure out a solution agreeable to all, especially since so many are for dumb misdemeanors. How many people get in trouble for a simple failure to appear? I like this.
Obviously, some crimes are heavy enough they need to be duly processed. If you have a felony warrant for a violent crime, you should not expect just to show up and be forgiven. But guess what? Some idiots demand that to happen.
Community leaders from Nashville’s Interdenominational Ministers Fellowship and several criminal justice organizations voiced hesitancy over the program, calling for more clarification on the meaning of favorable consideration.
Some suggested on-the-spot expungements or suspension of fines and fees for those who showed up, while others questioned why there were so many outstanding warrants in the first place.
Dear Lord! What is wrong with you people? Automatic pardons just for showing up regardless of the crime? And these are supposed to be Christian ministers, people that should have a passing knowledge of sins, punishment, acts of contrition and redemption. God loves everybody, but still will send your ass to Hell if you were an unrepentant asshole in this mortal coil. But yeah, you guys know better than God.
They are that twisted.
Many years ago I was in the middle of divorcing my first wife. During the course of this at one point I was picking up my kids, she refused to turn them over. Voices were raised. I walked away.
It being a Friday after 5pm I’m out a long weekend with my kids, because my estranged wife decided not to let me have them for the weekend.
I called my lawyer that evening. Told her what had happened. Warned her that my estranged was evil and to make sure that no charges were filed.
Monday I call back. My lawyer talked to estranged wife’s laywer. No charges were filed. Nothing to worry about.
A few months go by, I’m at home on a Friday night around 6pm and there is the cop knock on the door. Seems that wifey did file charges, she didn’t tell her lawyer and when asked by her lawyer if she had wifey lied to lawyer.
The complaint had my address in a different city in a different county so I never got the summons. When I failed to appear for the court hearing a bench warrant was issued. When the bench warrant was issued they went to the bother of actually looking for my legal address so they knew where to pick me up.
So yeah, there are people out there with warrants that don’t know but suspect. Or for which they think they have cleared things but haven’t.
And hopefully this story ends with ex-wifey having to explain her shenanigans in front of a judge.
(Yeah, I know, but a man can dream.)
Okay, I read that, then sat and thought about it. I’m Still twisted inside. The injustice and the absolute idiocy of it all is disgusting. Your lawyer Failed you. If your lawyer had followed your instructions, none of that crap would have happened. The ex filed charges, but the Cops, all on their own, got your place of residence wrong. Seriously? I’m supposed to believe the Ex didn’t Provide the address? Aww,Hayull No… I don’t even know you and I’m Sorry you had to deal with that crap.
No, surprisingly, this happens a lot with Domestic calls. Especially during divorces. Which is why “Someone has to go to Jail” cases are very wrong.
Heck, me, Mr. Never-done-much got jacked up by the system. Missed a court date on a trumped-up case involving a cow-orker, two car doors and someone having it out for me. Missed because my wife was sick, and I called my lawyer, who contacted the prosecutors, who said everything was a-okay, no harm done, blatantly lied to her and me. And said prosecutors filed a warrant at the last minute on Friday night, and Sheriffs showed up on Sunday morning to carry me away. And I got the notice the following Friday that a warrant had been issued for my arrest. Now did they tell me the 8 times I showed up in court and they postponed it? Nooooo…. Did they tell my lawyer? Nooooo…..
So, yes, there are bullscat warrants out on people. It does happen. Over bullscat crap like traffic tickets, failures to appear where the person has notified the courts with a damned good reason why they couldn’t appear (like wife close to dying and stuff like that.)
And then there’s the people who do miss court for not-good reasons who get no failures-to-appear on their records, often violent felons in the street pharmaceuticals trades. Who have outstanding warrants on multiple cases but the courts ignore them…
IANAL and I have definitely not been dragged into the Criminal Justice or (shudder) Juvenile (in)Justice System
Maybe a good compromise would be to agree to stay any late or punitive traffic or civil fees if the fines are paid in full at the amnesty site? Do as much as they can to clear non violent crime warrant backlogs?
I expect the city to complain about the loss of revenues that they were not even collecting anyway. I remember being shocked at the fact that OVER HALF the Municipal Income for Ferguson MO, came from Traffic Tickets ,penalties, and other fines. The NYPD officers mostly stopped writing tickets for a few weeks. and the NYC Comptroller went apeshit about the loss of revenue and the cashflow issues.
Miguel:
Mike at Cold Fury is in serious Medical trouble. I started a gofundme for him. Can you repoast/write it up… I got Wirecutter, Art Sido, and all the ‘usual criminals and suspects’ on board:
http://coldfury.com/2021/12/15/mikes-in-deep-shit/
and the go fund me:
https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-mike-of-cold-fury-and-the-belmont-playboys
many thanks and miss You dude!
BCE
It’s usually traffic tickets. Vegas did an amnesty thing once where if you went back and paid the original, all the add ons were dropped. They should have done this.