Is a Traffic Court a Real Court?

People who receive a traffic ticket sometimes encounter a striking claim: the proceeding they are summoned to is not a real court at all, but an administrative or revenue-collecting body dressed up as one. The claim usually comes with observations that seem to support it. There may be no jury. The person deciding may be a magistrate or hearing officer rather than a judge. The proceeding may be called "civil" even though it begins with a police officer. The fines may go to the city that runs the court.

Each of those observations can be accurate somewhere. The difficulty is that "traffic court" does not describe a single institution. States and cities handle traffic matters in materially different ways, and the right answer depends on which system is involved.

What people mean by "administrative"

When people call traffic courts administrative, they usually mean one of three things: that the proceeding is handled by an executive agency rather than the judicial branch; that the offense is classified as non-criminal, so the protections of a criminal trial do not apply; or that the tribunal is not a court of record. Those are three different claims, and each may be true or false independently. The archive's entries on administrative hearings and judicial courts and on courts of record discuss the general concepts; this entry applies them to traffic adjudication.

Example one: genuinely administrative adjudication

The District of Columbia provides a clear example of a system that is administrative by design. Its Traffic Adjudication Act, adopted in 1978, states that its purpose is "to decriminalize and to provide for the administrative adjudication" of certain traffic violations (D.C. Code §50-2301.01). Covered moving infractions are "processed and adjudicated" under that chapter (§50-2302.01), defined as conduct "subject to administrative adjudication" for which the city's attorney does not bring a proceeding in the Superior Court (§50-2301.02(4)). Appeals from hearing examiners go to appeals boards that the statute directs an executive-branch Director to establish (§50-2304.01).

The same law excepts a list of more serious violations, which "shall continue to be prosecuted as criminal offenses," including driving more than thirty miles per hour over the speed limit (§50-2302.02). In the District, then, a minor moving violation is decided administratively by an executive agency, while a serious one goes to a court. For ordinary tickets there, the "administrative" description is accurate, because the legislature chose it.

Example two: infractions in a judicial court

California takes a different approach. Most Vehicle Code violations are infractions: "it is unlawful and constitutes an infraction for any person to violate, or fail to comply with any provision of this code," unless otherwise provided (Cal. Veh. Code §40000.1). Infractions are prosecuted in the state's superior courts, which are part of the judicial branch.

California has, however, attached a distinct procedure to infractions. Penal Code §19.6 provides that an infraction "is not punishable by imprisonment," that a person charged with one "shall not be entitled to a trial by jury," and that counsel is not appointed at public expense unless the person is arrested and not released on a written promise to appear, own recognizance or bail. At the same time, §19.7 provides that "all provisions of law relating to misdemeanors shall apply to infractions," including the jurisdiction of courts and the burden of proof, unless otherwise provided. Courts may adopt rules for trying infractions, but must first inform the defendant in writing of rights including the right to confront and cross-examine witnesses (Cal. Veh. Code §40901).

A California traffic trial is therefore a proceeding in a judicial court, with a reduced set of procedures because of the low stakes. The absence of a jury reflects the classification of the offense, not the absence of a court.

Example three: mayor's courts and lay judges

Some states have allowed traffic and ordinance cases to be heard by local officials who are not lawyers or who hold other offices. The Supreme Court has examined such systems twice.

In Ward v. Village of Monroeville, 409 U.S. 57 (1972), an Ohio statute authorized mayors to sit as judges in ordinance and certain traffic cases. The mayor of Monroeville convicted Ward of two traffic offenses and fined him $50 each. Fines and costs from the mayor's court made up a substantial portion of the village's revenue. The Court held that trial before a mayor with executive responsibility for village finances denied due process, because his position offered a "possible temptation" to be partisan. It rejected the argument that a later trial de novo in a higher court cured the problem.

In North v. Russell, 427 U.S. 328 (1976), the Court upheld a Kentucky system in which non-lawyer police judges heard minor cases in smaller cities, because the defendant had an appeal of right with a trial de novo before a law-trained judge. The Court concluded that the "two-tier trial court system with lay judicial officers in the first tier" did not violate due process or equal protection. Justice Stewart, joined by Justice Marshall, dissented.

Taken together, the two cases show that the Constitution permits informal local tribunals for minor offenses, but sets limits: a tribunal whose judge has an institutional financial stake in convictions can violate due process, whether or not it is called a court.

Court of record or not

Whether a traffic tribunal keeps a verbatim record, and whether it is designated a court of record, also varies. Some first-tier courts are not courts of record and provide for appeal by trial de novo rather than review of a transcript, as in the Kentucky system examined in North. That affects how decisions are reviewed. It does not, on its own, determine whether the body exercises judicial power.

Civil and criminal traffic matters

The examples also show that "traffic offence" covers a range. Minor violations may be civil infractions (as in the District), non-criminal infractions tried in court (as in California), or petty offenses in a local court. Serious conduct such as reckless driving or driving under the influence is generally prosecuted as a crime with the full protections of criminal procedure. Any claim about traffic courts in general must specify which category and which jurisdiction it concerns.

What the record supports

The claim that traffic courts are "not real courts" is accurate in some places and inaccurate in others. Some jurisdictions have deliberately moved minor traffic matters to administrative agencies. Others try them in judicial courts with simplified procedures and no jury because of how the offenses are classified. Still others use local or lay tribunals, which the Supreme Court has allowed with limits. The constitutional question the Court has actually examined is not whether a body bears the name "court," but whether it provides a neutral decision-maker and the process due for what is at stake.