Being arrested and thrown in jail after being stopped for a simple traffic violation seems almost impossible. Surely the law wouldn’t allow such treatment, right? Wrong. In Florida, you can be arrested – something which many drivers have had to find out the hard way.

Why is this allowed?

Florida law is unique in many ways according to David Haenel, an attorney based on Florida’s west coast whose practice focuses on suspended license issues. He explained why this practice is allowed and under what circumstances it could happen:

A lot of that is based upon the attitude of the driver and their contacts within the community. It helps if they are local and the officers think that they will show up in court. Officers have that discretion in certain circumstances.

The officer has discretion on whether to give somebody a driving while license suspended with knowledge or a driving while license suspended without knowledge. Obviously the without knowledge is the least serious of the two and basically is a civil infraction, very similar to a speeding, red light or careless driving ticket. It wouldn’t necessarily require a mandatory court appearance, but that is where some of the problems occur because those individuals clear up the suspension and then go to the clerk’s office and just pay the ticket. That becomes strike number one for a lot of people.

So, if you get three strikes in five years, you lose your license for five years and you become a habitual traffic offender. Typically when you get pulled over, the officer should use some discretion and determine whether this person really knows that their license is suspended.

When we get these criminal driving while license suspended cases in our office and the person says, ‘Listen, I told the cop over and over again that I didn’t know my license was suspended and he still wrote me up for driving while license suspended with knowledge.’ That element of knowledge is basically what we fight in all of these criminal cases because the person really didn’t know that their license was suspended.

How an attorney can help

Finding out why your license has been suspended is the critical first step to resolving the problem. Haenel explained how an attorney can help, “We try to find out the ultimate reason for the underlying suspension such as any prior driving while license suspended offenses. Many people are just not familiar with the process - even how to reinstate a license. For example, say you get a ticket in Tampa. You might not take care of it within the first 30 days as you’re required to do. If you didn’t request an extension and end up paying the ticket on the 40th day, you have to reinstate the pending suspension. They’ll make you take a clearance form to the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles (DHSMV) to pay that reinstatement fee.”

Inconsistent rules create confusion

Haenel says that the process is not the same in every county and often creates confusion. For example, in Sarasota, you could pay the ticket, say $12 to $18, and then it will go to the DHSMV side of the program. The clerk will report that the person has paid the reinstatement fee and has taken care of the citation. So, as Haenel points out, “It actually makes more work for the Department of Motor Vehicles because some of these counties don’t report to the DHSMV; instead, they give them a letter and tell them to go to the DHSMV and reinstate their license. The clerk could do it internally and charge a fee for it; it would make the system so much smoother.”

If your license has been suspended in Florida, contact an attorney whose practice focuses on license suspension issues. Click here, to contact a Florida criminal attorney.