WASHINGTON — The Justice Department is stepping up pressure on state and local judges to reduce fines and fees charged in their courts, practices that leave the poor, juvenile offenders and people of color disproportionately burdened with debt.
Many places around the country use revenue from fines and the surcharges imposed by judges in criminal, civil and juvenile courts to pay court costs, even judges’ salaries, or to supplement state or local government budgets.
Officials across the political spectrum have long recognized that the practice is harmful and discriminatory, with far-reaching consequences in both conservative and liberal states.
In Florida, a person can lose their driver’s license or voter registration if they fail to pay their bills. In Texas, needy defenders sometimes choose jail time to zero their balances. In California, surcharges on some auto-related offenses can be double or triple the original fine, creating a spiral of debt that can destroy a person’s credit, and therefore access to employment or a lease.
Justice Department third-highest official Vanita Gupta informed local judges and juvenile courts on Thursday that imposing fines and fees without regard to a person’s financial status violates constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishment.
This “can erode trust between local governments and their constituents, increase recidivism, undermine rehabilitation and successful returns, and generate little or no net revenue,” Ms Gupta, the associate attorney general, wrote in a letter.
For Americans who can pay their debt to government agencies, such fines, which can range from a few dollars to hundreds, are a minor nuisance. For the poor and for new immigrants, it can lead to catastrophes, “including escalating debt, being subject to changes in immigration status, and loss of a person’s job, driver’s license, voting rights or home, among other things,” Ms Gupta added. .
The original impetus for the change was the 2014 shooting of a black teenager, Michael Brown, by a police officer in Ferguson, Mo. A Justice Department investigation resulted in no federal charges against the officer involved. But a subsequent investigation by the department of systemic discrimination found that a quarter of the city’s municipal budget came from fines and fees imposed disproportionately on black residents.
The policies Ms. Gupta outlined were first introduced during the Obama administration, when she headed the Justice Department’s civil rights division. It was repealed in 2017 under Attorney General Jeff Sessions, but a handful of states, including some controlled by Republicans, have taken steps to curb the practice.
The federal government has limited powers to enforce such a directive. It could sue states that refuse to make good faith efforts to address the problem. It could also deny funding to non-compliant justice systems, though that possibility is slim, according to Justice Department officials.
But overhaul advocates view the changes Ms. Gupta described as an important step that will bolster bipartisan efforts in the state legislature to reverse fines and fees while providing a template for litigation.
“It helps litigators sue jurisdictions engaged in unconstitutional and illegal conduct and gives lawyers and policymakers a strong case when they enact legislative action,” said Lisa Foster, a former Justice Department official who now works for the Fines and Fees Justice Center, an impartial advocacy group. organization in Washington. “And it gives judges and courts a roadmap for reform.”
Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice Nathan L. Hecht has long pushed for the elimination of the fee system in his state. He has argued that it not only penalizes poverty, but ultimately harms the state by pushing marginal offenders to the fringes of society and deeper into the criminal justice system.
“You get a man who shows up in court after executing a stop sign — that’s a $200 fine with a $200 court fee — and he just can’t pay,” he said.
“The judge then says, ‘You could just go to jail for a few days instead of paying that off,'” he added. “And that’s what the man does.”
The defendant is not alone in making a sacrifice. The cost of housing an inmate for a single night in the system is about $800, so the total cost to state and local governments is often many times the fines to be paid.
“It makes no sense,” Judge Hecht added. “We cut off our noses to irritate our faces.”
