Page 65 - Impact: Collected Essays on the Threat of Economic Inequality

n Support legislation to codify the requirement of Bearden v. Georgia that judges should conduct meaningful indigency hearings and consider alternatives to incarceration prior to jailing people for failure to pay fines;
n Adopt a “bench card” that provides judges with instructions on affording counsel to defendants charged with failure to pay, provides meaningful indigency assessment hearings that comport with the law, includes directions on how to inform people of their rights, and instructs on how to conduct assessment or ability-to-pay hearings;
n Provide legal representation for appeal of indigency assessment;
n Increase alternatives to incarceration, including community service;
n Provide indigence exceptions to qualify for diversionary programs;
n Inform indigent defendants of alternatives to incarceration;
n Train court personnel on a probationer’s right to counsel in revocation proceedings and right to an indigency hearing;
n Revise probation revocation forms to inform people of their right to court-appointed counsel in probation revocation proceedings, and right to request a waiver of any public defender fees they cannot afford;
n Ensure notice to appear forms inform indigent defendants that they will not be sent to jail if they do not have money but they still need to appear;
n Limit the use and better oversight of private, for-profit probation companies;
n Change parole rules so that anyone who is incarcerated is not kept in jail for unpaid fines;
n Provide legal representation at bail hearings;
n Base child support orders on actual rather than imputed (what someone would be expected to earn with a full-time, minimum-wage or median-wage job) income;
n Provide legal representation for appeal of child support orders;
n Cap court costs and fines;
n Waive additional costs and fines for indigent defendants;
n Cease suspension of driver’s licenses for failure to pay court costs and fees;
n Provide adequate state funding for courts, eliminating the need for revenue generation; n Exempt indigent defendants from user and public defender fees;
n Eliminate “poverty penalties,” such as payment plan fees, late fees, collection fees, and interest;41 n Tailor debt collection efforts to an individual’s ability to pay;
n Provide adequate state funding for indigent defense; and
n Highlight and bring awareness to how ineffective and costly it is to lock up indigent people .
41 See alicia Bannon eT al., Brennan cTr. for JusTice, The hidden cosTs of criminal JusTice deBT (2010).
Criminal Justice Reform
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