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and without appointment of counsel or the obligatory stay of sentence to allow an appeal . Our client was arrested on a bench warrant for failure to pay $1,613 in parking fines and costs . He was sentenced to fifteen days in jail, despite having told the constable who arrested him that he was unable to pay the full amount . On November 5, 2013, we sent a letter to the judge who sentenced him, reminding her of his constitutional and statutory rights .37 Although the judge, through counsel, denied wrongdoing in our client’s case, the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts forwarded our correspondence to the Chair of the Criminal Procedural Rules Committee “for further consideration and discussion .”38 Moreover, on November 26, the Court Administrator of Pennsylvania sent a memorandum to “All Magisterial District Judges” informing them of our concerns “regarding the incarceration of defendants in summary cases” without: conducting payment determination hearings on the ability to pay; notice to defendants of their right to counsel if there is a reasonable likelihood of incarceration; providing information about the right to appeal and stay of sentence to allow the appeal; and sending default notices .39
During a panel presentation on debtors’ prisons at the Pennsylvania Bar Association’s Twenty- seventh Annual Minority Attorney Conference on April 10, 2015, a judge from Lancaster County lamented that he felt like a collection agency . He noted that the court issued 10,000 warrants last year for failure to pay and recognized that serving these warrants cost money . He said, “You have to pay money to get money .” He further lamented the lack of guidance in determining who cannot pay costs versus who refuses to pay . The judge conceded that not all judges are suited to make these assessments . While judges have discretion over whether to incarcerate someone and can barter with defendants, they have no authority over arrest warrants that are automatically generated when someone does not pay or makes a late payment . A very real problem, according to the judge, is that missed payments mean the city has less revenue, bills do not get paid, and the county is stuck with debt . A fellow panelist and legal practitioner recalled a recent study, which concluded that for every $4,000 collected, it cost $7,000 to collect .40
Recommendations
If a silver lining can be found at all in Michael Brown’s tragic death, it might be the revelation of some unsavory and racist practices in Ferguson . With respect to the “orchestrated racket” of shaking down poor, mostly Black, residents to finance the city’s municipal operations, the news is not all bad . There are a few ready fixes to stem the tide of jailing poor people based upon their inability to pay fines and fees, in Ferguson and beyond . Below are a few modest recommendations:
37 Letter from Sara J. Rose, Staff Attorney, & Witold J. Walczak, Legal Director, ACLU of Pennsylvania, to The Honorable Mary P. Murray, Magisterial District Judge (November 5, 2013) (on file with the author).
38 Letter from A. Taylor Williams, Legal Counsel to the Court Administrator of Pennsylvania, to Sara J. Rose, Esquire, ACLU of Pennsylvania (November 26, 2013) (on file with author).
39 Memorandum from Zygmont A. Pines, Esq., Court Administrator of Pennsylvania, to All Magisterial District Judges (on file with author).
40 Pennsylvania Bar Association’s Twenty-seventh Annual Minority Attorney Conference in Pittsburgh, PA (April 10, 2015), agenda available at http://www.pabar.org/public/committees/MIN01/meetings/Minority%20Attorney%20 LettterAgenda.pdf.
Impact: Collected Essays on the Threat of Economic Inequality