The Kansas City Star, Mo., Mike Hendricks column: Jail tale has a lesson for us all

Space off a traffic ticket and you can wind up in jail.

But it's quite a shocker when you had no idea your name was on an arrest warrant.

"It was very creepy, and I was very upset," 25-year-old Ashley Harvey says of the evening she spent last Friday at the Johnson County jail.

"I was in the cell with one person who had been arrested 17 times."

Harvey was so unaware that she'd been a fugitive from justice that it was she who called the Olathe cops that evening after her car was rear-ended.

During the investigation, two 2008 warrants from Prairie Village turned up. They were for failing to appear in court to face citations on having no proof of insurance and driving with an expired license plate.

So Harvey ended up in handcuffs and then behind bars until her husband could arrange bail.

It's not uncommon. I got involved only because Harvey sent e-mails to The Star and some elected officials, complaining that she was treated like a common criminal during what, for her, was quite an ordeal.

"Our job is to separate fact from emotion," said PV Police Chief Wes Jordan, who is reviewing the case.

From what I can tell, the complaint isn't going anywhere. Her most serious allegation seems to be that the PV cop who took her to jail wasn't overly friendly.

But her story points up an important lesson for the rest of us: Not every court system will let you know that a warrant has been issued for your arrest.

"A lot of cities do send out notices," Olathe defense attorney Jeremiah Johnson told me.

Kansas City does. The Leawood Police Department has a warrants officer who follows up months after a warrant is issued.

But Prairie Village does neither. Court administrator Bettina Jamerson said it's too time-consuming to send out notices. Besides, violators are informed ahead of time that a warrant will be issued if they fail to appear.

Harvey skipped both of her court dates, after which she did hear from the Kansas Department of Revenue.

Revenue sent a letter saying her license had been suspended because she didn't show up in court, but it was reinstated when she proved that she had insurance coverage and proper tags.

Her mistake -- a common one, I learned -- is that she didn't make amends with Prairie Village.

"It's always a good idea to follow up," Jamerson says.

A side note: It's also important to keep the address on your license up to date in case you are issued any kind of court summons.

But back to Harvey. I agreed with her that the whole mess might have been avoided had PV reminded her that she risked arrest.

But there was one other step she might have taken.

Like showing up in court in the first place.