Ohio ACLU Report Exposes State's Unconstitutional Debtors' Prisons

An investigative report by Ohio's chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has revealed that a majority of the state's municipal courts are running modern-day debtors' prisons by jailing poor defendants who can't afford to pay fines and other court costs.

The April 2013 report, which documents several cases and personal stories, also said that defendants are often denied a hearing to determine their ability to pay what they owe, violating the U.S. Constitution, the Ohio Constitution and the Ohio Revised Code.

"The use of debtors' prison is an outdated and destructive practice that has wreaked havoc upon the lives of those profiled in this report and thousands of others throughout Ohio," said the ACLU report, titled The Outskirts of Hope.

Courts in Huron, Cuyahoga and Erie counties–including mayors' courts, which are unregulated and permitted in only two states–are among the worst jailers of poor defendants, Ohio's ACLU found.

In the second half of 2012, according to the report, more than 20% of all the bookings at the Huron County Jail–which originated at the Norwalk Municipal Court–were "related to failure to pay fines."

Sandusky Municipal Court jailed at least 75 defendants for failure to pay fines between July 15 and Aug. 31, 2012. During the same period, the Parma Municipal Court in suburban Cleveland jailed at least 45 people for similar charges, prompting an internal examination of each of those cases, according to Judge Deanna O'Donnell.

"If there's an issue here, a problem," O'Donnell said, "we're going to correct it."

Ohio's ACLU found similarly disturbing trends at Bryan, Richland County and Hamilton County municipal courts, as well as the Springboro Mayor's Court, all of which received letters from the ACLU requesting corrective action.

The Ohio Supreme Court and Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor promised to review the report's findings.

"You do cite a matter that can and must receive further attention," O'Connor wrote in a letter to the ACLU.

Criminal justice blogger Cory Doctorow wrote that, for Ohio's poor, "An unaffordable fine is just the beginning of a protracted process that may involve contempt charges, mounting fees, arrest warrants, and even jail time."

"Jailing a person who is unable to pay violates the law," Doctorow added, "and yet municipal courts and mayors' courts across the state continue this draconian practice."

Referencing the ACLU report, Doctorow wrote that debtors' prisons also waste taxpayer dollars "by arresting and incarcerating people who will simply never be able to pay their fines, which are in any event usually smaller than the amount it costs to arrest and jail them."

The Ohio ACLU also profiled in its report Samantha Reed and John Bundren, a couple with a newborn baby and ordered to pay fines they can't afford. Whatever seasonal or part-time wages Bundren earns, he uses to pay Reed's fines so she can stay out of jail and take care of the baby. He then goes to jail for 10-day stretches for failing to make payments on his own fines.

Though they are effectively indigent, Reed and Bundren are denied counsel when they appear in court over their debts.

The Outskirts of Hope report follows a national ACLU report in 2010 that concentrated its research on Georgia, Louisiana, Michigan, Washington State and Ohio. That report, titled In For a Penny: The Rise of America's New Debtors' Prisons, found that judges in many courts are violating a 1983 U.S. Supreme Court decision that grants all defendants a hearing to determine if and why they are unable to pay fines and costs before being sentenced to incarceration.

Another report in 2010 by New York University's Brennan Center for Justice studied ballooning court fees in Florida, finding that the state's "current fee system creates a self-perpetuating cycle of debt for persons re-entering society after incarceration."

The Brennan Center report made recommendations apparently still ignored, including recovering fines and court costs through civil lawsuits, rather than jail time.

Source: Associated Press

Subscribe today

Already a subscriber? Login