DESOTO CO., Miss. (localmemphis.com) – Are you a Mississippi driver who has unpaid traffic tickets? A new law in the Magnolia State says your driver’s license can’t be suspended, but you could still be arrested.
“It’s pretty tough down there at traffic court,” said Mississippi driver Melissa Jones. “I don’t know if you ever sat in there all day long. But the little judge, at least back in the day, you were never right.”
The city of Southaven wants to warn drivers that you are not off the hook just because your license can’t be suspended. Also, police say judges are overwhelmed with all the warrants stacking up.
“We have a lot of warrants, benched warrants and things that are issued by the judges that are still active,” said Chief Deputy Mark Little. “Our fugitive division works very hard to contact these people so they can come in and make arrangements to surrender.”
A change in Mississippi law now prevents courts from suspending driver’s licenses for traffic ticket cases. Now officials want to warn the public that an arrest warrant for the same oversight is possible. Last week, a Southaven woman was arrested for an expired tag.
“She failed to miss on that second date and a warrant was issued for her arrest,” said Delgado. “She was picked up on contempt of court for failure to appear.”
Delgado says people ignoring court dates is a growing issue.
“They were getting pulled over and stopped, found out they have a warrant so their car is getting towed and having to have people come and get their children,” commented Little.
He says the city has over 1,600 warrants out currently. Driver Melissa Jones grew up in Southaven and has dealt with the headache of finding out your license isn’t in good standing at the wrong time.
“I was driving on a suspended license for a long time and didn’t even know it. I was beat boppin’ in to have my license and they said guess what you have a ticket, that I didn’t know about.”
Courts are giving you two chances to settle tickets: on the first scheduled date then three weeks later after letting you know know you missed the first one.