Sunday, July 15, 2012

debt slavery 2012: judicially sanctioned extortion racket

NYTimes | Three years ago, Gina Ray, who is now 31 and unemployed, was fined $179 for speeding. She failed to show up at court (she says the ticket bore the wrong date), so her license was revoked.

When she was next pulled over, she was, of course, driving without a license. By then her fees added up to more than $1,500. Unable to pay, she was handed over to a private probation company and jailed — charged an additional fee for each day behind bars.

For that driving offense, Ms. Ray has been locked up three times for a total of 40 days and owes $3,170, much of it to the probation company. Her story, in hardscrabble, rural Alabama, where Krispy Kreme promises that “two can dine for $5.99,” is not about innocence.

It is, rather, about the mushrooming of fines and fees levied by money-starved towns across the country and the for-profit businesses that administer the system. The result is that growing numbers of poor people, like Ms. Ray, are ending up jailed and in debt for minor infractions.

“With so many towns economically strapped, there is growing pressure on the courts to bring in money rather than mete out justice,” said Lisa W. Borden, a partner in Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz, a large law firm in Birmingham, Ala., who has spent a great deal of time on the issue. “The companies they hire are aggressive. Those arrested are not told about the right to counsel or asked whether they are indigent or offered an alternative to fines and jail. There are real constitutional issues at stake.”

Half a century ago in a landmark case, the Supreme Court ruled that those accused of crimes had to be provided a lawyer if they could not afford one. But in misdemeanors, the right to counsel is rarely brought up, even though defendants can run the risk of jail. The probation companies promise revenue to the towns, while saying they also help offenders, and the defendants often end up lost in a legal Twilight Zone.

6 comments:

Biggg Donnn said...

OTOH, you could just obey the F'ng law and avoid all these problems. It's mostly the going-nowhere-anyway Low_IQ_LOOZerz who are getting nailed. How much brains does it take to not drive with a revoked license, and if you do, to avoid driving in a manner likely to get you pulled over...??

CNu said...

A county judge in Alabama has temporarily shut down a system in a town
near Birmingham where people fined for speeding and unable to afford the
ticket are handed over to a private probation company and sometimes
sent to jail, where additional fees are imposed.


Judge Hub Harrington of Shelby County issued the order this week, saying
that he was “appalled” by what he characterized as a “debtors’ prison.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/14/us/judge-in-alabama-halts-private-probation.html

Plane Ideas said...

Yawn...lol lol lol

Plane Ideas said...

CNu? Who Dat????

A nobody ...lol lol lol

A coward who hides behind an alias ... Lol lol lol

CNu? Who Dat???

Ed Dunn said...

http://www.startribune.com/investigators/95692619.html

Biggg Donnn said...

....Y'all think y'all po law-flaunting Dixie types have it rough, out here in the Seattle burbs, y'all can get fined for "...*inadvertently feeding the bears..."
http://www.komonews.com/news/local/Snoqualmie-residents-on-edge-over-problem-bears-162829936.html

Master Arbitrageur Nancy Pelosi Is At It Again....,

🇺🇸TUCKER: HOW DID NANCY PELOSI GET SO RICH? Tucker: "I have no clue at all how Nancy Pelosi is just so rich or how her stock picks ar...