R Street Testimony in Support of VA HB 475, Automated Court Reminders

Testimony from:
Robert Melvin, Northeast Region Director, R Street Institute

In SUPPORT of Senate Bill 475: “Court Date Reminder Program; established”

February 4, 2026

Senate Courts of Justice Committee

Chairman Surovell and members of the committee,

My name is Robert Melvin, and I am the Northeast region director at the R Street Institute. The R Street Institute is a nonprofit, nonpartisan public policy research organization. We engage in policy analysis and outreach promoting free markets and limited, effective government in a variety of policy areas, including criminal justice and civil liberties. We have a particular focus on issues that optimize our justice system and ensure responsible stewardship of taxpayer dollars while improving public safety outcomes. For this reason, we support Senate Bill 475.

In modern society, we have become accustomed to helpful reminders. We receive text messages and other automated notifications about upcoming doctors’ appointments, haircuts, and getting the oil changed on our cars, but they are notably absent from Virginia’s court system. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that failures to appear (FTAs) are often inadvertent and occur largely as a result of individuals forgetting or misunderstanding, rather than intentionally avoiding accountability.[1]

While we lack automated reminders from our courts, the Commonwealth does offer the ability to opt-in to receiving alerts through the Case Alert Subscription System (CASS).[2] However, this resource remains underused, especially since it requires one to opt-in to receive these alerts, and the system itself is difficult to find.

Research from other jurisdictions demonstrates the consequences of this design choice. In states that require individuals to self-enroll in a court reminder system, the participation rates are far lower than those with an automated reminder program—rates as low as two percent enrollment for the opt-in programs, compared to 72 to 90 percent participation for automated programs.[3]

SB 475 would address this issue by establishing an automated court date reminder system to notify defendants of their obligation to appear at each of their scheduled court appearances and provide related information.[4] The program would send text message notifications to individuals scheduled to appear for criminal or traffic violations in general district court or circuit court.[5] It also includes provisions that allow for defendants to opt-out of receiving the case alerts.[6]

This proposal would significantly improve Virginia’s current court notification system. It would use contact information obtained from individuals during the initial interaction, such as when cited by law enforcement, and send short messages about the subsequent hearing and the ramifications of failing to appear. These opt-out systems are incredibly effective in other states where they have been implemented, and drive failure-to-appear incidents down by 20 to 40 percent, with some instances showing rate reductions as high as 60 percent.[7]

These decreases in FTA rates will have significant downstream benefits for Virginia’s criminal justice system. They will mean fewer individuals facing severe consequences, which result in additional charges and bench warrants issued for defendants who fail to appear.[8] Reports estimate that each individual instance of FTA costs our criminal justice system — and therefore our taxpayers — around $1,500 each.[9] This raises the costs for Virginia’s state and local governments since arrest warrants necessitate additional court personnel time, law enforcement resources to track down and book the individual, and the prospect of jail time. Evidence suggests this practice not only pulls funding from crime prevention efforts, but also costs states tens of millions of dollars each year.[10]

In Virginia, the consequences of these failures to appear are not hypothetical. Our courts experience them at significant levels. We know that about 11,000 Virginians are charged with FTA annually, but this data only account for formal charges and doesn’t factor in cases that lead to bench warrants, the suspension of driver’s licenses, or other instances.[11] So, Virginia’s missed court appearance rate likely exceeds the documented cases. Estimates indicate that automated, opt-in court date text message reminders could help at least 2,200 to 4,400 additional Virginians to show up for their hearings.

We know this isn’t some novel concept as statewide automated court reminder processes have been implemented in Arizona, Colorado, Indiana, New Hampshire, New Mexico, and Texas.[12] They also provide helpful examples of how these systems can be incorporated into existing judicial systems at relatively low costs for implementation, ranging from $35,000 to $600,000 to adopt automated court reminders.[13] Moreover, the ongoing system costs are incredibly low, costing less than $1 per case.[14]

SB 475 will help to reduce failure to appear rates in Virginia through the implementation of an automated court reminder system. The Commonwealth can realize significant cost savings from reduced hearing delays, executions of bench warrants, and jail use. This would allow crucial public safety resources to be focused on more vital needs, rather than those who simply forgot or misunderstood their court dates. For these reasons, we respectfully encourage you to support SB 475.

Thank you,

Robert Melvin
Northeast Region State Government Affairs Director
R Street Institute
rmelvin@rstreet.org 

[1] Robert Melvin, “Virginia’s Criminal Justice Crossroads: Pretrial Issues in the Commonwealth,” R Street Institute, September 17, 2025. https://www.rstreet.org/commentary/virginias-criminal-justice-crossroads-pretrial-issues-in-the-commonwealth/.

[2] Commonwealth of Virginia Judiciary, “Online Case Information System 2.0,” Last Accessed January 30, 2026. https://eapps.courts.state.va.us/ocis/landing.

[3] Pew Foundation, “States Underuse Court Date Reminders,” May 12, 2025. https://www.pew.org/en/research-and-analysis/issue-briefs/2025/05/states-underuse-court-date-reminders.

[4] Virginia General Assembly, 2026 Legislative Session, Senate Bill 475, Last Accessed February 3, 2026. https://lis.virginia.gov/bill-details/20261/SB475. 

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Lisel Petis, and Robert Melvin, “Modernizing Virginia’s Court Notification System to Reduce Failure to Appear,” R Street Institute, January 2026. https://www.rstreet.org/research/modernizing-virginias-court-notification-system-to-reduce-failure-to-appear/.

[8] Va. Code § 19.2-128 (2024). https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/title18.2/chapter4/section19.2-128/ Law Office of Wilfred W Yeargan, “Failure to Appear on Criminal and Traffic Charges in Virginia (FTA),” Last Accessed January 30, 2026. https://www.yearganlaw.com/failure-to-appear-on-criminal-and-traffic-charges-in-virginia-fta.

[9] Nazish Dholakia, “Millions of People in the U.S. Miss Their Court Date, With Dire Consequences,” Vera Institute for Justice, February 13, 2024. https://www.vera.org/news/millions-of-people-in-the-u-s-miss-their-court-date-with-dire-consequences.

[10] Elizabeth Gilbert, “A Top Reason People go to Jail is a Technicality. Here’s How to Fix it,” Big Think, September 4, 2023. https://bigthink.com/the-present/nudges-failure-to-appear/.

[11] Virginia Sentencing Commission, “2025 Virginia Pretrial Data Project: Findings from the 2023 Cohort,” December 1, 2025. https://rga.lis.virginia.gov/Published/2025/RD922/PDF.

[12] Ibid.

[13] Kaitlyn Levinson, “Report: Text reminders for court hearings can help boost justice system efficiency,” Route Fifty, May 15, 2025. https://www.route-fifty.com/digital-government/2025/05/report-text-reminders-court-hearings-can-help-boost-justice-system-efficiency/405352/.

[14] Alissa Fishbane, et al., “Improving Court Attendance: The Essential Guide to Court Reminder Programs,” Ideas42, May 2025. https://www.ideas42.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/i42-1530_RemindersRpt_Final.pdf.