TITLE 49

MOTOR VEHICLES

CHAPTER 14

TRAFFIC — ENFORCEMENT AND GENERAL PROVISIONS

49-1416.  Record of traffic cases — Report of convictions to department. (1) Every magistrate or judge of a court shall keep or cause to be kept a record of every traffic complaint, traffic citation, or other legal form of traffic charge deposited with or presented to the court, and shall keep a record of every official action by the court in reference thereto, including a record of every conviction, forfeiture resulting from every traffic complaint or citation deposited with or presented to the court.

(2)  Within ten (10) days after a conviction or forfeiture of bail of a person upon a charge of violating any provision of this title or other law regulating the operation of vehicles on highways, the magistrate of the court or clerk of the court of record in which the conviction was had or bail was forfeited shall prepare and immediately forward to the department, either by paper or electronically, an abstract of the record of the court covering the case in which the person was convicted or forfeited bail. The abstract shall be certified by the person required to prepare the abstract to be true and correct. A report need not be made of any conviction involving the illegal parking or standing of a vehicle.

(3)  The abstract, whether paper or electronic, shall be made upon a form as prescribed by the supreme court and shall include the name and address of the party charged, the number if any of his driver’s license, the registration number of the motor vehicle involved, the nature of the offense, the date of hearing, the plea, the judgment, or whether bail was forfeited, and the amount of the fine or forfeiture as applicable.

(4)  Every court of record shall also forward a like report to the department upon the conviction of any person of manslaughter or other felony in the commission of which a vehicle was used.

(5)  Courts shall not mask, defer imposition of judgment, or allow the holder of a commercial driver’s license or a person cited while operating a commercial motor vehicle, to enter into a diversion program that would prevent a conviction in any jurisdiction of a violation of a state or local traffic control law, excluding a parking violation, from appearing on the driver’s record.

(6)  The failure, refusal, or neglect of any judicial officer to comply with any of the requirements of this section shall constitute misconduct in office and shall be grounds for removal.

(7)  The department shall keep all abstracts received in either electronic format or on microfilm, and abstracts shall be open to public inspection during reasonable business hours with the exception of personal information which may be exempt from disclosure as otherwise provided by law.

History:

[49-1416, added 1988, ch. 265, sec. 352, p. 749; am. 1992, ch. 115, sec. 34, p. 376; am. 1998, ch. 110, sec. 30, p. 412; am. 2006, ch. 164, sec. 10, p. 498; am. 2010, ch. 49, sec. 4, p. 93.]