Rick Porter’s successful 2002 campaign for Clallam County District Court judge was as much about making money as dispensing justice.
He pledged to collect fines without the collection-agency muss, fuss and lost revenue he said plagued his opponent, two-term incumbent Judge John Doherty.
The amount of “collectibles” just sitting there in unpaid fines had reached $7 million, Porter charged.
What Porter called his campaign cornerstone was this: a pay-or-appear program for misdemeanor criminals who were getting away with not paying fines.
The carrot he held out to those who owed fines was a predictable fine-payment plan set in part by those who owed fines.
The stick: If they didn’t pay their fines and did not appear in court to explain why, they could go to jail.
Porter was elected with 52 percent of the vote, and the county has cashed in.
Now Porter is running for re-election, backed by double-barreled success: a flush revenue-generating program and a record of no successful appeals of his decisions in about 70,000 hearings.
He hasn’t heard of anyone who might be running against him.
“I’m not too worried,” he said Wednesday.
Why? He’s got a million-dollar baby on his hands.
Funds feed county
That’s how much the pay-or-appear program has added in extra revenue over three years to the 2006 county general fund of $26 million, which pays for day-to-day government expenses.
“That’s a new revenue stream that wasn’t addressed previously,” County Auditor Cathleen McKeown said.
It also doesn’t include $200,000 that goes annually to the city of Port Angeles over and above what the city pays the county for court costs, and $700,000 to the state.
“Any extra money we get in over expenses is exciting for any department, especially when you are talking about the court system,” McKeown said.
“They cost money for the citizens of Washington and Clallam County, and whenever I find something like that, I’m excited about it.”
Of 3,156 misdemeanor criminals on the pay-or-appear program since its 2002 inception, 56 percent have completed the regimen.
An additional 4,520 have been on the county Superior Court program since it began in 1999.
Porter processes about 100 pay-or-appear defendants during one court hearing a month. It accounts for about 2 percent of his workload.
How it works
Pay-or-appear participants tell Porter how much they can afford to pay, and that’s the payment amount used — generally about $50 a month. They can pay in cash or credit card.
If they can’t pay the amount, they come to court, tell Porter why they can’t pay, and if they say they are trying, avoid jail. No one has ever gone from his courtroom to jail for not being able to pay.
“The threshold is pretty low,” Porter said.
Those who don’t pay their fines and don’t provide Porter with an explanation by appearing on the pay-or-appear calendar are picked up on warrants for contempt of court.
If they are arrested after court closes, they spend the night in jail unless they post $150 bail.
Then the explanations and promises start over again on the next court date, with fine payers explaining their situation to Porter and pledging to pay their fine.
That usually works.
They see the inside of a cell “very seldom,” Porter said.
