ST. LOUIS COUNTY, Mo. — St. Louis County Municipal Court is launching a new program called "Fresh Start Fridays" to help people with outstanding warrants.
St. Louis County officials said this new program will allow people with warrants for nonviolent offenses or court payment problems to deal with them virtually via video chat every Friday.
At 1 p.m. the court will work with people on outstanding warrants.
“A lot of people with warrants are scared to come to court. There's this notion, ‘well, if I go to court to try to deal with my warrant, I might get arrested.’ Well, first of all, that's just not true. If you come to St. Louis County Municipal Court and you’ve got a warrant, we're not going to arrest you, we're going to give you a new court date,” Court Administrative Judge Dan Brown said.
At 2 p.m. the court will handle cases for people who are having trouble paying their court fees.
“If you don't pay, it can definitely affect your credit because it ends up going into collections. So, we want to avoid all of that and give an individual an opportunity to get more time. If you know you're going to need more time all you have to do is ask,” Brown.
St. Louis County Executive Sam Page said this will hopefully make a difference in people’s lives by giving them a fresh start.
“These can accumulate more fines, and an outstanding warrant is certainly disruptive. It's in the system. Employers check these sorts of things, that may keep somebody from a job opportunity that they otherwise would have had,” Page said.
Page said this could potentially free up county resources and law enforcement officers.
“We do understand that people make mistakes, and we want to give him a chance to resolve those, and we'd like to have our police not worried about these traffic warrants and these other minor offenses. We'd like for people to clear them, and we'd like to have our police to continue to focus on violent crime. That's where they need to be spending their time,” Page said.
If you don't have access to the internet and have trouble getting to the courthouse, they can work with people on that on a case-by-case basis.
If you have questions about "Fresh Start Fridays," the court asks that you call 314-615-8760.
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