Imagine this: Youre charged with a crime. The crime is Driving While License Suspended (DWLS). You get a court date. You have a Judge assigned. A prosecutor assigned. And then, somehow, all of the court dates, prosecutors, and judges are avoided. Is this possible? Yes. It's called the clerk's option.

Florida Statutes, 318.14(10)(a), allows a driver to elect to enter a plea of nolo contendere and provide proof of a reinstated license to the clerk of court when charged with DWLS, in cases where the license has been suspended for failure to appear, failure to pay a civil penalty, or failure to attend a driver improvement course. In this case, upon electing this so-called Clerks Option, adjudication is to be withheld. However, exercising a Clerks Option requires fast action, as the clerk must be presented with a reinstated license before ever going to a first court date.

By enacting this clerks option statute, the legislature recognized that leniency was appropriate for certain types of DWLS charges. The clerks option on a DWLS requires a person to reinstate his or her driver's license with the clerk prior to the court appearance date indicated on the citation or notice to appear. Furthermore, Traffic Rule 6.360(b) authorizes the clerk to allow a person up to 60 additional days to reinstate the license (beware, clerks often do not comply with this rule--not with any malice, usually just ignorance of the rule). If a defendant still needs additional time to comply, a judge or traffic hearing officer may extend the time for compliance. Fla. R. Traf. Ct. 6.360(b); 6.040(a). See Raulerson v. State, 763 So.2d 291.

Adding further beauty to this Clerks Option is the fact that the Withhold of Adjudication received as a result of this election will not count towards the imposition of a five year Habitual Traffic Offender (HTO) suspension. Typically, a withhold on a criminal DWLS case counts towards the three strikes of an HTO suspension, but not a withhold under the clerks option outlined above.

Electing the clerks option is tricky, and often times the clerk of court has little knowledge of how to treat such cases. A common response may be You can't pay this ticket, its criminal, please go to court, we clerk's only resolve civil citations. Well, dont believe it. Give criminal defense attorney John Guidry a call so that all of your options may be reviewed. Go ahead, the call is free.