A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction requiring the city to halt enforcement of its “Clean Hands” law, which disqualifies residents from getting or renewing a driver’s license if they owe more than $100 in fees.
from 2021 found that 62 percent of all the fines from automated systems and police were issued in neighborhoods where Black residents make up at least 70 percent of the population and where the average median household income is below $50,000.“Granting injunctive relief is in the public interest because the Clean Hands Law ‘exacts broad societal costs,’ imposing challenges in the lives of predominantly marginalized D.C. residents,” the opinion reads.
That was the case for Carlotta Mitchell, one of the five named plaintiffs in the case who racked up more than $600 in unpaid fines and fees from expired tags while she was sleeping in her car. Now, Mitchell, 71, is excited about the possibility of getting her licenses sooner than she initially thought.
“It is exciting for me because it means that even though I’m older now,” said Mitchell, who now lives in Anacostia, “I can possibly get a new car so that I can travel far from my place and go shopping.”suspending driver’s licenses for overdue fines . Once that law went into effect, the DMV restored the licenses of more than 15,000 residents, but the law continued to block residents from renewing any license if they owed more than $100. According to Tzedek DC, Clean Hands originally passed in 1996 with intent of deterring littering, illegal dumping and other violations by withholding licenses from people who committed those offenses and did not to pay the fines.
To address some of the traffic safety concerns, some council members proposed an amendment to McDuffie’s bill that would have kept Clean Hands in effect for people who had multiple fines for specific moving violations. The amendment ultimately failed, and the bill passed unanimously.
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