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From: Andrea Ball <aball001@neo.rr.com>
Date: Thu, Oct 7, 2010 at 7:54 AM
Subject: [bangla-vision] Fw: Humane-Rights-Agenda Cash-Strapped States Resurrect "Debtors' Prisons"
To: /Billie Johnson <billiedemere@yahoo.com>
Palash BiswasFrom: Andrea Ball <aball001@neo.rr.com>
Date: Thu, Oct 7, 2010 at 7:54 AM
Subject: [bangla-vision] Fw: Humane-Rights-Agenda Cash-Strapped States Resurrect "Debtors' Prisons"
To: /Billie Johnson <billiedemere@yahoo.com>
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From: Cougar Den
To: 1cat3eye ; 1DemocratGroup ; 1Humane-Rights-Agenda ; 1pictures_cartoons ; 1pumaclaws ; 1rez_life ; 1talking-circle ; 1WendysWords
Sent: Wednesday, October 06, 2010 10:14 PM
Subject: Humane-Rights-Agenda Cash-Strapped States Resurrect "Debtors' Prisons"
This is one of the most outrageous things I have ever heard of!
http://www.truth-out.org/punishing-poor-being-poor63949
Cash-Strapped States Resurrect "Debtors' Prisons"
Wednesday 06 October 2010
by: Nadia Prupis, t r u t h o u t | Report
Two reports published by NYU's Brennan Center for Justice and the
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) reveal a rising trend of patently
unconstitutional practices in cash-strapped states, where a growing
number of impoverished people are jailed for being unable to pay their
legal fees - including charges for use of public defenders, a guaranteed
right in the United States. The resurgence of these draconian "debtors'
prisons" has been documented in at least 13 of the 15 states with the
largest prison populations in the country, including California,
Arizona, Michigan and Alabama.
"Incarcerating people simply because they cannot afford to pay their
legal debts is not only unconstitutional but also has a devastating
impact upon men and women whose only crime is that they are poor," said
ACLU senior staff attorney Eric Balaban.
Many states view the fees as a method for helping to alleviate budget
deficits. In New Orleans, Louisiana, legal fines comprise almost
two-thirds of criminal courts' operating budgets. But the ACLU found in
its report, "In for a Penny: The Rise of America's New Debtors'
Prisons," that jailing individuals for failing to pay legal fees
actually places the financial burden on the state, wasting taxpayer
money and resources to keep those individuals in jail or on public
welfare as they struggle to pay their overwhelming debts.
Moreover, these and other penalties creates obstacles for those
re-entering society after completing their criminal sentence; the
Brennan Center report, "Criminal Justice Debt: A Barrier to Reentry,"
notes that eight of the 15 states studied suspend driving privileges of
individuals who miss debt payments, while seven states require them to
complete their full payments before regaining eligibility to vote. Such
unnecessary setbacks often pave the way for those on probation to return
to jail through no fault of their own.
"We are undermining the integrity of our criminal justice system and
creating a two-tiered system of justice in which the poorest among us
are punished more harshly than those with means, at a great cost to
taxpayers," said ACLU deputy legal director Vanita Gupta.
Imprisoning probationers for failing to pay court debts was found
unconstitutional in 1980, when Georgia resident Danny Bearden was sent
to prison for two years when he could not pay $550 in legal fees,
despite his efforts. In Bearden v. Georgia, the Supreme Court ruled that
such practices violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th
Amendment - but states throughout the country have begun openly
disregarding these principles in their efforts to balance their budgets.
The ACLU report highlights a few exemplary cases. Gregory White, a
homeless man in Louisiana, was arrested for stealing $39 worth of food
from a grocery store and assigned $339 in legal fees; when he was jailed
for being unable to pay, White spent 198 days in jail at a cost of
$3,5000 to the city.
Georgia resident Ora Lee Hurley owed $705 in fines from a 1990 drug
possession conviction and remained in jail for eight months for failing
to pay.
Kawana Young, a 25-year-old single mother in Michigan, was told after
the fact that her community service hours would not satisfy her debts
because she had volunteered with a nonprofit organization. Young has
since been jailed five times for being unable to pay her fees.
And Percy Dear, a New Orleans resident who suffers from epilepsy,
schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, was arrested for begging in 2007.
After pleading guilty, Dear was sentenced with either paying an
immediate fine of $200 or spending 20 days in jail. Dear was unable to
pay his fine at once and was incarcerated. These particular "fine or
time" sentences are a glaring example of methods that plainly punish
indigent cases while allowing wealthy individuals to go free on the same
charges.
Judge Calvin Johnson, who served for 17 years in the Criminal District
Court or Orleans Parish, said that regularly sentencing defendants in a
"fine or time" method could have cost the city more than it collected.
"30 days or $100 - that was something I heard every day," said Johnson
in the ACLU report. "Now, how can you describe a system where the city
pays $23 a day to the Sheriff to house someone in jail for 30 days to
collect $100 as anything other than crazy?"
"People are emerging from the criminal justice process with significant
debts that they cannot hope to repay," said Brennan Center Deputy
Director Rebekah Diller. "As a result, these fees are creating new paths
back to prison for those unable to pay."
Former Montgomery County, Ohio, public defender Glen H. Dewar is
profiled in the ACLU report for his efforts in eliminating the state's
debtors' prisons. Dewar stated in the report, "My estimate is that 20 to
25 percent of all local incarcerations statewide are for fines and
costs, while about 50 percent of arrests are for fines and costs ...
[until 2000], none of the persons arrested for nonpayment of fines and
costs appeared on any court docket. Nor were they ever scheduled to
appear at any particular time before any particular judge or
magistrate." Before county jail records were computerized, Dewar said,
"the scope of the problem, in terms of both numbers of arrests and days
in jail, remained hidden ... the county also expanded jail space at a
cost of millions, unaware of the fact that it was not for criminals but
debtors."
As noted in the Brennan Center report, several states have also started
to utilize practices that violate the Sixth Amendment, which guarantees
defendants a right to counsel. Florida, North Carolina and Virginia have
all implemented mandatory defender fees and provide no opportunity to
waive them for indigent cases.
According to the report, "defender fees often discourage individuals
from exercising their constitutional right to an attorney - leading to
wrongful convictions, over-incarceration and significant burdens on the
operation of courts. In Michigan, for example, the National Legal Aid
and Defender Association found that the threat of paying the full cost
of assigned counsel resulted in misdemeanor defendants systematically
waiving their right to counsel - at a rate of 95 percent in one county."
In Virginia, defendants often face up to $1,235 per count for some felonies.
The Brennan Center recommends that states eliminate public defender fees
and offer community service programs that build job skills, among other
state and local policy reforms; the ACLU similarly recommends that a
judicial assessment of a convicted defendant's ability to pay fines must
be comprehensive.
Cash-Strapped States Resurrect "Debtors' Prisons"
Wednesday 06 October 2010
by: Nadia Prupis, t r u t h o u t | Report
Two reports published by NYU's Brennan Center for Justice and the
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) reveal a rising trend of patently
unconstitutional practices in cash-strapped states, where a growing
number of impoverished people are jailed for being unable to pay their
legal fees - including charges for use of public defenders, a guaranteed
right in the United States. The resurgence of these draconian "debtors'
prisons" has been documented in at least 13 of the 15 states with the
largest prison populations in the country, including California,
Arizona, Michigan and Alabama.
"Incarcerating people simply because they cannot afford to pay their
legal debts is not only unconstitutional but also has a devastating
impact upon men and women whose only crime is that they are poor," said
ACLU senior staff attorney Eric Balaban.
Many states view the fees as a method for helping to alleviate budget
deficits. In New Orleans, Louisiana, legal fines comprise almost
two-thirds of criminal courts' operating budgets. But the ACLU found in
its report, "In for a Penny: The Rise of America's New Debtors'
Prisons," that jailing individuals for failing to pay legal fees
actually places the financial burden on the state, wasting taxpayer
money and resources to keep those individuals in jail or on public
welfare as they struggle to pay their overwhelming debts.
Moreover, these and other penalties creates obstacles for those
re-entering society after completing their criminal sentence; the
Brennan Center report, "Criminal Justice Debt: A Barrier to Reentry,"
notes that eight of the 15 states studied suspend driving privileges of
individuals who miss debt payments, while seven states require them to
complete their full payments before regaining eligibility to vote. Such
unnecessary setbacks often pave the way for those on probation to return
to jail through no fault of their own.
"We are undermining the integrity of our criminal justice system and
creating a two-tiered system of justice in which the poorest among us
are punished more harshly than those with means, at a great cost to
taxpayers," said ACLU deputy legal director Vanita Gupta.
Imprisoning probationers for failing to pay court debts was found
unconstitutional in 1980, when Georgia resident Danny Bearden was sent
to prison for two years when he could not pay $550 in legal fees,
despite his efforts. In Bearden v. Georgia, the Supreme Court ruled that
such practices violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th
Amendment - but states throughout the country have begun openly
disregarding these principles in their efforts to balance their budgets.
The ACLU report highlights a few exemplary cases. Gregory White, a
homeless man in Louisiana, was arrested for stealing $39 worth of food
from a grocery store and assigned $339 in legal fees; when he was jailed
for being unable to pay, White spent 198 days in jail at a cost of
$3,5000 to the city.
Georgia resident Ora Lee Hurley owed $705 in fines from a 1990 drug
possession conviction and remained in jail for eight months for failing
to pay.
Kawana Young, a 25-year-old single mother in Michigan, was told after
the fact that her community service hours would not satisfy her debts
because she had volunteered with a nonprofit organization. Young has
since been jailed five times for being unable to pay her fees.
And Percy Dear, a New Orleans resident who suffers from epilepsy,
schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, was arrested for begging in 2007.
After pleading guilty, Dear was sentenced with either paying an
immediate fine of $200 or spending 20 days in jail. Dear was unable to
pay his fine at once and was incarcerated. These particular "fine or
time" sentences are a glaring example of methods that plainly punish
indigent cases while allowing wealthy individuals to go free on the same
charges.
Judge Calvin Johnson, who served for 17 years in the Criminal District
Court or Orleans Parish, said that regularly sentencing defendants in a
"fine or time" method could have cost the city more than it collected.
"30 days or $100 - that was something I heard every day," said Johnson
in the ACLU report. "Now, how can you describe a system where the city
pays $23 a day to the Sheriff to house someone in jail for 30 days to
collect $100 as anything other than crazy?"
"People are emerging from the criminal justice process with significant
debts that they cannot hope to repay," said Brennan Center Deputy
Director Rebekah Diller. "As a result, these fees are creating new paths
back to prison for those unable to pay."
Former Montgomery County, Ohio, public defender Glen H. Dewar is
profiled in the ACLU report for his efforts in eliminating the state's
debtors' prisons. Dewar stated in the report, "My estimate is that 20 to
25 percent of all local incarcerations statewide are for fines and
costs, while about 50 percent of arrests are for fines and costs ...
[until 2000], none of the persons arrested for nonpayment of fines and
costs appeared on any court docket. Nor were they ever scheduled to
appear at any particular time before any particular judge or
magistrate." Before county jail records were computerized, Dewar said,
"the scope of the problem, in terms of both numbers of arrests and days
in jail, remained hidden ... the county also expanded jail space at a
cost of millions, unaware of the fact that it was not for criminals but
debtors."
As noted in the Brennan Center report, several states have also started
to utilize practices that violate the Sixth Amendment, which guarantees
defendants a right to counsel. Florida, North Carolina and Virginia have
all implemented mandatory defender fees and provide no opportunity to
waive them for indigent cases.
According to the report, "defender fees often discourage individuals
from exercising their constitutional right to an attorney - leading to
wrongful convictions, over-incarceration and significant burdens on the
operation of courts. In Michigan, for example, the National Legal Aid
and Defender Association found that the threat of paying the full cost
of assigned counsel resulted in misdemeanor defendants systematically
waiving their right to counsel - at a rate of 95 percent in one county."
In Virginia, defendants often face up to $1,235 per count for some felonies.
The Brennan Center recommends that states eliminate public defender fees
and offer community service programs that build job skills, among other
state and local policy reforms; the ACLU similarly recommends that a
judicial assessment of a convicted defendant's ability to pay fines must
be comprehensive.
__._,_.___
Pl Read:
http://nandigramunited-banga.blogspot.com/
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