Not returning DVDs on time in Wylie will get you arrested

by Bill Baumbach of The Collin County Observer

Photo by Flickr user e50e

In most of the country, if you don't return a rented video or DVD, you get a nasty letter, then a call from a collection agency. Not so in Wylie.

In Wylie, if you forget to return a DVD or keep it too long, you might just get arrested.

My research into the Precinct 2 Justice of the Peace Court dockets reveal at least 75 people have been arrested and sent to jail simply for not returning rented videos. I also looked at the rest of the county, and JP Precinct 2 is the only court that has issued an arrest warrant for DVDs.

I've spent quite a bit of time looking at Justice of the Peace court dockets and statistics.

What I've learned is that many of the courts handle unique workloads that differentiate themselves from the other JP courts. For example, Precinct 4 encompasses much of the George Bush and Dallas North Tollways, so Judge Yarbrough's docket is generally full with warrants for failure to pay toll. In fact he gets so many tollroad cases that the NTTA pays the salary for one of his clerks.

Judge Payton's district 3-2 court handles lots of truancy cases filed by the Plano ISD.

The court with the smallest caseload is Judge Terry Douglas' Precinct 2 district. Precinct 2 encompasses south-eastern Collin County and it has by far the lightest workload. It is also the only JP Court that enforces video rental agreements.

In looking over the dockets of Precinct 2, I noticed a number of cases titled CATS - all but one filed by a Wylie video rental shop owner. Over the last several years, more than 75 people have had arrest warrants issued and were jailed for this crime of CATS. All but two were later adjudicated 'guilty.'

It took some searching but I did find out that CATS is an abbreviation for "Criminal Attempt - Theft of Service" or in plain English, not intending to return your movies on time.

Not returning rented goods is a crime in Texas, just as is check walking in a restaurant or driving off from a gas pump, and is classified as "theft of service." Theft of service for an item (PDF) valued between $20 and $500 is defined in the Texas Criminal Code as a Class B misdemeanor.

Class B misdemeanors are tried and adjudicated in one of the six Collin County Courts at Law in McKinney. The Courts at Law are serious courts, with prosecutors assigned to each of them. These courts are courts of record, meaning that every word said in them is recorded and transcribed by court reporters. Trials in a County court at Law are expensive and formal.

Not so with a Justice of the Peace court. More often than not the defendants do not have an attorney, and the state does not have a prosecutor. Sometimes called the peoples courts or small claims courts, the JP justices typically deal with traffic offenses, evictions, truancy and small law suits. They tend to be more informally run than a Court at Law - in fact while Court at Law judges are required to be licensed attorneys, JP judges are frequently not lawyers but ex-police officers.

The Texas Penal Code has created a class of crimes called "Criminal Attempt." These crimes are similar in nature to conspiracy crimes, in that the crime is one of intent, not actions. The law defines Criminal Attempt (PDF) as, "A person commits an offense if, with specific intent to commit an offense, he does an act amounting to more than mere preparation that tends but fails to effect the commission of the offense intended." (another section of the law says that Criminal Attempt still applies even if the offense attempted was carried out).

The penalties for Criminal Attempt are one class lower than the crime attempted. So if you attempt a Class B misdemeanor, the charge of Criminal Attempt to commit that misdemeanor becomes a Class C misdemeanor.

Class C misdemeanors are tried in the JP courts.

So if you had the "specific intent" to steal a DVD from a rental store, and you didn't return it, you could be charged with either the Class B charge of 'Theft of Service' OR the Class C charge of 'Criminal Attempt - Theft of Service.' Filing the case in the JP court is easier and faster.

In e-mail correspondence with Judge Douglas, I asked him if the court had any guidelines on what CATS cases it would accept, for example was there a minimum dollar loss required, or a length of time the item was overdue?

Judge Douglas responded with, "Criminal attempt cases are accepted by the court just as any other cases. Precinct Two has always accepted any case that comes before it."

These CATS cases come before Judge Douglas' court because one video store in Wylie routinely files them for overdue rentals. I spoke with the owner and he told me that while the large video chains used bill collectors to recover overdue fees, his was a small, independent store and it was more effective to use the court. He told me that he sends the renter a certified letter, then files a CATS complaint in Judge Douglas' court. I asked him if he still filed charges if the video was returned. His answer was "yes, if the certified letter has already been mailed".

Of the 75 people I found who were arrested for CATS, only one was found "not guilty" and one had his case dismissed. The others plead guilty and were assessed fines ranging from "time served" to $923.

Most plead guilty, I would assume, to just end the hassle and get out from under the warrant.

Quite a few had addresses nowhere near Wylie. They had moved away, but did not return their videos before leaving town.

Collin County's law enforcement officers are responsible for executing the tens of thousands of currently active arrest warrants. I'd imagine that a Sheriff's deputy costs the taxpayers well over $70,000/yr in salary, benefits and equipment.

We charge our police and deputies with keeping us safe in our homes and on the streets. We need them to relentlessly pursue fugitives from justice. The bad guys need to go to jail.

Someone really needs to ask the question of how much time do we really want our law enforcement officers to spend ridding our streets of these nefarious DVD absconders. Are our cops crime fighters or bill collectors?

Pegasus News content partner - The Collin County Observer