PART Y

Sec. Y-1. 14 MRSA §5604 is enacted to read:

§5604.__Monetary sanctions

1.__Designation.__A monetary sanction authorized by law and imposed by the court for a civil violation may be designated a "fine," "penalty," "forfeiture," "surcharge" or "assessment" or may be designated by another similar term.

2.__Civil violation.__Use of the terminology under subsection 1 in describing a monetary sanction for a civil violation does not limit or prohibit the application of Title 17-A, section 4-B, subsection 3.

Sec. Y-2. Effective date. This Act takes effect July 1, 2004.

SUMMARY

This bill is the report of the Maine Criminal Justice Information System, MCJUSTIS, Policy Board pursuant to Resolve 2001, chapter 45.

MCJUSTIS is an information clearinghouse, the purpose of which is to provide access to shared uniform information on criminal defendants and crime data. In order for the information to be uniform and accurate, it must be entered and accessed by all participants in the same way. To ensure that crimes are entered accurately, the statutes defining each crime must be precise and narrow enough to ensure that citing to the specific statutory unit will be the same as describing the elements and class of that exact crime. There must be a one-to-one relationship between each crime and the statutory unit that defines it. The 120th Legislature enacted Public Law 2001, chapter 383, which revised the Maine Criminal Code to establish that one-to-one relationship for each crime and its unique statutory cite. This bill revises crimes and civil violations in all other Titles of the Maine Revised Statutes that require amendment to ensure that each crime and civil violation has its own unique statutory cite.