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Date: April 29, 2024 Mon
Time: 11:12 pm
Time: 11:12 pm
Results for indigent defendants
5 results foundAuthor: American Civil Liberties Union Title: In for a Penny: The Rise of America's New Debtors' Prisons Summary: This ACLU report presents the results of a yearlong investigation into modern-day "debtors' prisons," and shows that poor defendants are being jailed at increasingly alarming rates for failing to pay legal debts they can never hope to afford. The report details how across the country, in the face of mounting budget deficits, states are more aggressively going after poor people who have already served their criminal sentences. These modern-day debtors' prisons impose devastating human costs, waste taxpayer money and resources, undermine our criminal justice system, are racially skewed, and create a two-tiered system of justice. Incarcerating people simply because they cannot afford to pay their legal debts not only is unconstitutional but it has a devastating impact upon men and women, whose only crime is that they are poor. The sad truth is that debtors' prisons are flourishing today, more than two decades after the Supreme Court prohibited imprisoning those who are too poor to pay their legal debts. This report seeks to document the realities of today's debtors' prisons and to provide state and local governments and courts with a more sensible path – one where they no longer will be compelled to fund their criminal justice systems on the backs of the poor, and one where the promise of equal protection under the law for the poor and affluent alike will finally be realized. Details: New York: American Civil Liberties Union, 2010. 92p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed April 18, 2011 at: http://www.aclu.org/files/assets/InForAPenny_web.pdf Year: 2010 Country: United States URL: http://www.aclu.org/files/assets/InForAPenny_web.pdf Shelf Number: 121385 Keywords: Debtors' PrisonsIndigent DefendantsLegal AidPoverty |
Author: American Civil Liberties Union of New Hampshire Title: Debtors' Prisons in New Hampshire Summary: In a practice startlingly akin to the debtors' prisons of the 19th and early 20th centuries, Circuit Court judges in New Hampshire commonly jail those who have no ability to pay fines without a meaningful hearing and without providing access to counsel. This practice imposed on our most vulnerable citizens is unconstitutional, financially unsound, and cruel. In an alarming number of cases where indigent defendants appear in court to address an unpaid fine, judges do not inform these defendants of their rights. Judges do not afford them a lawyer. Judges do not even determine whether they can pay the fine. Judges simply put them in jail. This practice is systemic. A year-long investigation conducted by the American Civil Liberties Union of New Hampshire ("ACLU-NH"), in conjunction with University of New Hampshire School of Law Professor and ACLU-NH Board Chair Albert E. Scherr, has revealed that the problem is not limited to a rogue judge or court, but is occurring throughout the state. This practice is also illegal. The United States Constitution, New Hampshire Constitution, New Hampshire law, and New Hampshire's own Circuit Court rules all prohibit this modern-day version of a debtors' prison. The law clearly states that, before an individual can be incarcerated for failure to pay a fine or fee, the court must (i) meaningfully inquire into the reasons for the failure to pay and (ii) determine that the individual is willfully refusing to pay despite having sufficient resources. The law prohibits courts from jailing individuals who simply cannot afford to pay. The Federal and State Constitutions further require representation by counsel if the judge is considering incarceration for failing to pay a fine or fee in a criminal case. In criminal cases, the State already has representation in the form of a prosecutor. Yet, according to our data, in 2013 New Hampshire judges jailed people who were unable to pay fines and without conducting a meaningful ability-to-pay hearing in an estimated 148 cases. In all of these cases, defendants were sent to jail without representation by counsel. And in three cases handled by the ACLU-NH in 2014, two Superior Court Judges and the New Hampshire Supreme Court granted relief to three individuals - Alejandra Corro, Richard Vaughan, and Dennis Suprenant - who were (or were going to be) jailed by Circuit Courts in violation of these constitutional principles. These cases, which are described in the "Personal Stories" section below, show that debtors' prison practices can counter-productively lead to termination of an individual's new employment, impede ongoing efforts of that individual to gain employment, and prevent struggling parents from caring for their infant children. Details: Concord, NH: ACLU of New Hampshire, 2015. 21p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed October 8, 2015 at: http://aclu-nh.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Final-ACLU-Debtors-Prisons-Report-9.23.15.pdf Year: 2015 Country: United States URL: http://aclu-nh.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Final-ACLU-Debtors-Prisons-Report-9.23.15.pdf Shelf Number: 136975 Keywords: Criminal FeesCriminal FinesCriminal Justice DebtFinancial SanctionsIndigent Defendants |
Author: American Civil Liberties Union of Texas Title: No Exit, Texas: Modern-Day Debtors' Prisons and the Poverty Trap Summary: A traffic ticket should sting. The fine should be enough to make you think twice before doing something like speeding again. But a traffic ticket shouldn’t derail your life—cost your job, make it impossible to pay your bills and feed your family, or deprive you of your freedom. Yet in Texas, for people too poor to write a check and move on with their lives, a simple traffic ticket leads to a cascade of unconstitutional and devastating consequences. For people who can’t afford their traffic tickets, Texas’s criminal justice system is like a maze with dead ends at every turn. Unreasonable fees pile up and stop people from paying off their debt. Judges require payment for a hearing about inability to pay. Courts are incentivized to issue warrants for failure to pay. And many people who can’t afford their fines are unconstitutionally jailed for what are legally defined as “non-jailable” offenses. The result is a two-tiered system of justice, in which the well-off get what amounts to a slap on the wrist, and the impoverished are stuck in a system where the only exit is debtors’ prison. This report discusses enforcement of Class C Misdemeanor fines and fees in Texas’s hundreds of Municipal and Justice of the Peace Courts. Practices vary, but our study of these local courts has uncovered a pattern of local courts criminalizing poverty, and perpetuating racial injustice, through unconstitutional enforcement of low-level offenses. It’s time for policymakers at every level of government to improve the fairness of sentencing for all Texans and put an end to these debtors’ prisons. Details: Houston: ACLU of Texas, 2016. 20p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed November 21, 2016 at: https://www.aclutx.org/sites/default/files/field_documents/debtorsprisonfinal_0.pdf Year: 2016 Country: United States URL: https://www.aclutx.org/sites/default/files/field_documents/debtorsprisonfinal_0.pdf Shelf Number: 140219 Keywords: Criminal FeesCriminal FinesCriminal Justice DebtFinancial SanctionsIndigent DefendantsPoverty |
Author: Leslie, Emily Title: The Unintended Impact of Pretrial Detention on Case Outcomes: Evidence from NYC Arraignments Summary: In the United States, over 400,000 individuals are in jail each day waiting for their criminal cases to be resolved. The majority of these individuals are detained pretrial due to the inability to post low levels of bail (less than $3,000). We estimate the impact of being detained pretrial on the likelihood of an individual being convicted or pleading guilty, and their sentence length, using data on nearly a million misdemeanor and felony cases in New York City from 2009 to 2013. Causal e↵ects are identified using variation across arraignment judges in their propensities to detain defendants. We find that being detained increases the probability of conviction by over seven percentage points by causing individuals to plead guilty more often. Because pretrial detention is driven by failure to post bail, these adverse effect disproportionately hurt low-income individuals. Details: Chicago: University of Chicago, 2016. 55p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed September 19, 2017 at: http://home.uchicago.edu/~npope/pretrial_paper.pdf Year: 2016 Country: United States URL: http://home.uchicago.edu/~npope/pretrial_paper.pdf Shelf Number: 147409 Keywords: BailGuilty PleasIndigent DefendantsPretrial DetentionPretrial Justice |
Author: Starger, Colin P. Title: Legitimacy, Authority, and the Right to Affordable Bail Summary: Bail reform is hot. Over the past two years, jurisdictions around the country have moved to limit or end money-bail practices that discriminate against the poor. While cheered by many, bail reform is vehemently opposed by the powerful bail-bond industry. In courts around the country, lawyers representing this industry have argued that reform is unnecessary and even unconstitutional. One particularly insidious argument advanced by bail-bond apologists is that a "wall of authority" supports the proposition that bail is not excessive merely because the defendant is unable to pay it. In other words, authority rejects the right to affordable bail. This Article critically examines this "wall of authority" and evaluates the true doctrinal standing of the right to affordable bail. After developing a novel rhetorical account of legitimacy in constitutional argument, the Article demonstrates that authority supporting the bail-bond position is illegitimate in two senses - it is formally invalid and normatively "out of bounds." The authority is formally invalid because it originates from a single implausible constitutional interpretation then echoed blindly in the name of following precedent. It is normatively inappropriate because it ignores Supreme Court doctrine that requires equal justice for indigents facing incarceration. Some walls are obstacles to freedom and justice. To liberate Eastern bloc societies oppressed by totalitarianism, President Reagan famously implored Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin wall. The metaphorical "wall of authority" endorsed by the bail-bond industry also imperils liberty - so this Article tears it down with original rhetorical theory and robust doctrinal analysis. Details: Baltimore: University of Baltimore, 2017. 51p. Source: Internet Resource: University of Baltimore School of Law Legal Studies Research Paper No. 2018-06: Accessed February 14, 2018 at: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3033018 Year: 2017 Country: United States URL: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3033018 Shelf Number: 149143 Keywords: Bail Due Process Indigent DefendantsPretrial Justice |