In response, the Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice announced reforms to educate local courts on how to protect indigent defendants' rights. Rev. Stat. Const. Part II covers a range of preexisting federal constitutional limitations on imprisonment for criminal justice debt. Purporting to save taxpayer dollars, these outfits force the offenders themselves to foot the bill for parole, reentry, drug rehab, electronic monitoring, and other services (some of which are not even assigned by a judge). The Rise of "Debtors' Prisons" in the US - JONATHAN TURLEY 2:13-cv-00732 (M.D. But out of the mix of disturbing narratives and reports one can distill several common elements. The threat of imprisonment may create a hostage effect, causing debtors to hand over money from disability and welfare checks, or inducing family members and friends who arent legally responsible for the debt to scrape together the money.10, Take the story of Harriet Cleveland as a window into the problem: Cleveland, a forty-nine-year-old mother of three from Montgomery, Alabama, worked at a day care center.11 Starting in 2008, Cleveland received several traffic tickets at a police roadblock in her Montgomery neighborhood for operating her vehicle without the appropriate insurance.12 After her license was suspended due to her nonpayment of the ensuing fines and court costs, she continued to drive to work and her childs school, incurring more debt to Montgomery for driving without a license.13 Over the course of several years, including after she was laid off from her job, Cleveland attempted to chip[] away at her debt while collection fees and other surcharges ballooned it up behind her back.14 On August 20, 2013, Cleveland was arrested at her home while babysitting her two-year-old grandson.15 The next day, a municipal judge ordered her to pay $1554 or spend thirty-one days in jail.16 She had no choice but to sit out her debt at the rate of $50 per day.17 In jail, [s]he slept on the floor, using old blankets to block the sewage from a leaking toilet.18. I, 13; N.M. Const. Eventually, federal debtors' prisons were abolished in 1833, leaving the power to implement debtors' prisons in the hands of the states, many of which followed Washington's lead. Since a large portion of criminal justice debt is routed through municipal courts that arent courts of record,26 systemic, nationwide data arent easily generated. Contact us at fees@acluofnc.org or (919) 391-7290. ^ Id. . Const. art. Laws at 457 (codified at Mo. Read More. On this understanding of the law, debtor protections co-vary quite straightforwardly with the states interest in collecting. 1965). A regulatory offense might be better defined, then, as a strict liability offense where the statute authorizes only a reasonable fine (and not a more penal-minded sanction, such as imprisonment).122 In some states, offenses meeting this latter definition arent even defined as crimes.123 An altogether different type of definition would look instead to the historical origin of the offense.124. 143, 14954 (2002) (discussing civil contempt); id. Theres probably no principled reason to distinguish between attorneys fees and other costs, like a judgment fee or a clerk fee, but doctrinally the Court may have felt especially sensitive to discrimination with respect to assigning lawyers, given its recent decision mandating counsel for indigent defendants in Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335 (1963). Some judges will rule that the debtor is not legitimately indigent and is, instead, willfully neglecting the debt because the debtor showed up to the courtroom wearing a flashy jacket or expensive tattoos. Bill of Rights, 16; Ky. Const. . art. So, in 1833, Congress abolished the practice under federal law. Feb. 8, 2015) [hereinafter Complaint, Fant v. Ferguson], http://equaljusticeunderlaw.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Complaint-Ferguson-Debtors-Prison-FILE-STAMPED.pdf [http://perma.cc/MVJ9-Q9CQ]. In August 2015, the ACLU of Louisiana released, Louisianas Debtors Prisons: An Appeal to Justice. For indigent people, a civil proceeding regarding private debt say, an unpaid payday loan may have criminal ramifications; conversely, involvement in a criminal case may create debt, causing a new civil proceeding. Residents of Ferguson also suffered unconstitutional stops and arrests, see id. (11 Allen) 264 (1865)). Additionally, interpreting the James and Fuller Courts as applying some degree of heightened scrutiny,148 the disparate application of the imprisonment-for-debt bans is an even better indicator of invidious discrimination149 than the disparate applications of the Kansas and Oregon exemption statutes. art. One-Time Monthly Annual. art. It may leave too much discretion in the hands of the same legal actors responsible for the state of play. ^ See Krishnadev Calamur, A Judges Order Overhauls Fergusons Municipal Courts, The Atlantic (Aug. 25, 2015), http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2015/08/judges-order-overhauls-fergusons-municipal-courts/402232 [http://perma.cc/7R4J-CPCZ]. 899, 902 (Iowa 1932). ^ See, e.g., Robertson, supra note 3 (describing how a debtors mother and sister scraped together what money they [could]). amend. 4; Wash. Const. Perhaps this pushback will resolve the concerns described above. Debtors' prison - Wikipedia 691, 691 (Iowa 1894). Ultimately, debtors' prisons are not only unfair and insensible, they are also illegal. I, 19; S.D. art. Mo. Thus, under James and Fuller, states cannot discriminate invidiously against at least some classes of criminal justice debtors (note that neither case involved fines) merely by virtue of the fact that the debts arise from a criminal proceeding. By leaving this mens rea determination to individual judges, rather than providing bright-line criteria as to how to make the distinction, the justices left open the possibility that a local judge with high standards for indigence could circumvent the spirit of Bearden and send a very, very poor debtor to jail or prison. ^ The Missouri legislation, for example, seems to constrain municipal collection of criminal justice debt within certain domains. Why Are We Still Sending People to Jail for Being Poor? It's Time to ^ The possibility that all violations of municipal ordinances (in some states) might fall under the bans is made more morally salient by the fact that many courts treat such violations as civil for the purposes of setting (lowered) procedural protections for defendants. This imposes direct costs on the government and further destabilizes the lives of poor people struggling to pay their debts and leave the criminal justice system behind. See sources cited supra note 95. Another type of legal claim should be considered alongside Bearden: one based on the many state constitutional bans on debtors prisons.24 These state bans were enacted over several decades in the first half of the nineteenth century, as a backlash against imprisonment for commercial debt swept the nation. That decision came in a 1983 case called Bearden v. In 2013, the ACLU of Ohio issuedOutskirts of Hope, a report documenting blatantly illegal debtors' prisons around the state. ^ See, e.g., Nicholas M. McLean, Livelihood, Ability to Pay, and the Original Meaning of the Excessive Fines Clause, 40 Hastings Const. James, 407 U.S. at 140 (quoting Rinaldi, 384 U.S. at 309). . at 29 (Michigan); id. . Rev. ^ See id. art. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2544519, Digital Duplications and the Fourth Amendment, Reconciling State Sovereign Immunity with the Fourteenth Amendment, Suspended Justice: The Case Against 28 U.S.C. The first line of cases prohibits states from discriminating on the basis of indigence when contemplating imprisonment for nonpayment of criminal justice debt. But the carve-outs for crime? $350/year. 334, 34546 (2001). In July 2015, the ACLU of Michigan filed a motion asking the McComb County Circuit Court to take superintendent control over the courtroom of Judge Carl Gerds, who regularly imposes illegal pay or stay sentences on indigent men and women appearing before him. art. II, 12 (No person shall be imprisoned for debt, unless upon refusal to deliver up his estate for the benefit of his creditors in such manner as shall be prescribed by law, or in cases of tort or where there is a strong presumption of fraud.); Md. In 2016, the ACLU of Maine helped to secure the passage of LD 1639, which includes a critical provision to help curb debtors prisons. 357 (1889). Debtor prisons weren't formally abolished until the mid-19th Century. ^ This includes the state constitutional bans of Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Minnesota, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Washington, and Wyoming. The City of Sherwoods hot check court is part of a labyrinthine and lucrative system in which defendants charged with bouncing even a single for $15 have ultimately been charged thousands of dollars in court costs, fines, and fees payable to the city and the county. Do debtors' prisons still exist? | HowStuffWorks The percentage of people living in poverty in Biloxi has doubled since 2009. ^ See Telephone Interview with Douglas K. Wilson, Colo. State Pub. [A]ny broadside pronouncement on their general validity would be inappropriate. Id. ^ See id. To start, state debtor protections would not merely duplicate the federal ones. (5 Gray) at 532. Im confused, is this a civil or a criminal matter? ^ While outside the scope of analysis here, Professor Beth Colgan has argued that incarceration for criminal justice debt might also violate the Excessive Fines Clause of the Eighth Amendment. Below, seven frequently asked questions about the history and abolition of debtors' imprisonment, and its under-the-radar1 second act. Regulating criminal justice debt through both Bearden claims and imprisonment-for-debt claims makes a lot of sense. ^ Georgias law provides guidance for courts in indigency determinations. Const. L.Q. Ala. Sept. 12, 2014) [hereinafter Settlement Agreement, Cleveland v. Montgomery], http://www.splcenter.org/sites/default/files/downloads/case/exhibit_a_to_joint_settlement_agreement_-_judicial_procedures-_140912.pdf [http://perma.cc/ZAH6-DFQS].