Art. 4857.Traffic Court of New Orleans; Appellate Jurisdiction

The Traffic Court of New Orleans is not part of the general parish-and-city-court framework covered by the rest of this chapter. It is a specialized municipal court, and Article 4857 gives it a narrow, specific job: exclusive appellate jurisdiction over appeals from an administrative hearing officer's decision on a traffic violation caught by New Orleans' automated enforcement system, the network of cameras that catch red-light and speeding violations without an officer present.

Someone who disputes an automated citation first has that dispute decided by an administrative hearing officer. Article 4857 lets the Traffic Court review that officer's decision on appeal, and unlike the record-based appeal to the First or Second City Court described in Article 4850.2, this review is de novo: the Traffic Court looks at the matter fresh, rather than deferring to the hearing officer's findings.

An aggrieved person has thirty days from the hearing officer's decision to file the appeal, and the Traffic Court adopts its own rules governing how these appeals are taken, heard, and decided. As with the further appeal under Article 4850.2, the underlying violation keeps its status as a civil penalty throughout the appellate process, rather than converting into a criminal charge.