Gloria Diaz’s daughter was just 4 years old the day she saw her mother arrested and taken away in handcuffs. She’s almost 7 now but still brings it up when she hears sirens or sees a police car.

“She’s always like, ‘Mom, are they going to take you to jail again?’” Diaz said. “A kid should never have to think like that. I always try to be like, no, that was a mistake.”

That day in 2023 Diaz was driving her daughter from their home on Cleveland’s West Side to Strongsville for a doctor’s appointment. A suburban cop pulled her over on the highway for driving 7 miles per hour over the speed limit. The arrest was for an outstanding warrant that Diaz didn’t know existed.

Four years prior, Diaz had been ticketed for driving without a license. It was out of necessity, she said — her sister, who owned the car, was too sick to drive. Diaz was eight months pregnant at the time and the court date on her citation fell within days of her due date.

The officer called after she failed to show up, she said, but did not tell her that a warrant had been issued for her arrest. She never heard from the court. A couple years later, she paid outstanding fines to the state Bureau of Motor Vehicles so she could get a driver’s license back. The warrant didn’t come up then either.

After her night in jail in 2023, she explained everything to the judge and he was “shocked” that she’d been arrested at all, she said in an interview. He released her with a fine.

Today she is sharing her story as part of an effort to prevent situations like hers.

A Democratic state representative and a Republican state senator have introduced identical bills that would require every Ohio court to use text messages and emails to send reminders and other crucial information to people who are expected to appear in court for a criminal charge or traffic violation.

Electronic reminder systems are used by courts in 18 states and the District of Columbia. (Cleveland Municipal Court has used one since 2020.) Proponents say they save courts money, reduce jail overcrowding and spare people like Diaz from the often costly consequences of a mistake.

“Maybe it’ll help somebody else not go through what I went through,” she said.

Bipartisan support for electronic reminders

Toledo-area Democratic State Rep. Josh Williams, who introduced the bill in the Ohio House of Representatives, said in a statement that each missed court appearance costs taxpayers almost $1,500. And the resulting arrest warrants tie up officers for hours. Increasing court attendance will mean “fewer unnecessary police interactions, less time spent on processing, and more officers available for the work that truly matters for public safety,” he said.

State Sen. Louis Blessing, Republican from the Cincinnati area, introduced the same legislation in that chamber. No hearings have been scheduled yet for either version.

If passed, the bill would require the administrator of the Ohio Supreme Court to develop an electronic court reminder program and to make it available free of charge to all courts in the state and require them to use it. (The bill does not mention courts already using their own systems.) It allocates $6 million this year and $1 million next year for the work.

A 2025 poll by the Pew Charitable Trusts found broad bipartisan support for court reminder programs. Two-thirds of Republicans and more than three-quarters of Democrats said they liked the idea.

Why do people miss court?

Gloria Diaz’s situation was unusual in the specifics but not the outcome. Failing to appear in court is one of the most common reasons people are jailed before their trial, according to (Un)Warranted, a project of ideas42, an organization that uses behavioral science to develop solutions to social justice problems.

Not knowing they’re expected in court, forgetting the date and confusion about the legal process are the most common reasons people give for not appearing. Interviews conducted by ideas42 and the University of Chicago Crime Lab also found that some people rationalized not attending because they would lose income by taking time off from work or because they feared being jailed if they showed up. As their report explained, “the immediate costs of going loomed larger than the risk of getting arrested in the future.”

Stress related to poverty can also interfere with a person’s ability to keep even important events top of mind.

“Research has shown that when we don’t have enough of vital resources (like money, food, or time), we tend to focus on dealing with that scarcity, to the exclusion of all else,” according to another ideas42 report.

(Un)Warranted is pushing courts to adopt texting and email systems to send reminders of court appearances, as well as the possible consequences of not showing up. And when someone does miss, they should get information about how to clear the warrant and get back on track.

The group says that reminders “save money, increase efficiency and reduce strain across the system — all leading to fairer and more effective justice.”

Cleveland Municipal Court is ahead of the curve

Michael Negray, administrator of Cleveland Municipal Court, joked in an interview that without text reminders he’d miss half of his doctor’s appointments.  

They’ve been just as effective at the court, he said. The court started sending text and email reminders in 2020, and they have helped cut the failure-to-appear rate almost in half — from 42% in 2018 to 24% as of 2024. The court handles around 450 to 500 cases at a time.

Supervision officers in the court’s pretrial division send texts and emails the day before every hearing. If it’s on Zoom, they include the link. They also use it in special circumstances like postponements due to extreme weather or last year’s cyber attack. The people receiving the texts can respond with questions.

“It makes it much more likely that they’ll communicate with us,” as opposed to receiving only phone calls or letters, said Ron Hampton, director of the pretrial division.