Traffic Ticket Plea-Bargains

BILL TO UPHOLD TICKET PLEA-BARGAIN SYSTEM:

State police will be allowed to ignore a mandate from their bosses and keep arranging plea bargains on traffic tickets they issue under legislation that was expected to pass late Tuesday night.

The legislation would negate a state police directive prohibiting troopers from reducing traffic tickets after Sept. 1.

The bill came as a response to widespread outrage from statewide prosecutors, county officials and troopers over the administrative decision to end the decades-long plea-bargaining process.

"This is a system that works and has worked for 35 years," said Sen. John Bonacic, R-Mount Hope, who sponsored the bill in the Senate. "Why change a system that works well?"