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CVC §23302.5 states:

(a) No person shall evade or attempt to evade the payment of tolls or other charges on any vehicluar crossing or toll highway.

(b) A violation of subdivision (a) is subject to civil penalties and is neither an infraction nor a public offense, as defined in Section 15 of the Penal Code. The enforcement of those civil penalties shall be governed by the civil administrative procedures set forth in Article 4 (commencing with Section 40250) of Chapter 1 of Division 17.

Motorists in California are frequently cited for toll evasion, even though the law appears to be clear that toll evasion is something that is a civil matter between you and the operator of the toll road or highway that you are travelling on. The "civil administrative procedures" described in §23302.5(b) involve a four-step process to get to the jurisdiction of the superior court: 1) toll road operator issues a notice of violation, 2) you can contest it and the toll road will investigate, 3) an administrative hearing can be requested if dissatisfied, and 4) if still dissatisfied, a de novo review can be conducted at the superior court level. Very similar (if not identical) to parking ticket reviews.

Am I missing something here? Does the superior court have the ability to hear a non-crime? A friend has been cited for a violation of this section under CVC §23302(a)(1) and will be arraigned in court, have his rights read to him (including right to face citing officer), right to speedy trial, etc., all rights not provided for in the "civil administrative procedures".

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  • It appears they're cited for not having a FasTrack device visible, is it correct?
    – littleadv
    Commented Jun 18 at 8:42

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Does the superior court have the ability to hear a non-crime?

Yes.

Superior courts in California are the state trial courts with general jurisdiction to hear and decide any civil or criminal action which is not specially designated to be heard in some other court or before a governmental agency.

(Source)

A friend has been cited for a violation of this section under CVC §23302(a)(1) and will be arraigned in court, have his rights read to him (including right to face citing officer), right to speedy trial, etc., all rights not provided for in the "civil administrative procedures".

California Vehicle Code § 23302 does not have a provision that says that it is not a criminal matter reserved to civil administrative procedures, while California Vehicle Code § 23302.5 does. The full text of these statutes can be found here.

The penalties for violating California Vehicle Code § 23302 are set forth at California Vehicle Code §§ 42000-42011 (primarily §§ 42001, 42003, 42004, 42005, 42006, 42007 and 42008 since none of the myriad exceptions and special sentence enhancement rules apply to this offense).

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  • So, violation of 23302(a)(1) ("It is unlawful for a driver to fail to pay tolls or other charges on any vehicular crossing or toll highway") is a crime, whereas violation of 23302.5(a) ("No person shall evade or attempt to evade the payment of tolls or other charges on any vehicular crossing or toll highway") is handled through civil administrative procedures? It's unclear to me how "fail to pay tolls" and "evade the payment of tolls" are even different at all, let alone why the latter should be treated less seriously. Maybe I should ask a new question.
    – Nate Eldredge
    Commented Jun 19 at 21:59
  • "So, violation . . . " Correct. I have no idea why they are treated separately or what purpose this served. But the statute in question clearly makes this distinction, for whatever cryptic reasons that California legislators had at the time. CVC § 23302.5 is the outlier (and was probably the more recently enacted provision). CVC § 23302(a)(1) is simply following the default rules. So the explanation would be found in the legislative history of 23302.5 and that question might be better suited to Politics.SE than to Law.SE. I'd suspect that the toll road lobby wanted an administrative option.
    – ohwilleke
    Commented Jun 19 at 23:00
  • So, maybe it makes it a sort of "either way" violation. Under 22302(a)(1) the CHP can keep making traffic stops and issuing citations, as they've always done, and under 22302.5(a) the toll road corporations can send out violation notices by mail without all the overhead (or defendant protections) of criminal procedure. Maybe there's not meant to be any functional difference between "fail" and "evade", and the difference in wording is just sloppy drafting.
    – Nate Eldredge
    Commented Jun 19 at 23:19
  • @NateEldredge This is a very plausible reading of what is intended, although I'm in no position to authoritatively confirm this reading. It makes a lot of sense. I would expect that a judge might easily come to the same conclusion.
    – ohwilleke
    Commented Jun 20 at 0:54

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