Buzzfeed: Texas illegally jails indigents

[Winehole23]

Unpaid fines are a vexing problem for municipalities across the country, and uninsured drivers can indeed be a hazard, but Texas law leaves no doubt as to how courts must handle someone who has been arrested for unpaid fines. And it provides an unambiguous, step-by-step process that includes an alternative punishment for those too poor to pay their fines.


First, before ordering a defendant to jail, a judge must hold a hearing to assess their finances. If the defendant is too poor to pay, the judge must offer community service instead. An indigent person can only be jailed if they have “failed to make a good faith effort” to do the community service. The result of the hearing must be put in writing.


All this is clearly laid out in Texas statutes — as well as in an official instruction manual for judges — and many of the state’s more than 2,100 judges who handle traffic violations and other petty offenses do follow the law.


But many don’t. In El Paso, where 1 in 5 people live below the poverty line, judges at the municipal court regularly send people to jail without holding a poverty hearing or offering community service. BuzzFeed News reviewed 100 of the court’s case files for people jailed for at least five days last year. Not a single one indicated that the judge had considered — or even inquired about — the defendant’s ability to pay before locking them up.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/kendalltagga...ime-to-be-poor

[Winehole23]

Then, in the late 1960s, a Houston man named Preston Tate picked up $425 in fines for nine traffic convictions, including running a stop sign, running a red light, and driving without a license. Tate made about $290 a month, which he used to support his wife and two children. Because he could not pay, the court ordered him to serve 85 days at the city’s prison farm. He took his case all the way to the Supreme Court.


Norman Dorsen, the lawyer who argued the case, told the court that Tate’s incarceration violated the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection under the law, because a wealthy man in the same situation would have easily avoided lockup. “The law should be applied equally to the rich and the poor,” he argued.


The court agreed, unanimously, declaring that “the Cons ution prohibits the State from imposing a fine as a sentence and then automatically converting it into a jail term solely because the defendant is indigent.” It said the state had to offer some kind of alternative to jail.

[Winehole23]

When Texas was admitted to the union in 1845, its elders etched into the new state’s cons ution: “No person shall ever be imprisoned for debt.”

[Winehole23]

ongoing tweaks indicate an ongoing problem with judges not following the law:

In response, the Texas legislature added a provision allowing judges to offer payment plans. Two decades later, in 1993, lawmakers added community service as another alternative for the poor. In 1999, they tweaked the law again to make clear that judges had to assess defendants’ finances before locking them up. A later revision to the law clarified that judges must put that assessment in writing.

[boutons_deux]

http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/show...=1#post8213913

[Winehole23]

there's a downside to excessive posting: nobody reads the posts. I sure didn't read yours.

[Drachen]

there's a downside to excessive posting: nobody reads the posts. I sure didn't read yours.

Pretty much everyone skips past bd's posts. They're useless even if he does get it right sometimes

[boutons_deux]

there's a downside to excessive posting: nobody reads the posts. I sure didn't read yours.

not excessive, and not , this forum would full of nothing but total from rightwingnuts and gun fellators and "freedom" lovers.