The First Judicial District is going to stop accepting filing fees for motions to vacate or reduce bail forfeitures as part of an effort to collect from more than 150,000 defendants who failed to make appearances between 1971 and 2006, court officials said.
The court will not be collecting the filing fees because Community Legal Services, other groups and petitioners themselves reported that paying the $12.50 fee would make it prohibitively expensive to file the petitions, said Dominic Rossi, deputy court administrator for legal services.
