7:11-4. Penalties; Payment; Hearing
(a) Payment Upon Plea of Guilty. For violations where the statutory or ordinance penalty does not exceed $50 for each offense, including where the minimum statutory or ordinance penalty does not exceed $50 for each offense, the defendant at any time before the hearing date may pay the penalty and costs by appearing before the court or violations clerk or by mailing the same to the court or violations clerk, subject to the limitations prescribed in R. 7:12. The tender of payment for an offense to the Violations Bureau, without a signed guilty plea and waiver, may be accepted by the clerk and shall have the effect of a guilty plea. The court may process the payment and enter a guilty finding to the offense on its records. That finding shall be subject to being reopened at any time, in the court’s discretion, on motion by either the court or the defendant.
(b) Summary Hearing; Judgment Without Filing of Pleadings. On the return of the process or on the day to which the trial has been adjourned, the court in which the proceedings were instituted shall summarily, without the filing of any pleadings except the complaint, hear the testimony and determine and give judgment in the matter, whether for the recovery of money penalty or costs or both, or otherwise, or for the defendant.
(c) Adjournment of Hearing; Defendant Detained; Bond for Release During Adjournment. If the court in which the proceedings were instituted adjourns the hearing, it shall, except where the first process was a summons, detain the defendant in custody, unless the defendant makes a deposit in cash in the amount of the penalty claimed and costs or enters into a bond with at least one sufficient surety in double the amount of the
penalty claimed and costs or, if there is no money penalty, then in such sum, not exceeding $500, as the court fixes, conditioned for the defendant's appearance on the adjourned date and from day to day thereafter until judgment is rendered and further conditioned, unless the court otherwise orders, to abide by the judgment of the court. If the plaintiff is a governmental body or officer, the bond shall run to it and, if forfeited, may be prosecuted by the obligee. If the plaintiff is the government, the bond shall run to it and, if forfeited, may be prosecuted at the relation of a person authorized by law to prosecute the penalty proceeding. ]
Note: Source -- R. (1969) 7:9, 4:70-4. Adopted October 6, 1997 to be effective February 1, 1998; paragraph (a) amended July 5, 2000 to be effective September 5, 2000; rule deleted July 28, 2004 to be effective September 1, 2004.
