House Journal: Page 55: Wednesday, January 10, 1996

We understand the cost of poor communication, as did former FBI
director, J.  Edgar Hoover.  He learned that even the simplest
message, when not clearly communicated, can have a major impact.
 Years ago in an effort to cut costs, the FBI reduced the size
of memo paper.  One of the new memo sheets ended up on J. Edgar
Hoover's desk.  He disliked it immediately and wrote on the
narrow margin, "Watch the borders."

His message was misinterpreted.  For the next six weeks, it was
extremely difficult to enter the United States by road from
either Mexico or Canada!

I'll try to be clear.

Although the news this year is not uniformly good, I hope you
will conclude, as I have, that much of it is encouraging.

First, I'd like to focus on some of our achievements.  It is
always a pleasure to report on progress.

We're certainly encouraged by progress in the collection of
fines and fees, a matter in which we all are vitally interested.
 I'd like to tell you in some detail what we're doing.

Everyone is offended when some scofflaws are allowed to
accumulate substantial unpaid fines.

Respect for court orders is on the line.  Inconsistent
enforcement of court orders calls into question the authority
and effectiveness of the courts.  A fine is a sentence.  Its
enforcement should be pursued diligently-as diligently as an
enforcement of a jail sentence.  The greatest impact on fine
enforcement is made at the "front-end" of the process-the time
when a sentence is imposed.
We have set in motion a host of changes to improve the fine
collection record of the courts.  Many magistrates and judges
are taking a tougher attitude.  For example, in Linn County,
Magistrate Pamela @@s tells defendants appearing before her that
they are expected to pay their fine that day.  And she goes one
step further.   With the aid of a computer linked to the clerk
of court office, she checks to see if they have unpaid fines
from previous sentences.  If they do, they are told to pay
those, also.

Across the state, all of our judicial districts have stepped up
their fine and collection programs.  Many judges are following
the methods successfully used by the district associate judges
in Scott County.  In that program, the payment of fines, fees
and restitution is made a condition of unsupervised probation in
serious and aggravated misdemeanor cases.  At sentencing,
defendants are told that they must appear before the court on a
date set in the future.  The purpose of the court date is to
determine if the conditions of probation have been met.  Willful
failure to comply with the terms of the unsupervised probation
can result in a finding of contempt of court and jail time.

Iowa General Assembly

Index: House Journal (76th General Assembly: Session 2)

© 1996 Cornell College and League of Women Voters of Iowa

Comments? hjourn@legis.iowa.gov.

Last update: Mon Jan 15 12:25:00 CST 1996
URL: /DOCS/GA/76GA/Session.2/HJournal/00000/00055.html
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