Page 63 - Impact: Collected Essays on the Threat of Economic Inequality

those who willfully refuse to pay fines, those who lack the resources to meet their court-imposed financial obligations cannot be incarcerated for failing to do so . Jailing those who cannot afford to pay fines produces an “impermissible discrimination that rests on the ability to pay” that is forbidden by the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment .29 Accordingly, the U .S . Supreme Court has made clear that no individual may be incarcerated for failure to pay fines unless the court first “inquire[s] into the reasons for failure to pay .”30
Pennsylvania
In Pennsylvania, where I live, it is similarly against the law to incarcerate someone who is unable to pay court fines and fees . Under the Pennsylvania Code, “[a] court shall not commit the defendant to prison for failure to pay a fine or costs unless it appears after hearing that the defendant is financially able to pay the fines or costs .”31 Rule 456 of the Pennsylvania Rules of Criminal Procedure sets out specific procedures that the court must follow when a defendant defaults on the payment of fines and costs, including notice to the defendant at least ten days prior to issuing a warrant for the defendant’s arrest and a hearing to determine whether the defendant is financially able to pay as ordered .32 At the conclusion of the hearing, the court must advise the defendant of the right to appeal within thirty days for a hearing de novo in the court of common pleas and that if an appeal is filed, the execution of the court’s order, including any order of imprisonment, will be stayed pending a decision on the appeal .33 Pennsylvania case law buttresses these statutory protections .34
Despite what appears to be a strong set of legal protections, not all judges are getting the message, and people are, in fact, being incarcerated in Pennsylvania essentially for being poor . One way to get around the law is to spin the violation as “contempt of court,” rather than jail for failure to pay fines . Among the most prominent—and heartbreaking—cases in Pennsylvania is that of Eileen DiNino . Ms . DiNino was a mother of seven, who was sent to jail for owing $2000 in fines and court costs that accrued from fifty-five truancy violations amassed by her children for failure to attend school . On June 7, 2014, Ms . DiNino was found dead in a Berks County jail cell, halfway through a forty-eight hour sentence that would have erased at least a portion of the costs .35 In the wake of Ms . DiNino’s death, the Reading Eagle reported that more than “1600 people have been jailed in Berks County alone—two-thirds of them women—over truancy fines since 2000 .”36 No charges were filed in Ms . DiNino’s death .
During the fall of 2013, the ACLU of Pennsylvania represented a twenty-one-year-old man who we believe was incarcerated for failure to pay parking fines without regard for his ability to pay
29 Williams v. Illinois, 399 U.S. 235, 241, 244 (1970).
30 Bearden, 461 U.S. at 672.
31 234 Pa. code § 7.706 (2015).
32 234 Pa. code § 4.456 (2015).
33 Id.
34 See, e.g., Commonwealth ex rel. Parrish v. Cliff, 304 A.2d 158, 161 (Pa. 1973) (“[A] state is prohibited from committing its citizens for fines without a reasonable opportunity being afforded to allow them to meet the court’s directive consistent with their respective financial situation.”); Commonwealth v. Farmer, 466 A.2d 677, 677-78 (Pa. Super. Ct. 1983) (district justice who imprisoned woman for failure to pay parking tickets despite her claim that she was indigent and without assigning counsel violated Pennsylvania Rules of Criminal Procedure).
35 Crimesider Staff, Woman Jailed Over Truancy Fines Found Dead in Cell, cBs news (June 13, 2014), http://www. cbsnews.com/news/woman-jailed-over-truancy-fines-found-dead-in-cell/.
36 Id.
Criminal Justice Reform
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