the united states abolished debtors' prisons in 1929

For both regulatory offenses and costs, a reviewing court must assess and characterize the debt as civil or quasi-civil for the purposes of coverage under the state ban. See Ill. Const. ^ Campbell Robertson, For Offenders Who Cant Pay, Its a Pint of Blood or Jail Time, N.Y. Times (Oct. 19, 2015), http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/20/us/for-offenders-who-cant-pay-its-a-pint-of-blood-or-jail-time.html. The question was, how? Despite that, state judges continued to send people to jail for failing to pay court debts. . ^ See id. at 256 (citing Barnes v. State, 19 Conn. 398 (1849)). Second, even in states that allow contempt proceedings, most courts require a sharply limited (and debtor-favorable) inquiry. ^ For example, one author, writing in 1889, pointed out a number of ways in which the state bans were limited. art. In the late 80s and early 90s, she says, there was a major uptick in the number of rules, at the state level but also in the counties, indicating jail time for failure to pay various fines and fees.. VI, 15; Tenn. Const. 958, 958 (Ga. 1904))); and Appleton, 71 Mass. ^ See William J. Brennan, Jr., State Constitutions and the Protection of Individual Rights, 90 Harv. . The new American debtors prisons seem problematic along multiple dimensions. 1679, 1679 n.1 (1971). Bd. art. Part III introduces the state bans and argues that they should be held to apply to some fines for regulatory offenses, costs, and definitionally civil debts both as a matter of sound interpretation of state law and as a matter of federal equal protection doctrine. This Part outlines those limits, which stem from two main lines of cases in the 1970s and early 1980s, and undergird almost all debt-imprisonment litigation today. Stat. at 135. amend. In 2014, the ACLU of Coloradosent lettersto three cities, demanding a stop to the issuance of "pay-or-serve" warrants. Dec. 23, 2014) (en banc), http://www.courts.mo.gov/sup/index.nsf/d45a7635d4bfdb8f8625662000632638/fe656f36d6b518a886257db80081d43c [http://perma.cc/BTX3-4ERC]. art. An Appendix to this Note, available on the Harvard Law Review Forum, provides the critical language of each of the forty-one state constitutional bans. ^ See Letter from Christine Link, Exec. 778, 787 n.79 (1969) (listing sources). A debtors prison is any prison, jail, or other detention facility in which people are incarcerated for their inability, refusal, or failure to pay debt. ^ See, e.g., Ala. Const. ^ See, e.g., City of Danville v. Hartshorn, 292 N.E.2d 382, 384 (Ill. 1973) (describing violations of municipal ordinances as quasi-criminal in character [but] civil in form (quoting City of Decatur v. Chasteen, 166 N.E.2d 29, 39 (Ill. 1960))). at 48 n.9 (majority opinion). Now, the imprisonment-for-debt claims wouldnt challenge the propriety of assessing such charges in the first place. ^ See Armstrong v. Ayres, 19 Conn. 540, 546 (1849); Johnson v. Temple, 4 Del. As she was booked and processed, she learned that she had been jailed because she owed debt $730 to be precise, related to an unpaid medical bill. Eventually, federal debtors' prisons were abolished in 1833, leaving the power to implement debtors' prisons in the hands of the states, many of which followed Washington's lead. Justice Douglas agreed the issue wasnt properly in front of the Court. Yet, recent years have witnessed the rise of modern-day debtors' prisonsthe arrest and jailing of poor people for failure to pay legal debts they can never hope to afford, through criminal justice procedures that violate their most basic rights. See Judicial Procedures of the Municipal Court of the City of Montgomery for Indigent Defendants and Nonpayment, Cleveland v. City of Montgomery, No. This section advances arguments from text, purpose, and original meaning, which in many cases converge on this result. ^ See Telephone Interview with Douglas K. Wilson, Colo. State Pub. ^ In some circumstances, courts can exercise their contempt power to imprison debtors for failure to pay civil debts. Purporting to save taxpayer dollars, these outfits force the offenders themselves to foot the bill for parole, reentry, drug rehab, electronic monitoring, and other services (some of which are not even assigned by a judge). The prevailing sentiment reflected a view that the inability . And other judges will consider all nonpayment to be willful, unless or until the debtor can prove that he or she has exhausted absolutely all other sources of income by quitting smoking, collecting and returning used soda cans and bottles, and asking family and friends for loans. Const. ^ While constitutional carve-outs for fraud will capture some debtors, it cant plausibly lower the protections of the ban to the level of Bearden: the failure to search for a job or to seek credit is hardly fraudulent. . Eventually, federal debtors' prisons were abolished in 1833, leaving the power to implement debtors' prisons in the hands of the states, many of which followed Washington's lead. . ^ E.g., In re Nichols, 749 So. 3:15-cv-732 (S.D. 14, 2015) (notes on file with Harvard Law School Library). Thats confusing for debtors, too. As of October 2015, the case had survived a contentious motion to dismiss the judge had initially dismissed, then reconsidered and reinstated, two allegations of unconstitutional imprisonment for debt and was moving toward trial. Given that we are looking at a substantial sales tax shortfall, its not an insignificant issue.44, In 2013, the municipal court issued over 9000 warrants for failure to pay fines and fees resulting in large part from minor violations such as parking infractions, traffic tickets, or housing code violations.45 The city also tacked on fines and fees for missed appearances and missed payments and used arrest warrants as a collection device.46, The problem has become especially severe or has at least drawn increased attention within the past several years.47 In 2015, nonprofits Equal Justice Under Law and ArchCity Defenders sued the cities of Ferguson48 and Jennings,49 Missouri, alleging that they were running the equivalents of modern debtors prisons.50 The Ferguson complaint described a Kafkaesque journey through the debtors prison network of Saint Louis County a lawless and labyrinthine scheme of dungeon-like municipal facilities and perpetual debt.51 Equal Justice Under Law and the Southern Poverty Law Center have also sued a handful of other municipalities,52 and the ACLU has pursued an awareness campaign in a number of states, sending letters to judges and mayors in Ohio53 and Colorado.54. at 138. art. The baseline principle, of course, is that a court may consider a defendants financial resources to inform its decision whether to impose jail time, fines, or other sanctions.161 Without this discretion, courts might impose prison terms unnecessarily, to avoid the risk of assessing a fine on a judgment-proof defendant. Const. 3, 2013), http://www.acluohio.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/2013_0404LetterToOhioSupremeCourtChiefJustice.pdf [http://perma.cc/R3T5-WPEL]. Read More. . I, 28; N.D. Const. In addition, the ACLU asks for a "bench card" to remind judges in all courts across the state that jail is not a punishment for poverty. I, 16; Vt. Const. . Const. In 1970, in Williams v. Illinois, the high court decided that a maximum prison term could not be extended because the defendant failed to pay court costs or fines. art. Const. ^ See, e.g., Shepard, supra note 6, at 153132. ^ See Bannon et al., supra note 34, at 6. Read More. . This concern is amplified by the growing trend toward outsourcing portions of the criminal justice system, such as collection, to private actors like Sentinel Offender Services, a probation company that wields the threat of imprisonment via contract with the state. As the Ohio Supreme Court put it: In todays society, no one, in good conscience, can contend that a nine-dollar fine for crashing a stop sign is deserving of three days in jail if one is unable to pay.140. at 5. Debt collection practices like these have had a devastating impact on people of color in the Atlanta metropolitan area. at 855. Comeback of debtors' prisons: U.S. courts revive Dickensian practice of jailing people for failing to pay legal fees United States abolished debtors' prisons in the 1830s, but more than a third of . at 4546. ^ See, e.g., Robertson, supra note 3 (describing how a debtors mother and sister scraped together what money they [could]). Indeed, federal constitutional law may compel an answer on this point. 277 (2014). The statute seems to have provided for a Bearden-like inquiry: [N]o convicted person may be held in contempt for failure to repay if he shows that his default was not attributable to an intentional refusal to obey the order of the court or to a failure on his part to make a good faith effort to make the payment. The ACLU Racial Justice Program and allies across the country are bringing lawsuits and advocacy to expose and challenge these practices. Ret. ^ See, e.g., Debt, Blacks Law Dictionary (10th ed. art. Const. (Oct. 21, 2014) (notes on file with Harvard Law School Library). Costs trigger the precedents, discussed above, of James and Fuller.147 Many state bans on imprisonment for debt provide equally (or more) unequivocal protections to the civil debtor than the exemption statutes in James did; a strong logic therefore suggests that the Court could more widely enforce Jamess prohibition on jailing defendants for failing to pay court costs. art. a failure to pay a debt, but . See U.S. Const. See, e.g., Derek A. Westen, Comment, Fines, Imprisonment, and the Poor: Thirty Dollars or Thirty Days, 57 Calif. L. Rev. Read more. . In the process, we were lowering our standards for what constituted an offense deserving of imprisonment, and, more broadly, we were losing our sense of how serious, how truly serious, it is to incarcerate. Until that time, failure to pay what you owed could and did land you in jail. State and local courts have increasingly attempted to supplement their funding by charging fees to people convicted of crimes, including fees for public defenders, prosecutors, court administration, jail operation, and probation supervision. ^ For a similar analysis, see State v. Anton, 463 A.2d 703, 70607 (Me. In these cases, the crime is not failure to pay, but rather failing to appear in court, disobeying a court order, or contempt of court.. Matthew 18:24-26 . At the same time, however, legal commentators have been concerned about imprisonment for criminal debt since at least the 1960s. art. The report documents local courts that have a pattern of criminalizing poverty and perpetuating racial injustice through the unconstitutional enforcement of low-level offenses. In the United States, debtors' prisons were banned under federal law in 1833. See sources cited supra note 95; see also, e.g., Mich. Const. I, 18; Tex. And finally (of course) some states havent taken much action, if any, to address the issue nor has it been raised in the federal courts within the last decade, apart from the litigation previously discussed. .). F. 153 (2015), https://harvardlawreview.org/2015/11/state-bans-on-debtors-prisons-and-criminal-justice-debt-appendix. at 58 (Douglas, J., concurring in the judgment); see also id. ^ See, e.g., United States v. Balint, 258 U.S. 250, 25152 (1922) ([T]he general rule at common law was that the scienter was a necessary element in the indictment and proof of every crime. Mo. Why have two tests? art. ^ Cf., e.g., Miss. The Court identified some of those limits in a pair of equal protection cases in the 1970s: James v. Strange75 and Fuller v. Oregon.76, The debtor in James v. Strange owed $500 to pay for a court-appointed attorney and challenged the Kansas recoupment statute under which the state had attempted to recover the money.77 The Court struck down the recoupment statute because it failed to provide any of the exemptions provided by [the Kansas Code of Civil Procedure]. In 2012 and 2013, the ACLU of Colorado sent letters to Chief Justice Bender of the Colorado Supreme Court and three Colorado municipalities. As noted above, the state bans on debtors prisons have been given short shrift in the legal literature and recent litigation.91 This Part begins by providing a brief historical overview of the state bans92 and then argues that ignoring them is a legal mistake: these imprisonment-for-debt provisions plausibly extend to some parts of contemporary debtors prisons. $250/year. . While the United States no longer has brick and mortar debtors' prisons, or "gaols for debtors" of private debts, the term "debtor's prison" in modern times sometimes refers to the practice of imprisoning indigent criminal defendants for matters related to either a fine or a fee imposed in criminal judgments. Yet, as noted, they may be jailed for failing to show up at a civil hearing or for not resolving civil debt. Unbeknownst to her, a collection agency had filed a lawsuit against her, and, having never received the notice instructing her to appear, she had missed her date in court.
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